Errornomics
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Book Description
A smart, engaging and eye-opening explanation of why we make mistakes and what we can do to avoid them
Product Description
How did security staff at LA International Airport miss 75% of bomb-making materials that went through screening? Which way should you turn before joining a supermarket queue? Why should a woman hope it was a man who witnessed her bag being snatched? And what possessed Burt Reynolds to punch a guy with no legs?
Human beings can be stubbornly irrational and wilfully blind ... but at least we're predictably wrong. From minor lapses (why we're so likely to forget passwords) to life-threatening blunders (why anaesthetists used to maim their patients), Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Joseph T. Hallinan explains the everyday mistakes that shape our lives, and what we can do to prevent them happening.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
same as 'why we make mistakes',
By
This review is from: Errornomics: Why We Make Mistakes and What We Can Do To Avoid Them (Paperback)
Someone should point out that this book is identical to 'Why we make mistakes' Why We Make Mistakes: How We Look Without Seeing, Forget Things in Seconds, and Are All Pretty Sure We Are Way Above Average.
It's a good book, the other reviewers have said it all, it's easy to read, it has a long bibliography if you want to know more, but you don't need it twice.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A book ending in 'nomics' that isn't insufferably smug,
By
This review is from: Errornomics: Why We Make Mistakes and What We Can Do To Avoid Them (Paperback)
Unlike the similarly suffixed Freakonomics, it doesn't have that slightly snide, we're-so-clever-and-don't-we-know-it tone that makes that book just a little bit insufferable. Instead of trying to demonstrate how all our received wisdom is wrong in as controversial a way as can be mustered, Hallinan's approach seems much calmer. It's still based on statistical evidence, but without the smarminess.
Maybe that's why he's a Pulitzer winner. Hallinan divides the book into chapters based around different mistakes that we make; being over-optimistic about our abilities, simplifying things in order to understand them, avoiding paying close attention to situations in favour of winging them, and so on. Each chapter has some interesting examples, whether it's psychologists figuring out how to test whether you think you look more attractive than you really do, or concentrating on 'Controlled Flight Into Terrain' aviation disasters. Along the way there's some interesting examples of how these techniques are applied commercially, whether it's printing pictures of attractive female employees on offer letters in order to increase the take-up rate of loans, or how playing appropriate music drives people to purchase either French or German wine.1 There's some very valuable insights about concentration, the benefits (or not) of multi-tasking, and how best to structure your work. It turns out (as we all should have known all along) that paying attention to your email isn't going to make you more productive - you need to be able to work uninterrupted in order to produce quality. One thing I didn't like so much was that the salient fact for every three pages or so is called out in a little grey sidebar, as if the text was just a magazine bound into book form. Occasionally I'd be glad that they called out a particular finding ("Hope impedes adaptation" is an interesting insight, as is the study that shows that you need about ten years of doing something to get good at it) but mostly it was distracting, as if we're not trusted to understand the book without things being highlighted for us. Then again, part of Hallinan's thesis is we do skim too much. So perhaps that should be there. Finally, he finishes with more helpful advice. If you've been paying attention throughout, you should learn a lot from this book (even if some of the anecdotes are ones that have been stated again and again), but as a bonus Hallinan gives a summation of what you should do to avoid error: Think small Track your errors - write down what you think will happen so you don't just remember when you made a good prediction Think negatively Let your spouse proofread - sometimes, it's easier for a lay person to spot an error than a professional. Just the same as it can be hard to debug your own code. Get some sleep Be happy Act appropriately By that last point, Hallinan means that if you're unhappy somewhere, you may very well be concentrating on the wrong things - if you're at the top of Scafell Pike moaning that there's no decent coffee, either hike down, drive to Manchester and get an espresso, or else learn to admire the view. It's important to concentrate on the opportunities that present themselves that you can't get elsewhere, rather than obsessing with the things that you can't do.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Good content, spoiled by bad design,
By R P THOMLINSON (Whaley Bridge, High Peak United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Errornomics: Why We Make Mistakes and What We Can Do To Avoid Them (Paperback)
Interesting, thought provoking and accessible content, but hugely irritating to try and read because someone thought it would be cute to copy odd fragments of text into bold type and blob them onto the pages in highlight boxes. The effect is like a book that has been vandalised on every other page by underlining random phrases in heavy ballpoint - the continual visual distraction turns reading a fluent text into hard and very annoying (someone did this on purpose!) work. Pity the designer didn't read it first.
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