People do not support statistically-insignificant things because they don't understand "statistically insignificant." They support statistically-insignificant things because any statistical analysis more in-depth than "most of the time" or "almost never" is unknowable. More than that, every example he lists is in the category of some large organization saying "we know the odds so you don't have to." From an intellectual/psychological/emotional standpoint, people are giving over their trust to the TSA because then they don't have to think about it. They worry about random pedophiles because non-random pedophiles they think they can handle. What do we know about terrorists? Nothing. So we trust someone who ostensibly does. This is not a "we don't understand statistics" problem this is a "we're interested in minimizing risks that we don't have a firm grasp of" problem. Plenty of people know that they're more likely to be hit by lightning twice than they are to die in a terrorist attack... but they also know that if they stay indoors when it rains they can minimize their likelihood of being struck by lightning. "Die in a terrorist attack?" That you have to leave up to the experts.