Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
The safer people feel the more risks they take; ditch the helmet?
Tell me about John Adams book, Risk
John Adams is actually a colleague of mine, and when I read his book it completely changed my image of risk. For example, Adams discusses at great length whether seat belts actually have reduced the number of accidents, and his point is that when you have a seatbelt on you might drive more dangerously, because you feel more secure. In other words he’s saying risk is not a simple, straightforward thing. He has this brilliant idea which I always quote. If you want to get people to drive more carefully, have a spike set in the steering wheel, pointing towards the driver’s heart. Isn’t that wonderful?
It's certainly a very vivid image
It’s about compensation. How you adjust for risk. I’m a cyclist. Adams thinks, how wise is it to wear a cycling helmet? Perhaps it makes you cycle more dangerously.
I’m a cyclist too, and on the road I divide the traffic into monkeys and rhinoceroses – those who avoid danger through agility and those who do it by putting on armour.
I do wear a helmet, I must admit.
Read full interview
Lewis Wolpert is Emeritus Professor of Biology as Applied to Medicine at University College, London. His research interests are in the mechanisms involved in the development of the embryo. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1980 and awarded the CBE in 1990. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1999. His books include “Malignant Sadness - The Anatomy of Depression”; “The Unnatural Nature of Science”; “Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast – The evolutionary origins of belief”; and most recently, “How We Live, and Why We Die - the secret life of cells”.
