Risks that people can take steps to control are more acceptable than those they feel are beyond their means to control. Natural risks are less threatening than man-made ones. Risks that are associated with catastrophes are especially frightening. Risks from exotic technologies cause more dread than do those involving familiar ones. The article reports a spectrum of views about the best explanation of these results and the best policies to deal with them.
People are irrational, so forget 'em.
People are irrational, but we can persuade them. People are irrational, but hey, everyone has faults, so let's humor them a little. The common element, of course, is that is a view of ordinary people as irrational because their rankings of the risks from various technologies are considerably different from those of the experts. Probably that's too simple, but it explains the data much more straightforwardly than the known alternatives. Clearly, as articles on the science pages so often conclude, further research is needed.