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Pain, yes. Fear, debatable. Fear plays a role in helping people to assess danger, and in making decisions related to your survival and well being. Neither of t

Pain, yes. Fear, debatable. Fear plays a role in helping people to assess danger, and in making decisions related to your survival and well being. Neither of these things require a fear response though. The article mentions that the woman might have found herself in dangerous situations more often due to her inability to fear, but at best this means that fear might be a useful addition to our ability to assess danger. It seems to me that the vast majority of situations that are dangerous are either a) obviously so, or b) the opposite. In obviously dangerous situations, you should be able to pick up on the danger by common sense and act accordingly (I don't feel fear every time I cross the street, but I also don't step out in front of cars). In situations where the danger element is very hidden away, it's unlikely you'd get a fear response anyway, since your intuition is only as good as its input. That leaves a third category, that for which the danger is non-obvious, but fear gives us an evolved intuitive-response to be wary. My argument would be that this is a small and constantly shrinking class of situations, because the environment most of us find ourselves in is so strikingly different than the one in which we evolved. You might have an evolved, intuitive fear response to the sound of a lion's roar, but this does no good whatsoever for most people in the world. So most of the dangerous situations we actually encounter, we deal with using reason and learned behavior rather than fear instinct. That's my stance anyway. The only area in which I can see a concrete use for fear is its ability to stimulate a very quick flight reaction in certain dangerous situations. That is, things that you need to react to before you have time to think them through. Again, less common in the modern western world, but it does put at least one point in the pro-fear column.

srean 16y ago
The adrenaline rush or the lack of could make a difference between life and death. I am thinking of heart attacks, modern western world notwithstanding. But I am not familiar the inner mechanics enough to claim that fear is a requisite for an adrenalin response. Some define fear as that hormonal response itself though. Even with regards to perception of danger, one's reaction, involvement and urgency can be quite different when it is accompanied by fear and when it is not. This of course does not always work in one's favor. So you have instances of "petrified with fear". But is it beneficial more often than not ? My gut feeling is yes. To add to you example of crossing a street: one can be rational about crossing streets. But when you suddenly realize you are about to be hit by a stray car, you do not have sufficient time to reason about relative velocities, trajectories and models of a driver's behavior. You just jump, hopefully out of the way, in fear/reflex. But I agree that our fear responses have lagged behind in relevance, with respect to our changing world. But that is true even with other biological preferences. Say with our preference for fatty food. Evolution is after all a high latency process. I believe personnel in hazardous situations are trained not to be insensitive to fear but to be choosy about what to fear and to react rationally to it....atleast in theory.
- blahblahblah 16y ago
  Fear isn't required for an adrenalin response. I accidentally shocked myself with household 120V AC once (the back of my hand brushed up against a live exposed wire). My hand jerked away by reflex before I was even aware anything had happened. I did not experience any fear because the danger was already past before I was even aware there was any danger. I did, however, experience a strong adrenaline response immediately afterward. Granted, this is only anecdotal evidence, but it does suggest that adrenaline response without fear is possible even though it is generally the case that they occur concurrently.
kenjackson 16y ago
I think you underestimate how often fear comes into play. I recently was at the park with some kids and I noticed a couple of dogs playing... I then realized they were pitbulls. Maybe perfectly nice dogs, but my fear factor jumped through the roof and I quickly, but quietly gathered up all the kids. Now fear isn't something that kicks in often, but when it does it usually means you're in pretty grave danger. Not properly reacting to potentially life threatening situations, just once a year, likely greatly shortens your expected lifespan.
- JanezStupar 16y ago
  Pitbulls are not vicious child eaters by their nature. They are called nanny dogs for a reason. May be just the people I am around - but I have yet to see a Pit that is anything beyond sweet, loving and awesome. Now puddles - those are a kind of beast I would never trust to act decently around my kids.
  - jules 16y ago
    So are you saying that the idea that pitbulls type dogs are the most dangerous kind of dog is bullshit? The statistics don't agree with your personal experience.
    - JanezStupar 16y ago
      Correlation now counts as causation on HNews? Pitbulls greatest asset and its ultimate downfall is its wonderful toned muscular body and its iron will. Thats why they get picked up by assholes who tend to abuse them and train them to attack humans. Its the owners that are problem not the dogs. These guys could make any kind of animal into a "vicious killer". The pit is anecdotally the worst breed for guard dog. They tend to be that friendly towards humans. You have to remember that these dogs were indeed bred for fighting. Dogs not humans. So they were heavily bred to be friendly towards humans - how else can one control a powerful beast if it won't obey you and let you tend its wounds? They are so protective of children that you can easily let one babysit your kid while you're away. Condemning the breed because of their retarded owners is like condemning whole minorities because of gang members.
jasonwocky 16y ago
I disagree with your "less common in the western world" assertion. There are still plenty of fast moving things that you might suddenly find it useful to be afraid of, from poisonous spiders to runaway vehicles. But aside from all that, fear reactions also serve as an early-warning system to other people in your proximity who have not yet detected impending danger. Given that people physically close to you are the most likely ones to help you in a catastrophe, there are evolutionary advantages to keeping them in the loop ;)
Daniel_Newby 16y ago
> Pain, yes. Fear, debatable. They are two sides of the same coin. Pain signals go to several places in the brain: the sensory centers ("my toe hurts right here") and the aversive conditioning center in the amygdala. The amygdala also receives signals from all over the brain, so when pain causes it to activate, it learns what was happening around the time of the pain. In the future, it will tend to produce an output signal that can activate protective programs elsewhere in the brain. In childhood, social activity wires it up to language and cognitive inputs too ("Did you get an ouchie?"), so that it can be used in all sorts of aversive behavior, not just avoiding physical injury. It's probably not a coincidence that social suffering is the language of pain: heartache, being stabbed in the back, etc. > So most of the dangerous situations we actually encounter, we deal with using reason and learned behavior rather than fear instinct. Most fear IS learned behavior; instinctive fears are quite simple. For example, The Gift of Fear [1] describes a man who walked into a convenience store, and for no reason he could explain turned right around and walked back out. Seconds later a cop walked in and was gunned down by robbers. Later the first guy replayed his memories and realized that the running car out front and the strange look the clerk gave him were probably the reason, but at the time logic and reason were nowhere to be seen. In fact the author of that book says that relying on logic is a good way to get yourself hurt. (Logical thinking has a very narrow range of focus in adults and easily misses hazards, but the amygdala constantly listens to the full range of senses and thoughts all at the same time.) [1] http://www.amazon.com/Other-Survival-Signals-Protect-Violence/dp/0440508835/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1292655850&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/Other-Survival-Signals-Protect-Violenc...

srean 16y ago

The adrenaline rush or the lack of could make a difference between life and death. I am thinking of heart attacks, modern western world notwithstanding. But I am not familiar the inner mechanics enough to claim that fear is a requisite for an adrenalin response. Some define fear as that hormonal response itself though. Even with regards to perception of danger, one's reaction, involvement and urgency can be quite different when it is accompanied by fear and when it is not. This of course does not always work in one's favor. So you have instances of "petrified with fear". But is it beneficial more often than not ? My gut feeling is yes. To add to you example of crossing a street: one can be rational about crossing streets. But when you suddenly realize you are about to be hit by a stray car, you do not have sufficient time to reason about relative velocities, trajectories and models of a driver's behavior. You just jump, hopefully out of the way, in fear/reflex. But I agree that our fear responses have lagged behind in relevance, with respect to our changing world. But that is true even with other biological preferences. Say with our preference for fatty food. Evolution is after all a high latency process. I believe personnel in hazardous situations are trained not to be insensitive to fear but to be choosy about what to fear and to react rationally to it....atleast in theory.

blahblahblah 16y ago
Fear isn't required for an adrenalin response. I accidentally shocked myself with household 120V AC once (the back of my hand brushed up against a live exposed wire). My hand jerked away by reflex before I was even aware anything had happened. I did not experience any fear because the danger was already past before I was even aware there was any danger. I did, however, experience a strong adrenaline response immediately afterward. Granted, this is only anecdotal evidence, but it does suggest that adrenaline response without fear is possible even though it is generally the case that they occur concurrently.

kenjackson 16y ago

I think you underestimate how often fear comes into play. I recently was at the park with some kids and I noticed a couple of dogs playing... I then realized they were pitbulls. Maybe perfectly nice dogs, but my fear factor jumped through the roof and I quickly, but quietly gathered up all the kids. Now fear isn't something that kicks in often, but when it does it usually means you're in pretty grave danger. Not properly reacting to potentially life threatening situations, just once a year, likely greatly shortens your expected lifespan.

JanezStupar 16y ago
Pitbulls are not vicious child eaters by their nature. They are called nanny dogs for a reason. May be just the people I am around - but I have yet to see a Pit that is anything beyond sweet, loving and awesome. Now puddles - those are a kind of beast I would never trust to act decently around my kids.
- jules 16y ago
  So are you saying that the idea that pitbulls type dogs are the most dangerous kind of dog is bullshit? The statistics don't agree with your personal experience.
  - JanezStupar 16y ago
    Correlation now counts as causation on HNews? Pitbulls greatest asset and its ultimate downfall is its wonderful toned muscular body and its iron will. Thats why they get picked up by assholes who tend to abuse them and train them to attack humans. Its the owners that are problem not the dogs. These guys could make any kind of animal into a "vicious killer". The pit is anecdotally the worst breed for guard dog. They tend to be that friendly towards humans. You have to remember that these dogs were indeed bred for fighting. Dogs not humans. So they were heavily bred to be friendly towards humans - how else can one control a powerful beast if it won't obey you and let you tend its wounds? They are so protective of children that you can easily let one babysit your kid while you're away. Condemning the breed because of their retarded owners is like condemning whole minorities because of gang members.

jasonwocky 16y ago

I disagree with your "less common in the western world" assertion. There are still plenty of fast moving things that you might suddenly find it useful to be afraid of, from poisonous spiders to runaway vehicles. But aside from all that, fear reactions also serve as an early-warning system to other people in your proximity who have not yet detected impending danger. Given that people physically close to you are the most likely ones to help you in a catastrophe, there are evolutionary advantages to keeping them in the loop ;)

Daniel_Newby 16y ago

> Pain, yes. Fear, debatable. They are two sides of the same coin. Pain signals go to several places in the brain: the sensory centers ("my toe hurts right here") and the aversive conditioning center in the amygdala. The amygdala also receives signals from all over the brain, so when pain causes it to activate, it learns what was happening around the time of the pain. In the future, it will tend to produce an output signal that can activate protective programs elsewhere in the brain. In childhood, social activity wires it up to language and cognitive inputs too ("Did you get an ouchie?"), so that it can be used in all sorts of aversive behavior, not just avoiding physical injury. It's probably not a coincidence that social suffering is the language of pain: heartache, being stabbed in the back, etc. > So most of the dangerous situations we actually encounter, we deal with using reason and learned behavior rather than fear instinct. Most fear IS learned behavior; instinctive fears are quite simple. For example, The Gift of Fear [1] describes a man who walked into a convenience store, and for no reason he could explain turned right around and walked back out. Seconds later a cop walked in and was gunned down by robbers. Later the first guy replayed his memories and realized that the running car out front and the strange look the clerk gave him were probably the reason, but at the time logic and reason were nowhere to be seen. In fact the author of that book says that relying on logic is a good way to get yourself hurt. (Logical thinking has a very narrow range of focus in adults and easily misses hazards, but the amygdala constantly listens to the full range of senses and thoughts all at the same time.) [1] http://www.amazon.com/Other-Survival-Signals-Protect-Violence/dp/0440508835/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1292655850&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/Other-Survival-Signals-Protect-Violenc...