How We Know What Isn’t So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life by Thomas Gilovich is the book I chose to report on. The book gives an overview on why humans tend to “trick” themselves into believing in fallacies. The book goes into detail on positive information bias, for example the fact that humans like to believe they’re right and so ignoring evidence of the contrary is a nature component of that. Some more specific examples used were Sports fans who think that basketball players shoot in "hot streaks," and maternity nurses who maintain that more babies are born when the moon is full adhere to erroneous beliefs, according to Gilovich.
The book offered a neat insight that focused on why human nature lures us into these mind-traps. The perspectives from the book have already stuck with me in my day to day thought processes. Another point of the book that I found particularly interesting was the fact that humans can’t help seeing patterns where none exist. Some examples would be seeing patterns in disastrous events, in clouds, and in gambling “hot” streaks. Although it seems logical that we would find comfort in believing in these things, before reading How We Know I didn’t stop to think about it. The book was able to leave me with the thought to challenge my own assumptions, which I think could lead to a clearer decision process in many different situations.
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