Heuristics and biases
This book, first published in 2002, compiles psychologists' best attempts to answer important questions about intuitive judgment.
Stats for nerds
5recommend
16mentions
11people
2010–2026years
44% recommend56% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- "advance" and "groundbreaking work" is far from enough. Those two basically invented a couple of new sciences.
"Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases" is the paper that made them famous, and it's still a damn good read:
https://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~schaller/Psyc590Readings/TverskyK...
- Daniel Kahneman's book "Thinking Fast and Slow" is a great overview of the field of cognitive bias. For a more academic treatment of his research, check out "Heuristics and Biases". The part of his work most relevant to project estimation can be found in the "planning fallacy" section. Aside from Kahneman, there are numerous papers on software estimation, many of which note these consistent biases (for example Jørgensen, https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/fd87/d248dd55f59d8d93742fb3...).
- This is embarrassing. I grew up with sorta fundie parents (they got better) and dropped out of school early (religious schools...), so it might be different for HNers that had a solid mental upbringing.
A Brief History of Time because it pretty much slapped any thoughts I had of a supernatural universe/god right out of my mind. I know it's not highly regarded, but for a rather ignorant guy, it woke me up.
The Selfish Gene (inc The Extended Phenotype). This is one I think is the most powerful, even for people that had OK education. Showing how life could possibly evolve, just with random mutations and non-random survival made it real to me that we live in a natural world. And not just that, but that since it's so obviously a natural world, it's up to us to decide what is right, what our purpose is. The earth and nature aren't going to help us there - it's our call, full stop. That is huge, and many otherwise seemingly well educated people don't seem to get it.
Heuristics and Biases. (Though Thinking Fast and Slow might be more approachable.) This book opened me up to the fact that I'm running on busted hardware. That I've got serious, unfixable, biases built into my brain. That a lot of what I do is a fast but inaccurate parallel system at work. (Interestingly, this is the essence of Taoism, wu wei).
Lately, LessWrong. (Available as a book called Rationality: From AI to Zombies). These sequences have helped me, well, get less wrong, slowly, at making decisions and general thinking. I try to be aware of when I'm being biased and incorrect. I make better predictions and actively try to update my priors, instead of just confirming my previous beliefs. As I get older (34) I find I'm unwittingly acting close minded on occasion, and need to actively work against it.
- I've not read it yet, but have read Heuristics and Biases, which is Kahneman and Tverskys original research on the topic. It is very long and sorta dry, but incredibly useful. I'd also suggest reading the LessWrong sequences on rationality, as they are aimed at actually helping you be able to change your mind.
- Heuristics & Biases is a great book with more detail:
http://www.amazon.com/Heuristics-Biases-Psychology-Intuitive...
- If you want the actual science instead of the quiz consider the book Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases. It's better than Hume. For something you can read right now that might get you to care: http://singinst.org/upload/cognitive-biases.pdf
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