Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Arcanaut
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktI’m often prone to say there are lies, damned lies, statistics, and predictions. So, of course, I enjoyed this episode of the Freakonomics podcast:
Joe Namath, pension fund managers, Romanian witches, psychic grandmothers, the Farmer’s Almanac, Mad Money, Barney Frank, Donald Rumsfeld . . . good stuff.
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/07/freakonomics-the-folly-of-prediction/
“It’s impossible to predict the future, but humans can’t help themselves. From the economy to the presidency to the Super Bowl, educated and intelligent people promise insight and repeatedly fail by wide margins. These mistakes and misses go unpunished, both publicly and in our brain, which has become trained to ignore the record of those who make them.“
If you don’t already know, you’ll discover I’m a big fan of Freakonomics, TED Talks, the Ricochet podcast, and No Agenda. I will quote them often. You have been warned.
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All Things in Moderation 
Kevin, this fits in with my request to shrink to tell us if anyone has studied "magical thinking". You know, the belief that drives compulsive gamblers, and I think embezzlers, too, from what I have experienced. A crossover point to your "prediction" post for me is that I am certain UT will beat UCLA Saturday. This certainty is not borne of experience, however. I have tried to rationalize why I believe this, but I think it is because I am an irrational magical thinking 'Horn fan.I wonder how much of what we take "on faith" is from magical thinking as opposed to from our experience and upbringing. And I wonder if shrink can point to some literature!
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We can't not try to predict the future for very good reasons [what is the chance my calf can outrun that pack of hyenas if they get any closer, the antelope wordlessly asks herself, before she bolts?].But betting on a prediction, a hunch, we very well can protect ourselves from that. People who can't are ill. As I play more poker with my little kids, they are getting a lot better at not betting bad hands, just hoping they'll get lucky in the end.
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Doh! Corked again. Mark you're right on the money.Fan is short for fanatic and fanatics have broken frontal lobes, they cannot run their wishes and fears through defensive structures designed to protect us from being driven by primitive wishes and fears (there are two sides to magical thinking).
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"and I think embezzlers, too"This is a great point. And I think we all engage in magical thinking, at some point. I've certainly magically thought something would just sort itself out, or just go away, and yet it only got worse (something very common with medical problems–and not without reason, as very often certain things do just "sort themselves out"). But, yes, most criminals must, at some level, engage in magical thinking (or people who engage in criminal behavior), if they aren't considering their eventual apprehension as inevitable, or believe they have some full proof escape hatch or backup plan that will someone save them–assuming everything works out just like they imagine it will, which it never does.
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someone=somehowWhat would Freud say?
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My oldest self discovery of magical thinking: In 1949 I won a Kindergarten class footrace the morning that I switched from eating "Wheaties" to eating "Cheerios".I refused to eat "Wheaties" thereafter. I was sure until I was about 14 that "Cheerios" were just plain better for me as a striving young athlete. At that time, my dad convinced me from reading label ingredients and such that the nutritional value in dry cereal generally came from the milk. But I never lost thesense that somehow Cheerios were different.I ate Cheerios this morning.
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I am not going to let you guys discourage me from playing Spanish 21.
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you don't bet hunches, you calculate, otherwise you'd be a sure loser and quit or an addict and not quit
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I though magically during the dot.com boom. Now I invest in my mattress.
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I'm a huge fan of the freakonomics podcast and will check out those other ones, Kevin. In fact I ran a 10K on Sunday and I bet I was the only runner listening to a Freakonomics podcast.
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