-
Everything Is Obvious
- *Once You Know the Answer
- Narrated by: Duncan J. Watts
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Categories: Business & Careers, Management & Leadership
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Audible Premium Plus
$14.95 a month
Buy for $24.50
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
When to Rob a Bank
- ...And 131 More Warped Suggestions and Well-Intended Rants
- By: Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner
- Narrated by: Stephen J. Dubner, Steven D. Levitt, Erik Bergmann
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Freakonomics was initially published, the authors started a blog - and they've kept it up. The writing is more casual, more personal, even more outlandish than in their books.
-
-
this book is free on the blog and podcast.
- By Spencer on 05-12-15
By: Steven D. Levitt, and others
-
Think Like a Freak
- The Authors of Freakonomics Offer to Retrain Your Brain
- By: Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner
- Narrated by: Stephen J. Dubner
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The New York Times best-selling Freakonomics changed the way we see the world, exposing the hidden side of just about everything. Now, with Think Like a Freak, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner have written their most revolutionary book yet. With their trademark blend of captivating storytelling and unconventional analysis, they take us inside their thought process and offer a blueprint for an entirely new way to solve problems. The topics range from business to philanthropy to sports to politics, all with the goal of retraining your brain.
-
-
Not much new
- By Bobbie on 05-24-14
By: Steven D. Levitt, and others
-
SuperFreakonomics
- By: Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner
- Narrated by: Stephen J. Dubner
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
SuperFreakonomics challenges the way we think all over again, exploring the hidden side of everything with such questions as: How is a street prostitute like a department-store Santa? What do hurricanes, heart attacks, and highway deaths have in common? Can eating kangaroo save the planet? Levitt and Dubner mix smart thinking and great storytelling like no one else.
-
-
Worth Your Time
- By Rich on 01-04-10
By: Steven D. Levitt, and others
-
Buyology
- Truth and Lies About Why We Buy
- By: Martin Lindstrom
- Narrated by: Don Leslie
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Based on the single largest neuromarketing study ever conducted, Buyology reveals surprising truths about what attracts our attention and captures our dollars.
-
-
What we think we know versus how we act in buying.
- By Erik Cornelissen on 01-17-09
By: Martin Lindstrom
-
Change
- How to Make Big Things Happen
- By: Damon Centola
- Narrated by: James Fouhey
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Most of what we know about how ideas spread comes from best-selling authors who give us a compelling picture of a world, in which "influencers" are king, "sticky" ideas "go viral", and good behavior is "nudged" forward. The problem is that the world they describe is a world where information spreads, but beliefs and behaviors stay the same. When it comes to lasting change in what we think or the way we live, the dynamics are different: beliefs and behaviors are not transmitted from person to person in the simple way that a virus is.
-
-
Destined to be a classic
- By JWinther on 01-26-21
By: Damon Centola
-
Loonshots
- How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries
- By: Safi Bahcall
- Narrated by: William Dufris, Safi Bahcall - prologue and introduction
- Length: 10 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Physicist and entrepreneur Safi Bahcall reveals a surprising new way of thinking about the mysteries of group behavior that challenges everything we thought we knew about nurturing radical breakthroughs. Drawing on the science of phase transitions, Bahcall reveals why teams, companies, or any group with a mission will suddenly change from embracing wild new ideas to rigidly rejecting them.
-
-
The first practical innovation book
- By Andrew C on 04-18-19
By: Safi Bahcall
-
When to Rob a Bank
- ...And 131 More Warped Suggestions and Well-Intended Rants
- By: Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner
- Narrated by: Stephen J. Dubner, Steven D. Levitt, Erik Bergmann
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Freakonomics was initially published, the authors started a blog - and they've kept it up. The writing is more casual, more personal, even more outlandish than in their books.
-
-
this book is free on the blog and podcast.
- By Spencer on 05-12-15
By: Steven D. Levitt, and others
-
Think Like a Freak
- The Authors of Freakonomics Offer to Retrain Your Brain
- By: Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner
- Narrated by: Stephen J. Dubner
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The New York Times best-selling Freakonomics changed the way we see the world, exposing the hidden side of just about everything. Now, with Think Like a Freak, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner have written their most revolutionary book yet. With their trademark blend of captivating storytelling and unconventional analysis, they take us inside their thought process and offer a blueprint for an entirely new way to solve problems. The topics range from business to philanthropy to sports to politics, all with the goal of retraining your brain.
-
-
Not much new
- By Bobbie on 05-24-14
By: Steven D. Levitt, and others
-
SuperFreakonomics
- By: Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner
- Narrated by: Stephen J. Dubner
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
SuperFreakonomics challenges the way we think all over again, exploring the hidden side of everything with such questions as: How is a street prostitute like a department-store Santa? What do hurricanes, heart attacks, and highway deaths have in common? Can eating kangaroo save the planet? Levitt and Dubner mix smart thinking and great storytelling like no one else.
-
-
Worth Your Time
- By Rich on 01-04-10
By: Steven D. Levitt, and others
-
Buyology
- Truth and Lies About Why We Buy
- By: Martin Lindstrom
- Narrated by: Don Leslie
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Based on the single largest neuromarketing study ever conducted, Buyology reveals surprising truths about what attracts our attention and captures our dollars.
-
-
What we think we know versus how we act in buying.
- By Erik Cornelissen on 01-17-09
By: Martin Lindstrom
-
Change
- How to Make Big Things Happen
- By: Damon Centola
- Narrated by: James Fouhey
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Most of what we know about how ideas spread comes from best-selling authors who give us a compelling picture of a world, in which "influencers" are king, "sticky" ideas "go viral", and good behavior is "nudged" forward. The problem is that the world they describe is a world where information spreads, but beliefs and behaviors stay the same. When it comes to lasting change in what we think or the way we live, the dynamics are different: beliefs and behaviors are not transmitted from person to person in the simple way that a virus is.
-
-
Destined to be a classic
- By JWinther on 01-26-21
By: Damon Centola
-
Loonshots
- How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries
- By: Safi Bahcall
- Narrated by: William Dufris, Safi Bahcall - prologue and introduction
- Length: 10 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Physicist and entrepreneur Safi Bahcall reveals a surprising new way of thinking about the mysteries of group behavior that challenges everything we thought we knew about nurturing radical breakthroughs. Drawing on the science of phase transitions, Bahcall reveals why teams, companies, or any group with a mission will suddenly change from embracing wild new ideas to rigidly rejecting them.
-
-
The first practical innovation book
- By Andrew C on 04-18-19
By: Safi Bahcall
-
The Book of Why
- The New Science of Cause and Effect
- By: Judea Pearl, Dana Mackenzie
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 15 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"Correlation does not imply causation". This mantra has been invoked by scientists for decades and has led to a virtual prohibition on causal talk. But today, that taboo is dead. The causal revolution, sparked by Judea Pearl and his colleagues, has cut through a century of confusion and placed causality - the study of cause and effect - on a firm scientific basis.
-
-
Understand the data, understand the world
- By Gary on 01-13-19
By: Judea Pearl, and others
-
Invent and Wander
- The Collected Writings of Jeff Bezos, with an Introduction by Walter Isaacson
- By: Jeff Bezos, Walter Isaacson - introduction
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this collection of Jeff Bezos' writings - his unique and strikingly original annual shareholder letters, plus numerous speeches and interviews that provide insight into his background, his work, and the evolution of his ideas - you'll gain an insider's view of the why and how of his success. Spanning a range of topics across business and public policy, from innovation and customer obsession to climate change and outer space, this book provides a rare glimpse into how Bezos thinks about the world and where the future might take us.
-
-
Do the right thing.
- By FULL Creative on 12-06-20
By: Jeff Bezos, and others
-
The Signal and the Noise
- Why So Many Predictions Fail - but Some Don't
- By: Nate Silver
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 16 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nate Silver built an innovative system for predicting baseball performance, predicted the 2008 election within a hair’s breadth, and became a national sensation as a blogger - all by the time he was 30. He solidified his standing as the nation's foremost political forecaster with his near perfect prediction of the 2012 election. Silver is the founder and editor in chief of the website FiveThirtyEight. Drawing on his own groundbreaking work, Silver examines the world of prediction, investigating how we can distinguish a true signal from a universe of noisy data.
-
-
Learn About Statistics Without All The Math
- By Scott Fabel on 03-09-13
By: Nate Silver
-
Freakonomics
- Revised Edition
- By: Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner
- Narrated by: Stephen J. Dubner
- Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Levitt and co-author Stephen J. Dubner show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives: how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing. In Freakonomics, they explore the hidden side of...well, everything. The inner working of a crack gang...the truth about real-estate agents...the secrets of the Klu Klux Klan. What unites all these stories is a belief that the modern world is even more intriguing than we think. All it takes is a new way of looking, and Freakonomics will redefine the way we view the modern world.
-
-
Good, but be careful
- By Shackleton on 07-03-08
By: Steven D. Levitt, and others
-
Range
- Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World
- By: David Epstein
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
David Epstein examined the world’s most successful athletes, artists, musicians, inventors, forecasters, and scientists. He discovered that in most fields - especially those that are complex and unpredictable - generalists, not specialists, are primed to excel. Generalists often find their path late, and they juggle many interests rather than focusing on one. They’re also more creative, more agile, and able to make connections their more specialized peers can’t see.
-
-
If you're highly curious, read this
- By anon. on 06-07-19
By: David Epstein
-
How to Decide
- Simple Tools for Making Better Choices
- By: Annie Duke
- Narrated by: Annie Duke
- Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What do you do when you're faced with a big decision? If you're like most people, you probably make a pro and con list, spend a lot of time obsessing about decisions that didn't work out, get caught in analysis paralysis, endlessly seek other people's opinions to find just that little bit of extra information that might make you sure, and finally go with your gut.
-
-
An amazing book for making better decisions
- By chris boutte on 10-31-20
By: Annie Duke
-
Money
- The True Story of a Made-Up Thing
- By: Jacob Goldstein
- Narrated by: Jacob Goldstein
- Length: 5 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The cohost of the popular NPR podcast Planet Money provides a well-researched, entertaining, somewhat irreverent look at how money is a made-up thing that has evolved over time to suit humanity's changing needs.
-
-
Pretty good
- By C Makoski on 10-15-20
By: Jacob Goldstein
-
You Are Now Less Dumb
- How to Conquer Mob Mentality, How to Buy Happiness, and All the Other Ways to Outsmart Yourself
- By: David McRaney
- Narrated by: Don Hagen
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
You Are Now Less Dumb is grounded in the idea that we all believe ourselves to be objective observers of reality - except we’re not. But that's okay, because our delusions keep us sane. Expanding on this premise, McRaney provides eye-opening analyses of 15 more ways we fool ourselves every day. This smart and highly entertaining audiobook will be wowing listeners for years to come.
-
-
You really will be less dumb!
- By Kim Drnec on 08-01-14
By: David McRaney
-
The Psychology of Money
- Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness
- By: Morgan Housel
- Narrated by: Chris Hill
- Length: 5 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Money - investing, personal finance, and business decisions - is typically taught as a math-based field, where data and formulas tell us exactly what to do. But in the real world people don’t make financial decisions on a spreadsheet. They make them at the dinner table, or in a meeting room, where personal history, your own unique view of the world, ego, pride, marketing, and odd incentives are scrambled together. In The Psychology of Money, award-winning author Morgan Housel shares 19 short stories exploring the strange ways people think about money.
-
-
The philosophy of money
- By Dan on 10-05-20
By: Morgan Housel
-
Unknown Market Wizards
- The Best Traders You've Never Heard Of
- By: Jack D. Schwager
- Narrated by: DJ Holte
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Unknown Market Wizards continues in the three-decade tradition of the hugely popular Market Wizards series, interviewing exceptionally successful traders to learn how they achieved their extraordinary performance results. The twist in Unknown Market Wizards is that the featured traders are individuals trading their own accounts. They are unknown to the investment world. Despite their anonymity, these traders have achieved performance records that rival, if not surpass, the best professional managers.
-
-
Must Read | A New Twist on a Favorite Series
- By Tom R. on 11-30-20
By: Jack D. Schwager
-
The Secret Lives of Color
- By: Kassia St. Clair
- Narrated by: Kassia St. Clair
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Secret Lives of Color tells the unusual stories of 75 fascinating shades, dyes, and hues. From blonde to ginger, the brown that changed the way battles were fought to the white that protected against the plague, Picasso’s blue period to the charcoal on the cave walls at Lascaux, acid yellow to kelly green, and from scarlet women to imperial purple, these surprising stories run like a bright thread throughout history. In this book, Kassia St. Clair has turned her lifelong obsession with colors and where they come from into a unique study of human civilization.
-
-
So Interesting
- By Josh on 09-25-20
By: Kassia St. Clair
-
Fooled by Randomness
- The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets
- By: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This audiobook is about luck, or more precisely, how we perceive and deal with luck in life and business. It is already a landmark work, and its title has entered our vocabulary. In its second edition, Fooled by Randomness is now a cornerstone for anyone interested in random outcomes.
-
-
Pass on this one and read The Black Swan
- By Wade T. Brooks on 06-25-12
Publisher's Summary
Why is the Mona Lisa the most famous painting in the world? Why did Facebook succeed when other social-networking sites failed? Did the surge in Iraq really lead to less violence? How much can CEO’s impact the performance of their companies? And does higher pay incentivize people to work hard?
If you think the answers to these questions are a matter of common sense, think again. As sociologist and network science pioneer Duncan Watts explains in this provocative book, the explanations that we give for the outcomes that we observe in life - explanation that seem obvious once we know the answer - are less useful than they seem.
Drawing on the latest scientific research, along with a wealth of historical and contemporary examples, Watts shows how common sense reasoning and history conspire to mislead us into believing that we understand more about the world of human behavior than we do; and in turn, why attempts to predict, manage, or manipulate social and economic systems so often go awry.
It seems obvious, for example, that people respond to incentives; yet policy makers and managers alike frequently fail to anticipate how people will respond to the incentives they create. Social trends often seem to have been driven by certain influential people; yet marketers have been unable to identify these “influencers” in advance. And although successful products or companies always seem in retrospect to have succeeded because of their unique qualities, predicting the qualities of the next hit product or hot company is notoriously difficult, even for experienced professionals.
Only by understanding how and when common sense fails, Watts argues, can we improve how we plan for the future, as well as understand the present - an argument that has important implications in politics, business, and marketing, as well as in science and everyday life.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
Critic Reviews
"Every once in a while, a book comes along that forces us to re-examine what we know and how we know it. This is one of those books. And while it is not always pleasurable to realize the many ways in which we are wrong, it is useful to figure out the cases where our intuitions fail us." (Dan Ariely, James B. Duke Professor of Behavioral Economics at Duke University, and New York Times best-selling author of Predictably Irrational)
“A deep and insightful book that is a joy to read. There are new ideas on every page, and none of them is obvious!” (Daniel Gilbert, Professor of Psychology at Harvard University and author of Stumbling on Happiness)
"A brilliant account of why, for every hard question, there’s a common sense answer that’s simple, seductive, and spectacularly wrong. If you are suspicious of pop sociology, rogue economics, and didactic history - or, more importantly, if you aren’t! - Everything Is Obvious is necessary reading. It will literally change the way you think." (Eric Klinenberg, Professor of Sociology. New York University)
What listeners say about Everything Is Obvious
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anthony
- 04-20-11
The best book since Freakonomics
Few books have immediate impacts that change the way a student of the world looks upon it, however, this is one of those few treasures. In college, Freakonomics and its way of thinking, was a direct influence in how I wrote my senior thesis. However, Everything is Obvious was truly the book I was waiting for.
After college, I listened to The Tipping Point because of its hype, and I always seemed to think something was missing; perhaps something rubbed me the wrong way about the narrative. Duncan Watts illustrates precisely what Malcolm Gladwell’s book was missing and describes the key points behind his faux conclusions.
Watts dives into the social side of reasoning and shows that life is far more inconclusive than economists or physicists would like to think they are. He goes through some of his studies that churn the mind the same way Freakonomics does. It is a definite read and a great work of insight to both business students and professionals who hate when people say “x business came to a ‘tipping point’ and became successful.”
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- Stephen
- 06-15-11
Thought provoking
Duncan Watts is a physics professor turned sociology professor. I was intrigued by the idea of someone who could bring 'hard science' approaches to sociology. You might want to read the last chapter first as he summarizes the differences between sociological and hard science research. However, this is done in a most positive way - he points out that sociologic studies are important and that there are means and methods that can be used and developed to achieve better understanding into human behavior.
His insights are very thought provoking. He points out that many aspects of sociological studies that are generally not considered. For instance, we have a way of explaining history after we already know the outcome. Was the surge in Iraq really responsible for turning around that conflict or was it some combination of other factors such as rebuidling infrastructure, training new police, training new Iraqi military, more experienced government etc. There's really no way to tell because we can't run an 'experiment' to see what would happen if there was no surge...
Sociologist often fall upon what they term common sense explanations....but these explanations only work well when you already know the answer.
This is a great addition to the series Outliers and Predictably Irrational. I look forward to the contributions of his approach into important social issues.
I would have given it 5 stars, but I found it unfortunate that he often did not credit some of the work he cited. I understand that this is not a scientific paper but some of the more important and lengthy examples he cites should have been credited.
8 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Joshua Kim
- 06-10-12
Yes Sociology
It's about time a sociologist wrote an amazing and accessible book for a non-specialist audience. Everything Is Obvious: *Once You Know the Answer by Duncan J. Watts is that amazing book.
For too long, the economists, psychologists, historians and evolutionary psychologists have owned the popular non-fiction category. No longer. Sociology is back!
And what a sociologist. Check out the Wikipedia entry on the author:
"Duncan J. Watts (born 1971) is an Australian researcher and a principal research scientist at Yahoo! Research, where he directs the Human Social Dynamics group. He is also an external faculty member of the Santa Fe Institute and a former professor of sociology at Columbia University, where he headed the Collective Dynamics Group."
Or his list of publications from his Yahoo Research page - (which brings up 1,734 results).
The dude is barely 40.
Now I'm biased to be psyched about a great popular non-fiction book written by a sociologist, as I am a (somewhat lapsed) member of this tribe. For a while now, it seems as if the evolutionary psychologists, the biologists, the behavioral economists, and economic historians have been debating, discussing and writing about the most interesting ideas, theories and trends.
Sure, we have Sudhir Venkatesh (Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets) but nobody like Dan Ariely, Richard Florida, Steven Levitt, Tyler Cowen, Simon Schama, Niall Ferguson, Leonard Mlodinow, Sam Gosling, Steven Pinker, Ian Ayres, or Daniel Gilbert. (Wow…all males in this list - taken from my Audible list of academics who have written popular books that I really liked. Not sure if I like what this says about my own lack of diversity in what I read).
The big idea underpinning "Everything is Obvious" is that the massive amounts of data created by Web 2.0 search, networking and communications platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Facebook and Yahoo gives social scientists the tools to test the relationship between individual and group preferences, actions and beliefs. According to Watts, sociology is due for a renaissance, as the Web can be utilized as a tool to run social experiments that were previously not possible with traditional survey techniques.
Watts has run a number of these experiments, which have the common theme of calling into question commonly held beliefs about the origins and catalysts for a range of trends and outcomes. For instance, Watts takes on Malcolm Gladwell's conclusions in The Tipping Point that a small group of "influentials" can start and drive consumer trends.
Every Sociology 101 course (a class I've taught more times than I care to remember) should assign "Everything is Obvious". Watts provides a nice synthesis of the main tenets of sociology (from Durkheim to Parsons), moving fluently between the worlds of sociological theory, technology, and popular culture. We might find that the number of sociology majors will increase if we let this book lose in our courses.
What other companies have a resident sociologist? My respect for Yahoo has dramatically increased.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- Chris
- 05-30-11
We don't think how we think we think
"Everything is Obvious" dives into how we interpret the world, make decisions, and how we are unknowingly influenced. Watts makes us reexamine simple decision making scenarios, and then with references to Gladwell's "The Tipping Point," add's additional layers of social or group of complexity. The controllable variables set out in lab tests often become irrelevant when we try to sell into our markets containing millions of other influences. Although some questions may be reproduced many times (batting hit averages for example), others simply cannot (such as invading a country). The information collected from our social networks adds new possibilities for understanding our target market which has been previously unavailable. A thought provoking & recommended read.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- Carlos P. Zilzer
- 04-29-11
Rethinking my schemes...
Very few times in my life I have read books that make you rethink or reconsider the moral schemes, social, attitude at work and how to address problems and challenges.
Just finished reading one of those books. Until today I was one who thought that common sense is the least common of the senses. After reading now I am convinced that decisions based on common sense are wrong by default.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 04-18-12
Listen to this book and rethink everything!
I had not heard of Duncan Watts when I first listened to this book... but since I've noticed he's been sited in several other books I've read recently. If this book doesn't change the way you view the world you are a more evolved person than I. Between reading this book, and 'How to Measure Anything' this year, I feel like my mind has been turned upside down.
Read Duncan Watts, read Douglas Hubbard, then go out and change the world!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Yuankai
- 08-06-12
Good lesson on mind and decision making
A quite good course on decision making with a bunch of stats material. I'd recommend this book.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
- Chris Reich
- 06-24-11
Not so obvious
There are a few interesting nuggets to ponder but don't expect the next "Tipping Point" although he often quotes Gladwell.
The narration would have been far better if read by Humphrey Bower.
The central point, with which I agree, is that looking at incidents in reverse doesn't always lead to cause. Fair enough. But then Watts takes us on a crazy trip of irrational thinking.
For example, people drive drunk every day without killing anyone, so, is drunk driving the cause of so many fatalities? Or is it .....fate? He gives a tragic example of a drunk killing an entire family. But had they lingered at their starting point a moment longer, the drunk would have sped through the red light ahead of them rather than in to them. Is this really worth discussing? Since people drive drunk without killing people every time, we are to suspend drunk driving as a cause for fatalities?
I think there's an attempt to muddy thinking. Sort of the old lawyer trick of making you doubt your own testimony.
Skip this one.
8 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- chris lann
- 11-02-18
Great book
This is a great book. I enjoyed it quite a bit. However it could’ve been about an hour shorter. There are several parts that have a little too much rambling and talking in circles other than that it was very interesting and informative
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- William Hall
- 10-27-18
A most valuable read
This is an excellent book that should be read by every high school student as well as every college student and anyone who is interested in understanding why it is so difficult to understand the difference between cause-and-effect.
The author demonstrates that most of the time when we observe A followed by B that A is seldom the cause. Also, in complex systems it is nearly impossible to identify how much each observed potential cause was the Most likely primary contributing factor. Most history is descriptive and seldom truly gives us the cause of the events described. Read the book! You’ll be a lot smarter!