Friedrich --

In ABCNews.com, here, John Allen Paulos looks at how and why people seem more responsive to stories than they do to rationality. His conclusion? Because it's natural. Not much a conclusion, but convincing nonetheless.

Sample passage:

Consider ... the media coverage of last year’s Institute of Medicine report on the inordinate number of deaths due to medical mismanagement. Much of it focused on doctors’ egregious mistakes — amputating the wrong leg, say — and not on the many small changes in the system that could save tens of thousands of lives annually. Again, misbehavior seems to attract more attention than inefficient routines even when the latter kill more people.

Best,

Michael