| Description |
1 online resource (x, 244 pages) : illustrations |
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data file rda |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| Summary |
"Yogi Berra once went into a restaurant and ordered a pizza. When the cook behind the counter asked him if he wanted it cut into four or six pieces, he answered, "you better cut the pizza into four pieces because I'm not hungry enough to eat six." On a more serious note, in 1979, a student at Michigan State University disappeared; a potential suicide note was found in his room but his body was not. The student happened to be an avid Dungeons & Dragons player. Much media hype chalked his apparent suicide up to the role playing game and wondered if there could be a causal link: a string of other adolescent suicides and homicides occurred in the 1980s among D&D players. However, the rate of suicides among American teenagers at that time was about 28 per 1 million. The rate of the same among D&D players was just over 9 per 1 million. Ultimately, the number of suicides among D&D players was actually much lower than the national average, so the alarm about the dangers of D&D was unreasonable. In this book, James Zimring explores a specific kind of error in human thinking that we make when we're looking at, for example, risks and odds, probabilities, rates, percentages, and frequencies. These circumstances have one thing in common: they can all be represented as fractions. It is hard to navigate modern life without encountering and using these concepts. Exploring how fractions work and how we understand (and misunderstand) them can allow us to see why many of our deep seated intuitive thought processes, however they work neurologically, are susceptible to errors. It can also show us that what are errors in some settings can be great advantages in others. Overall, it can help us understand ourselves. As an aside, for anyone wondering: the MSU student described in the first paragraph called detectives about a month after his disappearance from the oil field where he was working in Louisiana and asked to be retrieved"-- Provided by publisher. |
| Contents |
Introduction -- Part I. The Problem of Misperception. -- The Fraction Problem -- How Our Minds Fractionate the World -- Confirmation Bias : How Your Mind Filters Evidence Based on Preexisting Beliefs -- Bias with a Cherry on Top : Cherry-Picking the Data -- Part II. The Fraction Problem in Different Arenas. -- The Criminal Justice System -- The March to War -- Patterns in the Static -- Alternative and New Age Beliefs -- The Appearance of Design in the Natural World -- The Hard Sciences -- Part III. Can We Reverse Misperception and Should We Even Try? -- How Misperceiving the Fraction Can Be Advantageous -- Can We Solve the Problems with Human Perception and Reasoning and Should We Even Try? |
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| Note |
Description based on online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on April 21, 2022). |
| Subject |
Critical thinking.
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Cognitive psychology.
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Suicide victims.
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MATHEMATICS / Probability & Statistics / General
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Cognitive psychology. (OCoLC)fst00866541
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Critical thinking. (OCoLC)fst00883692
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Suicide victims. (OCoLC)fst01137618
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| Other Form: |
Print version: Zimring, James C., 1970- Partial truths New York, NY : Columbia University Press, 2022 9780231201384 (DLC) 2021039876 |
| ISBN |
9780231554077 electronic book |
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0231554079 electronic book |
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