Beware your shower! Why the risks that matter most can be those you notice least
Just how good are humans at assessing risk? If you take a close look at some of what most worries people in the developed world – terrorism, plane crashes, child kidnappings, animal attacks – the answer appears to be ‘not so good’. In this animation from The Royal Institution in London, the US scientist and author Jared Diamond recalls how time spent living with a Papua New Guinea tribe made him reassess how he viewed risk in his everyday life, and led him to scrutinise and re-evaluate his Western views of risk.
Video by the Royal Institution
videoHistory
In the face of denial, this film uncovers the hidden scars of Indonesia’s 1998 riots
21 minutes
videoArt
A young Rockefeller collects art on a fateful journey to New Guinea
7 minutes
videoAnthropology
Margaret Mead explains why the family was entering a brave new world in this 1959 film
29 minutes
videoArchaeology
At a prehistoric pigment mine, researchers glimpse our earliest moments in the Americas
25 minutes
videoSocial psychology
What happened when a crypto scam swept over a sleepy town in the Caucasus
18 minutes
videoCognition and intelligence
A father forgets his child’s name for the first time in this poetic reflection on memory
4 minutes
videoAnthropology
For an Amazonian female shaman, ayahuasca ceremonies are a rite and a business
30 minutes
videoVirtues and vices
Why Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith were divided on the virtues of vanity
5 minutes
videoChildhood and adolescence
The police camp where tween girls enter a sisterhood of law and order
28 minutes