Unforeseen disasters: salience and availability heuristic

Sonja from Narrative Lab blogged on a disaster that hasn't happened yet and Jonah Lehrer from Frontal Cortex on one that has happened. In both cases salience played a role in lack of action and poorly planned action respectively.

Sonja pointed out the role of salience in:

"A community living next the the "dirtiest dam in the world" seem to care less about getting involved in finding solutions for this issue, but that same community has one of the largest and most active neighbourhood crime watch volunteer groups I've come across."

To give a little perspective, this is what the particular dam's water looks like:


Lehrer pointed out the same process in the BP oil disaster:

"Because those rigs are so far offshore - outta sight outta mind - we haven't prepared for the possibility of this epic disaster. As a result, the unlikely event becomes inconceivable - this is the availability heuristic at work - and the inherent riskiness of a situation is underestimated."

Which brings to the fore the dilemma that the cognitive "blindness" brought about by our cognitive limitations (lack of salience and the availability heuristic) could leave us vulnerable to situations that science, engineering and technology can't solve. Said Adam Frank from NPR Blogs:

"In the old culture failure was impossible because, somehow, we could grab some duct tape and MacGyver our way back into business. The new culture must understand that limits and feedbacks express a kind of planetological wisdom that we are wise to work within rather than try and push aside.

As a technological society we have evolved to the point that we are, literally, playing in much deeper waters. At these scales we must understand that failure is very much an option."