On sharp thinking and the logical fallacies we all fall into

Impressions from the launch of Gilad Diamant's book Sharp Thinking - Between Reality and Illusion

One of the factors that clouded our lives in recent weeks was Operation Solid Cliff. The war in Gaza proved to all of us how difficult it is to get into the head of an enemy whose logic is different from ours. Despite this, over a hundred participants arrived on July 20th at the auditorium of Afka College in Tel Aviv, and despite the difficult news that day (13 Golani killed in Sajaya), they came to the launch of Gilad Diamant's book "Sharp Thinking Between Reality and Illusion".

In the book, Diamant examines, as a continuation of his blog, although in depth and bringing order, which is not possible in individual articles, issues of pseudo-science, and how belief in them, apart from being nonsense and a waste of money for various 'experts', also causes direct damage mainly due to the prevention of vaccinations, reliance on medications Homeopathics that are no better than just a placebo.

"The amount of material accumulated in the blog is enormous. By the very nature of the blog, things are patched together, like pieces of a puzzle in bulk. The book aims to convey the complete picture: the world view, the way of thinking, the tools and tips, using spicy examples from the world of research as well as from my personal experiences. The book also contains many new materials that have not yet been published on the blog." Diamant wrote on the book's crowdfunding page that was a success.

"The book summarizes a period of three years in which I devoted every free moment of my life to the subject which is now ripening to fruition. Thousands of hours of investigations, thoughts and conversations with people, were distilled into this book I wrote."

In a lecture at the launch event, Diamant explained who the book's target audience is: "In my opinion, the target audience is any curious person who wants to learn a little about the world.

The book is not addressed to believers in astrology and numerology but to people who are in the middle, curious people who want to navigate their way in a slightly different way. The book gives them tools and I save them the work of research and searching. Carl Sagan says that science is a violinist. Also in my opinion, science is a torch of rationality thanks to critical scientific thinking. I'm sure if I hadn't stood up someone else would have.

Diamant also answered the questions left to him by surfers before the event "The main challenges were to convey the message clearly, to decide what to give up. For example, near-death experiences, maybe in the future I will write a book about death from the scientific angle. The tip for those who want to publish a book with crowdfunding is to make sure that all the buyers already get there and buy the book in advance."

In response to the question is it possible to teach sharp thinking? Answered Diamant I think absolutely. It is something that can be imparted.

When asked Don't you feel Don Quixote? Diamant answered: I could do more things to enrich myself, but it is also important for me to get something out. I don't expect to change the world, unfortunately, it's not because of me that people will leave homeopathy."

The second lecturer at the conference was Yossi Yasur, a professor of business administration at the Rupin Academic Center who specializes in the field of decision theory. He talked about failures in decision-making processes, which we are all guilty of, even the most intelligent people. The first fallacy is the gambler's fallacy, that gamblers think that if a roulette wheel has landed five times on red, the next time it must land on black, even though the chances are equal each time. A similar fallacy from the same family is the fallacy of the hot hand in basketball players. In the case of the professionals, the shooting percentage for the fourth time after three successful shots was the same as the shooting percentage for the first time, and for the less good ones, there was actually a decrease because they gained confidence and thought they had a hot hand and were therefore tempted to throw from bad positions and vice versa, if the player missed three times, the time The fourth is that he tried from a safer angle and therefore, contrary to popular belief, his success rates increase when he apparently does not have a hot hand.

Another fallacy is the inversion fallacy - the fallacy according to which the probability of event B when event A is known to have occurred is not equal to the probability of event A when event B is known. Let's take a theoretical example, where out of a population of one million, 300 thousand are smokers and 700 thousand are non-smokers. Among the smokers, 990 got cancer, and among the non-smokers, 10 got cancer (residents of Haifa and the Kiryat...). The question, what is the chance of a smoker getting cancer (in the example before us), the answer is 99% (990 out of a thousand), the opposite question is completely different, what is the chance that a smoker will get cancer, the answer is 990 out of 300 thousand (0.3%).

The inversion fallacy is very common, especially among minorities (most of the criminals in Harlem are black, but a minority of the blacks are criminals). Another example is used by the opponents of the legalization of marijuana who, according to Yassur, in the Knesset debate claimed that all hard drug users started with hashish, but this does not mean that everyone who smokes marijuana will end up with heroin, and studies show that while 50% of youth under the age of 18 in the United States have experimented with marijuana, only a few of them Deteriorating to hard drugs. (Editor's note - On the subject of the legalization of marijuana, we deal with another article dealing with studies presented this week at the American Psychological Association conferenceJ, from which it appears that in recent years the concentration of THC in marijuana sold to consumers has increased, and as a result the risk of addiction and cognitive impairment has increased. The researchers suggest monitoring the level of THC if it is decided to legalize AB)

Another fallacy is biasing the ratio by looking at the numerator rather than the ratio (ignoring the denominator). For example, when researchers offered the examinees a prize if they took out a red ball from a box containing 9 red balls out of 100 balls in general, or from a box containing 61 red ball, out of ten balls, 9% chose the first option even though the chance is smaller - 10% compared to XNUMX%, Assuming they have more selection of red balls. When people want to make a decision based on probability, they tend to refer to the numerator and neglect the denominator.
Psychiatrists were asked whether to allow leave for a hospitalized person whose chance of causing harm outside is 2 out of 10 - 21% objected when asked the same question, in the form of 20 out of 100 - the proportion of those opposed rose to 41%.

Another effect is the anchor effect, Dan Arieli asked his students how much French wine costs - were they willing to pay more for it than the last 2 digits of their ID card. Those whose IDs ended between zero and twenty netted an average price of $8.64 and those with an 80-99 suffix offered a price of $27.91. In a similar study, respondents were asked to answer how long a whale is.

The failure of the basic lesson - a person is killed in a car accident while crossing a road, what is the probability that he was killed when he crossed a red light or a green light? The answer is green - it is true that crossing a red light is more dangerous, but you have to take into account how many people cross a red light and how many cross a green light.

Another failure is the regression to the mean syndrome - after extreme cases there will surely come a less extreme case, so for example sequels are usually worse than the first movie in the series, and movies based on successful books are worse than the book.

The lecturer, or rather the next entertainer was the master of the senses Lior Menor, who after an impressive performance (as he knows how to give) in which he reads the minds of the volunteers who participated in the tasks he assigned them, explained that he is against those magicians who misuse their powers, which are not supernatural powers, To take advantage of the public, and especially those who have a weakness such as one illness or another, for the purpose of making a fortune.

Alon Barnea - Vice President of Afka College, and the host of the event said: What is more natural for an engineering college than to host an event about sharp thinking and scientific thinking."

"We at Afeka deal exclusively with engineering - software engineering, mechanical, electrical, industrial and management engineering, medical engineering, a school for certified energy systems, service systems and a new track engineering and management of infrastructure systems. Therefore, scientific thinking is in our DNA."