The World's Best Book Summaries
What is an example of a weak inductive argument? Why are so many inductive arguments weak? We’ll cover some famously weak inductive arguments and explore two ways to be a better, more logical thinker.
What is the Rule of 150? What does it say about how we function and cooperate in large and small groups? The Rule of 150 is a concept in sociology that says that social structures function best at or under 150 people. Groups bigger than 150 people tend to break into smaller groups in order to function. We’ll look at an example of the Rule of 150 to see how it functions in business organizations.
What is the narrative fallacy? How does our natural tendency to tell stories get in our way? The narrative fallacy is the cognitive bias that puts us in danger of ascribing meaning or cause to random events. Humans are evolutionarily conditioned—by the development of the left hemisphere of our brains—to reduce the complexity of the world’s information; and the most efficient way of simplifying that complexity is through storytelling. We’ll cover the narrative fallacy, look at narrative fallacy examples, and suggest two ways to counter it.
What is the cosmological argument? Is it sound? What are the arguments against the cosmological argument? The anthropic cosmological argument is the statement that human existence cannot be a random occurrence because of the specificity and number of factors that provide for that existence. This argument is touted by not only religious scholars but also physicists and philosophers. We’ll cover the basics of the cosmological argument and explore the concept of “silent evidence,” the broader term for the lack of evidence in an argument.
What is the illusion of understanding? Why do we fall for it, and what can we do about it? The illusion of understanding is the cognitive bias of thinking we have a grasp of what’s going on in the world when, in fact, the world is far more complex than we know. The idea of the illusion of understanding was popularized by Daniel Kahneman and Nassim Nicholas Taleb. We’ll cover examples of the illusion of understanding and how it impacts our lives and how we make predictions.
What is the ludic fallacy? How does the tendency to “tunnel” into what we know lead us into making cognitive errors? The ludic fallacy is the tendency to treat uncertainty in real life like uncertainty in games of chance. The problem with this approach is that, unlike games of chance, real life has no rules. We’ll cover how the ludic fallacy shapes our predictions and why thinking of uncertainty like a game of blackjack is unproductive.
What is preferential attachment? Who benefits from preferential attachment? Who loses? Preferential attachment is the innate human tendency to flock to past successes, regardless of whether those successes are the product of merit or chance. Preferential attachment is a form of cumulative advantage. We’ll cover examples of preferential attachment, look at how it increases inequality in society, and discover when it’s wrong.
What is epistemic arrogance? Who’s guilty of epistemic arrogance, and how does thinking we know what we actually don’t get us into trouble? Epistemic arrogance is the tendency to overestimate our ability to predict when we’re overconfident in our knowledge. We’re all guilty of epistemic arrogance, but it hits “experts” the hardest. We’ll cover how epistemic arrogance leads to bad predictions and why more information isn’t always better.
What was Milgram’s “small-world experiment”? How did it research the way people are connected with one another? What does it say about our world? The small-world experiment was a study in the 1960s by psychologist Stanely Milgram. During the experiment, he sent chain letters and counted how many letters were sent before they reached their final destination. We’ll cover Milgram’s small-world experiment and look at how it spawned the six degrees of separation theory.
Accurate predictions are hard to make. The world is full of uncertainty. How do you make plans when you can’t know the future? How do you deal with uncertainty? We’ll cover the difficulties with making accurate predictions and how to deal with uncertainty in an unpredictable world.