Concept · Cognitive Bias: Causal and statistical fallacies
Misleading vividness
Origin: Modern cognitive psychology
Biological Parallel
Shark attacks dominate beach safety discussions, though lightning strikes and riptides kill far more swimmers. The vivid—the dramatic predator—hijacks attention from statistical reality. Ecosystems face the same bias: charismatic megafauna (pandas, tigers) attract conservation funding while invertebrate pollinators, which provide vastly greater ecosystem services, are ignored. Evolution didn't design attention for accurate risk assessment; salience beats statistics.