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Iamsemisweet -> RE: Atheists have a PR problem (12/6/2011 10:08:47 AM)
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I am reading a wonderful book right now, dealing with decision making and rational and irrational thinking. Here is a review:
Nov
22 Thinking Fast and Slow, Intuition Problems, Moneyball, and the Four Step Method [image]http://foresightimprovement.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/reggie-jackson.jpg[/image] In his fascinating new book Thinking, Fast and Slow, Nobel Prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman explores the various ways our judgment becomes distorted when confronted with questions and conditions of uncertainty. Based on thirty years of experiments conducted with his late collaborator, Amos Tversky, Kahneman sets out to teach us about how and why we think the way we do. He begins by telling a story of two systems. System 1 is Fast Thinking, our mode of thinking that is intuitive, that operates quickly with very little voluntary control. System 1 is at work when we drive a car on an empty road, detect hostility in a voice, and understand simple sentences. They are automatic processes, requiring little or no effort. System 2 is Slow Thinking, our mode of thinking that requires concentration and effort. It’s responsible for complex thinking and computation and is at work, for example, when we fill out a tax form, park in a narrow spot or focus our attention on details. It is no doubt at work while writing a blog. These two systems influence each other and have salient traits that shape the way we think: System 1 cannot be turned off and System 2 is lazy. Through these two systems Kahneman analyzes the errors in our thinking, and explores the cognitive biases that limit and mar our judgments. His discussion is rich and insightful, and I cannot do it justice by simply summarizing his arguments here, but the gist of it is that our intuition (System1) is flawed even when assisted by System 2, and is influenced by three heuristic biases: - Representativeness – an example of this is when we are insensitive to probabilities of outcome because of stereotypes.
- Availability – when we determine probability based on the ease by which instances or occurrences are brought to mind. An example of this is when we assess the rate of middle-aged heart attacks by recalling the people we know who have experienced one.
- Adjustment and Anchoring – an example of this is when you determine how much you will pay for a house based on the listing price.
Kahneman’s goal for his work is to “enrich the vocabulary that people use” when thinking about the way the mind operates. He admits, however, that his decades of research have not improved his own performance. “My intuitive thinking is just as prone to overconfidence, extreme predictions and a tendency to underestimate how long to complete a task as it was before I made a study of these issues.” His book is exceedingly important for the manner in which it explains the difficulty of making good decisions for many types of problems. Michael Lewis, in his book and the movie, Moneyball, has used Kahneman’s work to help understand the success of Billy Beane in baseball. Those techniques, originally developed by Bill James, are now widely used throughout the sport. In the recent issue of Vanity Fair – in which he discusses Kahneman, James and Beane – he states, “Bill James was clearly troubled that the human mind settled so easily on false explanations when the truth was readily at hand.” It struck me that the “Four Step Method” can be applied as a simple template to help improve the decision making process, as described by Kahneman in his book. This improvement is achieved through the writing down of the problem and the result of the decision in those types of decisions which people frequently decide incorrectly. The Four Step process provides the practitioner with an overview of his or her biases, and the trends in his or her thinking. Writing down the key aspects of the process - Helps fix the ideas more firmly in our moind
- Eliminates errors due to faulty memory and biases
- Provides improved results with very little effort.
Happy Thanksgiving!
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