Comments and Discussion:
Risk Perception and Terrorism: Applying the Psychometric Paradigm

I noted how the article was discussing the difficulty of giving a quantative assessment of risk to the general public as regards terrorism. I am sure there is considerable fear of terrorism among the public, but isn't it important to find out who the public thinks is the terrorist? There is a large minority of the public who thinks that the 9-11 attack was an inside job. Supposing there were to be another terrorist attack, and FEMA had to assist the public. Wouldn't it be harder for FEMA to operate if some people actually feared FEMA as an extension of the terrrorist attack? Getting a good handle on the metrics is good, but if the event to be feared is falsely attributed to being wholely an "Al Qaeda" operation by the researcher, then he will have reached false conclusions.

   - David Hofer - 10-06-06