British attitudes to radiation - and the paradox of radon

People's perceptions of technological risk bear very little relation to the objective probabilistic assessments made by scientists. Radiation is the quintessential example: the gap between the lay and scientific communities is huge. This particular divergence has always perplexed scientists and engineers, but until the last decade or so they were inclined to think that the public were simply ignorant of the relevant facts or else irrational and could safely be disregarded. They are newly perplexed by attitudes to radon. (Author)