I had a similar experience after getting hit by a car while crossing the street. A friend who saw me and came running over actually thought I was in shock or something, because he couldn’t believe that I was taking it so calmly. The adrenalin also helped, of course—I didn’t feel any pain at all until nearly half an hour later. The only emotional reaction I can remember was extreme annoyance at the breaking of my glasses.
Oddly enough, I fall into the same category as the post author. I don’t think I’m very good at reacting swiftly, and I absorb information and handle that sort of testing very well. But I do generally manage to keep my head. I suspect this is a pretty recent development, which may affect my perception of the matter.
I’ve found one useful heuristic. If I periodically remind myself to keep cool and reevaluate the current situation, I generally get good results. Slow-reaction types tend to quickly make a bunch of assumptions when thrust into a situation calling for swift action, and weeding out the erroneous ones is very helpful.
I’m familiar with the source he’s quoting,
Harun Yahya has written a ton of books and has a massive following in the Islamic world. As someone raised in a liberal Muslim family, I’ve suffered through a few of them. They’re mostly bald assertions meant to reinforce belief in those who already have it. Persuasive content is practically nonexistent, and the science is usually so terrible as to leave one wondering whether he isn’t trolling his entire readership. His Atlas of Creation was famously taken apart by Richard Dawkins in a talk somewhere (quite humorously, I might add).
You don’t need any of the techniques developed at LessWrong to dismiss it as nonsense—Traditional Rationality will do the job just fine.