GLOBAL WARNING

But Posner’s analysis is helpful when one considers several catastrophes in which the risk is more substantial.

For example, Posner argues quite sensibly for bolstering efforts to reduce global warming. And he calls on ordinary citizens to beef up their math skills so that they can make educated choices in the face of catastrophic risks.

Perhaps most importantly, Posner’s book sends a strong message to us humanities and social sciences concentrators. Our physicist friends seem to be not guilty of endangering the Earth with their expensive particle accelerators. But just as science concentrators don’t docilely demur on questions of politics and economics, we should keep an eye on the folks hunkered down in Harvard’s state-of-the-art labs.

Posner is one of two prominent economists to wander into the tricky realm of the natural sciences in recent months. (The other, our esteemed University president, is thanked for his advice in the preface of Catastrophe.) Just as Lawrence H. Summers’ sojourn into behavioral genetics elicited several less-than-rave reviews, Posner gets mixed marks from physicists for his musings on subatomic matter.

But as Posner writes, “social control of science cannot be left to the scientists.” In challenging his readers to wade into the arcane debate over strangelet disasters, Posner brings particle physics to the masses. By framing cost-benefit calculations in lucid prose, Posner helps the non-economists among us make decisions in the face of unlikely but potentially earth-shattering risks.

So run to The Coop and pick up a copy of Catastrophe. But on the way, follow Posner’s risk-reducing advice: strap on a bicycle helmet, buckle up your safety belt, look both ways before you cross the street…and watch out for particle physicists on the loose.