A well-written (by Michael Lewis) article that should invite people interested in economics and human or rational decision-making to get to know Kahneman's work, which won the Nobel prize, better.
Engineers try to make rational decisions but probably we don't realize the extent to which it's not really human nature to do so.
Teaser:
Amos [Tversky] and I once rigged a wheel of fortune. It was marked from 0 to 100, but we had it built so that it would stop only at 10 or 65 One of us would stand in front of a small group, spin the wheel, and ask them to write down the number on which the wheel stopped, which of course was either 10 or 65. We then asked them two questions:
Is the percentage of African nations among UN members larger or smaller than the number you just wrote?
What is your best guess of the percentage of African nations in the UN?
The spin of a wheel of fortune had nothing to do with the question and should have had no influence over the answer, but it did. “The average estimate of those who saw 10 and 65 were 25% and 45 respectively.”
That article, as written in Vanity Fair, is so poorly written. Paragraph one is evidence enough. More indefinite modifiers so that you don't know who is who.
Also I don't understand why answer 1 is the correct answer regarding Linda. There is simply not enough information given to determine which answer is true.
Engineers try to make rational decisions but probably we don't realize the extent to which it's not really human nature to do so.
Teaser:
Amos [Tversky] and I once rigged a wheel of fortune. It was marked from 0 to 100, but we had it built so that it would stop only at 10 or 65 One of us would stand in front of a small group, spin the wheel, and ask them to write down the number on which the wheel stopped, which of course was either 10 or 65. We then asked them two questions:
Is the percentage of African nations among UN members larger or smaller than the number you just wrote?
What is your best guess of the percentage of African nations in the UN?
The spin of a wheel of fortune had nothing to do with the question and should have had no influence over the answer, but it did. “The average estimate of those who saw 10 and 65 were 25% and 45 respectively.”