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| Source: Piattelli-Palmarini, M. (1994). Inevitable
illusions. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. |
| From: Chapter 7 "The Seven Deadly Sins"
Pages 115-137 |
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| "Overconfidence" |
Many people show an unrealistic
overconfidence in their answers to questions, even factual questions. "...the
discrepancy between correctness of response and overconfidence increases
as the respondent is more knowledgeable." (p.119) The more you know
the more you need to guard against overconfidence. Be wary! |
| "Illusory Correlations (Magical thinking)" |
The person convinced of a "positive
correlation...will always find new confirmations and justify why it should
be so." (p122) "We are naturally... verifiers rather than
falsifiers..." (p123) Good case for considering Karl Popper's philosophy
of science--Conjecture and Refutation... |
| "Predictability in hindsight" |
"...we all honestly think we could have
predicted what happened, as long as we know, or think we know, that it
actually did happen." (p124) The "Historian's Fallacy" |
| "Anchoring" |
Our beliefs and opinions get arbitrarily
"anchored" to such things as "first impressions,"
first opinions, context, propaganda, news reports, authorities, emotions ...and they are quite resistant
to change. (Pride gets in the way) |
| "Ease of representation" |
Which is greater, death from suicide or
death from homicide? Homicide gets reported so people typically report a
greater death rate via homicide. "...the more the occurrence
impresses us emotionally, the more likely we are to think of it as also
objectively frequent." (p128) Be wary of your imagination! |
| "Probability blindness" |
"Any probabilistic intuition by anyone
not specifically tutored in probability calculus has a greater than 50
percent chance of being wrong." (p132) We are "blind not only to
extremes of probabilities, but also to intermediate probabilities..."
(p131) Is our reaction to genetic engineering, nuclear power,
pharmaceutical test demands rational? We have a non-rational
"...peremptory desire that there be no risk at all...."
(p131) |
| "Reconsideration under suitable scripts" |
"...our judgment of probability allows
itself to be influenced by fictions, including scenarios we know to be
pure inventions." (p134) He calls this the "Othello
Effect." |
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