Intelligence can make us biased - fear makes it worse

"Importantly, this tendency does not reflect intelligence; indeed, smarter people may be particularly susceptible to this kind of confirmation bias. “The smarter we are – as measured by how carefully we solve puzzles and how good we are at numbers – the better we are at twisting the facts around to make us feel the way we want to feel,” says Ropeik."

"At its worst, our chemonoia can encourage us to give up otherwise healthy, potentially life-saving behaviours. Consider the fear of ingesting mercury in seafood. At high levels, mercury is a neurotoxin that can damage the brain, but the small amounts found in most fish are not enough to cause concern. “But because of the excessive fear, many people have given up eating seafood altogether,” says Ropeik. In doing so, they are missing out on key nutrients that would be important for brain growth and repair, and heart function: they are actually hurting their bodies more than if they’d enjoyed a plate of salmon."

Cough cough cough NUCLEAR POWER cough cough cough...

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160225-chemonoia-the-fear-blinding-our-minds-to-real-dangers