A basic shortcoming of our neural wiring is that we can’t quite grasp probabilities. Statistics are completely counterintuitive: our brains are simply not cut out, evolutionarily, to understand that inherent uncertainty. There were no numbers or calculations in our early environment — just personal experience and anecdote. We didn’t learn to deal with information presented in an abstract fashion, such as tigers are incredibly rare in this part of the country, and you have a 2 percent chance of encountering one, and an even lower chance of being attacked; we learned instead to deal with brute emotions such as last night there was a tiger here and it looked pretty damn scary.
Author: Maria Konnikova
Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings)
Subjects: Math & Science, Psychology | Behavior
Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings)
Subjects: Math & Science, Psychology | Behavior
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