= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
sark comments on Five-minute rationality techniques - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (231)
If I only have a few minutes, I tell people to study cognitive bias, in the hope that surely any intelligent person can see that understanding what science has to say about the systematic, predictable failings of our own brains can hardly fail to be useful. You need long enough to impart the caution that you have to apply these things to yourself, not just to other people...
Yes, but before people would go and study cognitive bias, they have to be convinced that it exists in the first place! Most people are not already familiar with the idea that our minds systematically fail us.
I think the best way to introduce the idea would to present a striking case of bias (pervasiveness+impact). Then letting them know that there are many many others.
I use the conjunction fallacy for my first illustration.
Seems to me that all that would do is reinforce someone's opinion that probability theory is irrelevant to the real world.
I personally would start with confirmation bias, partly because there are lots of clear examples in pop culture. Like: last night I was watching a rerun of "Glee." Will Schuester, a teacher and the glee-club advisor, is trying to quash a student's crush. He sings her (Rachel) a medley of songs in which the singer is trying to deflect a much younger woman's advances. (Actually, both songs -- "Don't Stand So Close to Me" and "Young Girl" -- are actually about the singer unsuccessfully trying to resist the temptation of the younger woman, but in the episode the lyrics are changed and edited so that they ostensibly work.) So he sings, and the whole time Rachel is clearly hearing the opposite of the intended message. After the song, Will asks Rachel what his message was, and she says, almost giddily, that his message was clear: "I'm very young and it's hard for you to stand close to me."