And if I continue to pummel you with statistics that say you're more likely to die from the natural carcinogens in peanut butter than from living next to a nuclear power plant, you'll eventually knock me down and stuff jelly up my nose.
When the captains of the nuclear industry originally offered the peanut butter equation, it didn't make them very popular with environmentalists and others who think we rely too heavily on half-tamed technologies and chemicals. The environmentalists, in fact, wanted to knock the captains of the nuclear industry down and stuff jelly up their noses.
But the peanut butter equation illustrates a point:
When scientists bang on their calculators, they come up with a list of things that kill lots of people, but don't scare us much.
.
Likewise they can produce a list of things that don't kill many people, but of which we live in dread. Consider these disparities, for instance:
Scientists rate nuclear power as fairly safe; lay people are horrified by it.
Scientists think X-rays are moderately dangerous; lay people aren't so worried.
Scientists rate swimming as rather hazardous; lay people consider it rather harmless.
