Why are the answers that flow from the scientific approach more reliable than those based on intuition and common sense?

Let’s leave politics out of this…

“I know there’s no evidence that shows the death penalty has a deterrent effect…but I just feel in my gut that it must be true. “—Texas Governor George W. Bush on the Death Penalty

“I’m a gut player. I rely on my instincts.”—President George W. Bush on launching the Iraq War

Intuition and Inner Wisdom

Myers asks:

“Are we smart to listen to our inner wisdom or should we simply trust the voice within?

Should we more often be subjecting our intuitive hunches to skeptical scrutiny?”

Intuition and Inner Wisdom

Myers goes on to say that …

Intuition is important but we often underestimate it’s perils.

Intuition and Inner Wisdom

Let’s discuss your geographical intuition…

Is Reno east of Los Angeles?Is Rome south of New York?Is Atlanta east of Detroit?

Intuition and Inner Wisdom

And the answer to those questions is…

NONONO

RESEARCH SHOWS THAT…

People greatly overestimate their lie detection accuracy, their eyewitness recollections, and their stock-picking talents.

True or False Test (Hint: this is not a False Test like the last

one)

1) If you want to teach a habit that persists, reward the desired behavior every time, not just intermittently.

2) Patients whose brains are surgically split down the middle survive and function much as they did before

the surgery.

3) Traumatic experiences such as sexual abuse or surviving the Holocaust are typically “repressed” from

memory.

4) Most abused children do not become abusive adults.

5) Most infants recognize their own reflection in the mirror by the end of their first year.

Test Continued

6) Adopted siblings usually do not develop similar personalities,

even though they are reared by the same parents.

7) Fears of harmless objects such as flowers are just as easy to

acquire as fears of potentially dangerous objects such as

snakes.

8) Lie detection tests often lie.

9) Most of us use only about 10 percent of our brains.

10) The brain remains active during sleep.

Answers:

1) False2) True3) False4) True5) False6) True7) False8) True9) False10)True

2 BIG DANGERS: Hindsight Bias and Overconfidence

Hindsight Bias: the tendency to believe, after learning an outcome that one would have foreseen it.

Think of it as the “I-knew-it-all-along phenomenon.”

According to Myers re:Hindsight Bias:

After 9/11 it seemed obvious that the US intelligence analysts should have taken advance warnings more seriously, that airport security should have anticipated box-cutter wielding terrorists, that occupants of the South Tower of the WTC should have known to play it safe and leave. With 20/20 hindsight, everything seems obvious. Thus we now spend billions to protect ourselves against what the terrorists did last time.

Overconfidence

The tendency to be more confident than correct—to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgements.

Fun Stuff re:Overconfidence

“We don’t like their sound. Groups of guitars are on their way out.”--Decca Records turning down a recording contract with the Beatles in 1962.

“Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.”--Popular Mechanics, 1949

More Fun Stuff…

“The telephone may be appropriate for our American cousins but not here, because we have an adequate supply of messenger boys.”

--British expert group evaluating the invention of the telephone.

And the greatest…

“they couldn’t kill an elephant at this distance.”

--General John Sedgwick just before being killed during a U.S. Civil War battle, 1864