Gut Feelings - Gerd Gigerenzer *****

Although this book dates back to 2007 (it was shortlisted for the Royal Society Science Book Prize in 2008), the information within doesn’t seem dated. Psychologist and behavioural expert Gerd Gigerenzer has written a number of books about risk and probability in recent years, and while this book has some of that, this book is focused on the secrets of fast and effective decision making. That is not to say that it is a self-help book, but rather a description, based on neurological and psychological research, of how the brain uses heuristics in order to make decisions with limited information, though readers will find much of the information useful when thinking about decisions.

Gigerenzer explains how intuition works in easy to understand terminology and also uses numerous examples throughout the book to illustrate how intuition is the basis for decision making, such as how we are able to catch a ball without conducting calculations of its speed or distance.

In short, Gigerenzer describes the processes of 'system 1' to use the terminology from Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow. Interestingly, Gigerenzer takes issue with the ‘Linda is a bank teller’ puzzle that Kahneman and Tversky used to illustrate the ‘conjunction fallacy’. Gigerenzer argues, very effectively and persuasively, that such logical puzzles are ‘content blind' as they ignore the content and goals of thinking, and that our intelligence has developed to operate in an uncertain world and not the artificial certainty of a logical system. In any event, it is the first persuasive and rigorous counter argument to many of the premises of Thinking Fast and Slow that I have come across.

In another chapter, Gigerenzer discusses the ‘string heuristic’ ideas as related to how people choose which party or politician to vote for. Basically, voters arrange the complexity of the political landscape to one dimension: left-Right. They then arrange the parties like pearls on a string and, by picking the up the string at one’s ideal point, the voters arrange their preferences for other parties. I found this idea quite fascinating and an excellent explanation of when polls show how voters move between parties that are not close to each other ideologically; the parties may be close on the given issue that the voter has based his decision on.

Gigerenzer has written an excellent book and has a real talent for using examples and terminology that make these interesting ideas accessible for the everyday reader. If you’re interested in risk, probability, logic and how our brains weigh such things, and how we are more astute than we think we are, then this is a top quality read.

Paperback:

Kindle:

Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you

Review by Ian Bald

Comments

The Language of Mathematics - Raúl Rojas ***

One of the biggest developments in the history of maths was moving from describing relationships and functions with words to using symbols. This interesting little book traces the origins of a whole range of symbols from those familiar to all, to the more obscure squiggles used in logic and elsewhere. On the whole Raúl Rojas does a good job of filling in some historical detail, if in what is generally a fairly dry fashion. We get to trace what was often a bumpy path as different symbols were employed (particularly, for example, for division and multiplication, where several still remain in use), but usually, gradually, standards were adopted. This feels better as a reference, to dip into if you want to find out about a specific symbol, rather than an interesting end to end read. Rojas tells us the sections are designed to be read in any order, which means that there is some overlap of text - it feels more like a collection of short essays or blog posts that he couldn't be bothered ...

Target Earth – Govert Schilling *****

I was biased in favour of this great little book even before I started to read it, simply because it’s so short. I’m sure that a lot of people who buy popular science books just want an overview and taster of a subject that’s brand new to them – and that’s likely to work best if the author keeps it short and to the point. Of course, you may want to dig deeper in areas that really interest you, but that’s what Google is for. That basic principle aside, I’m still in awe at how much substance Govert Schilling has managed to cram into this tiny book. It’s essentially about all the things (natural things, I mean, not UFOs or space junk) that can end up on Earth after coming down from outer space. That ranges from the microscopically small particles of cosmic dust that accumulate in our gutters, all the way up to the ten kilometre wide asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. Between these extremes are two topics that we’ve reviewed entire books about recently: meteorites ( The Meteorite Hunt...

The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire - Henry Gee ****

In his last book, Henry Gee impressed with his A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth - this time he zooms in on one very specific aspect of life on Earth - humans - and gives us not just a history, but a prediction of the future - our extinction. The book starts with an entertaining prologue, to an extent bemoaning our obsession with dinosaurs, a story that leads, inexorably towards extinction. This is a fate, Gee points out, that will occur for every species, including our own. We then cover three potential stages of the rise and fall of humanity (the book's title is purposely modelled on Gibbon) - Rise, Fall and Escape. Gee's speciality is palaeontology and in the first section he takes us back to explore as much as we can know from the extremely patchy fossil record of the origins of the human family, the genus Homo and the eventual dominance of Homo sapiens , pushing out any remaining members of other closely related species. As we move onto the Fall section, Gee gives ...

Search This Blog