Cussedness

Irrationality by Stuart Sutherland

Many of the chapters in Irrationality end with a succinct list of morals detailing how one should act when attempting to behave rationally. Here are three typical examples:

Think carefully before announcing a decision publicly: you will find it harder to change.

No matter how much time, effort or money you have invested in a project, cut your losses if investing more will not be beneficial.

Don’t take important decisions when under stress or strong emotion.

Stated like this they appear stunningly obvious, yet throughout this splendid book Stuart Sutherland details numerous cases of people and organisations acting directly counter to these sorts of basic rational principles. Each moral is set out as a response to a particular flavour of irrationality demonstrated every single day by supposedly intelligent human beings the world over.

His stories of governmental incompetence sprung from wrong-headed or non-existent reasoning are particularly entertaining if, like me, you enjoy collecting ammunition on the off chance you’ll ever meet a politician or other functionary of the ruling sub-species who decide what to do with our taxes. My favourite example of institutionalised stupidity: Liverpool council paid two gas-light lighters and a mate more than £250,000 over an eight-year period: there were no gas lamps in Liverpool.

As might be expected with a reissue (first published in 1992) there are a few slightly dated examples, and some of Sutherland’s writing is a little idiosyncratic, but overall the prose is readable and entertaining. Most of the book concentrates on individual irrationality, and contains numerous strategies for avoiding the various errors the unwary fall prey to. It should be noted that whilst much of the advice seems obvious and self-evident after the results of failure have been demonstrated, the rational is frequently at odds with what the majority consider to be “common sense”. Many of the ideas and techniques detailed here are actually rather counter-intuitive (and, incidentally, Sutherland dedicates an entire chapter to intuition, which is, it seems, a rubbish way of deciding anything important). But they are all likely to come in very useful at some point, and close or repeated reading will benefit those who want to live their lives without making daft decisions.

2 comments • 2007-05-23 19:29 • Categories: Books, Geek Stuff, Reviews, Science & Maths • Tags: Idiots, Statistics, Stuart Sutherland