A comprehensive list of books that might be of interest to people that want to read something that would improve their thinking or some friends?
I have not read many of these, thus I can not personally vouch for all of them or recommend one over the other.
I'm not affiliated with Goodreads, but linked to them since I wanted to include the ratings and they have links to several different sources including libraries if you want to borrow or acquire any one of these, and often some quality reviews.
The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths by Michael Shermer 3.93 · Rating details · 6,985 ratings
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9754534-the-believing-brain The Believing Brain is bestselling author Michael Shermer's comprehensive and provocative theory on how beliefs are born, formed, reinforced, challenged, changed, and extinguished.
In this work synthesizing thirty years of research, psychologist, historian of science, and the world's best-known skeptic Michael Shermer upends the traditional thinking about how humans form beliefs about the world. Simply put, beliefs come first and explanations for beliefs follow. The brain, Shermer argues, is a belief engine. From sensory data flowing in through the senses, the brain naturally begins to look for and find patterns, and then infuses those patterns with meaning. Our brains connect the dots of our world into meaningful patterns that explain why things happen, and these patterns become beliefs. Once beliefs are formed the brain begins to look for and find confirmatory evidence in support of those beliefs, which accelerates the process of reinforcing them, and round and round the process goes in a positive-feedback loop of belief confirmation. Shermer outlines the numerous cognitive tools our brains engage to reinforce our beliefs as truths.
Interlaced with his theory of belief, Shermer provides countless real-world examples of how this process operates, from politics, economics, and religion to conspiracy theories, the supernatural, and the paranormal. Ultimately, he demonstrates why science is the best tool ever devised to determine whether or not a belief matches reality.
Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of Your Professional and Personal Life by Richard Paul, Linda Elder
3.93 · Rating details · 1,082 ratings
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17296839-critical-thinking Critical Thinking is about becoming a better thinker in every aspect of your life: in your career, and as a consumer, citizen, friend, parent, and lover.
Discover the core skills of effective thinking; then analyze your own thought processes, identify weaknesses, and overcome them. Learn how to translate more effective thinking into better decisions, less frustration, more wealth Ñ and above all, greater confidence to pursue and achieve your most important goals in life.
The Thinker's Guide to Analytic Thinking by Linda Elder,Richard Paul
3.89 · Rating details · 163 ratings
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19227921-the-thinker-s-guide-to-analytic-thinking This guide focuses on the intellectual skills that enable one to analyze anything one might think about - questions, problems, disciplines, subjects, etc. It provides the common denominator between all forms of analysis.
It is based on the assumption that all reasoning can be taken apart and analyzed for quality.
This guide introduces the elements of reasoning as implicit in all reasoning. It begins with this idea - that whenever we think, we think for a purpose, within a point of view, based on assumptions, leading to implications and consequences. We use data, facts and experiences (information), to make inferences and judgments,based on concepts and theories to answer a question or solve a problem. Thus the elements of thought are: purpose, questions, information, inferences, assumptions, concepts, implications and point of view. In this guide, authors Linda Elder and Richard Paul explain, exemplify and contextualize these elements or structures of thought, showing the importance of analyzing reasoning in every part of human life. This guide can be used as a supplement to any text or course at the college level; and it may be used for improving thinking in personal and professional life.
The Thinker's Guide to Intellectual Standards by Linda Elder, Richard Paul
4.19 · Rating details · 16 ratings
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19017637-the-thinker-s-guide-to-intellectual-standards Humans routinely assess thinking – their own thinking, and that of others, and yet they don’t necessarily use standards for thought that are reasonable, rational, sound.
To think well, people need to routinely meet intellectual standards, standards of clarity, precision, accuracy, relevance, depth, logic, fairness, significance, and so forth.
In this guide authors Elder and Paul offer a brief analysis of some of the most important intellectual standards in the English language. They look at the opposites of these standards. They argue for their contextualization within subjects and disciplines. And, they call attention to the forces that undermine their skilled use in thinking well. At present intellectual standards tend to be either taught implicitly, or ignored in instruction. Yet because they are essential to high quality reasoning in every part of human life, they should be explicitly taught and explicitly understood.
The Truth Seeker’s Handbook: A Science-Based Guide by Gleb Tsipursky (Goodreads Author) 4.24 · Rating details · 63 ratings
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36800752-the-truth-seeker-s-handbook How do you know whether something is true? How do you convince others to believe the facts?
Research shows that the human mind is prone to making thinking errors - predictable mistakes that cause us to believe comfortable lies over inconvenient truths. These errors leave us vulnerable to making decisions based on false beliefs, leading to disastrous consequences for our personal lives, relationships, careers, civic and political engagement, and for our society as a whole.
Fortunately, cognitive and behavioral scientists have uncovered many useful strategies for overcoming our mental flaws.
This book presents a variety of research-based tools for ensuring that our beliefs are aligned with reality.
With examples from daily life and an engaging style, the book will provide you with the skills to avoid thinking errors and help others to do so, preventing disasters and facilitating success for yourself, those you care about, and our society.
On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not by Robert A. Burton 3.90 · Rating details · 2,165 ratings
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2740964-on-being-certain You recognize when you know something for certain, right? You "know" the sky is blue, or that the traffic light had turned green, or where you were on the morning of September 11, 2001--you know these things, well, because you just do. In On Being Certain, neurologist Robert Burton challenges the notions of how we think about what we know.
He shows that the feeling of certainty we have when we "know" something comes from sources beyond our control and knowledge.
In fact, certainty is a mental sensation, rather than evidence of fact.
Because this "feeling of knowing" seems like confirmation of knowledge, we tend to think of it as a product of reason.
But an increasing body of evidence suggests that feelings such as certainty stem from primitive areas of the brain, and are independent of active, conscious reflection and reasoning. The feeling of knowing happens to us; we cannot make it happen. Bringing together cutting edge neuroscience, experimental data, and fascinating anecdotes, Robert Burton explores the inconsistent and sometimes paradoxical relationship between our thoughts and what we actually know.
Provocative and groundbreaking, On Being Certain, will challenge what you know (or think you know) about the mind, knowledge, and reason.
The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us by Christopher Chabris,Daniel Simons 3.91 · Rating details · 13,537 ratings · 704 reviews
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7783191-the-invisible-gorilla Reading this book will make you less sure of yourself—and that’s a good thing. In The Invisible Gorilla, Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons, creators of one of psychology’s most famous experiments, use remarkable stories and counterintuitive scientific findings to demonstrate an important truth: Our minds don’t work the way we think they do. We think we see ourselves and the world as they really are, but we’re actually missing a whole lot.
Again and again, we think we experience and understand the world as it is, but our thoughts are beset by everyday illusions. We write traffic laws and build criminal cases on the assumption that people will notice when something unusual happens right in front of them. We’re sure we know where we were on 9/11, falsely believing that vivid memories are seared into our minds with perfect fidelity. And as a society, we spend billions on devices to train our brains because we’re continually tempted by the lure of quick fixes and effortless self-improvement.
The Invisible Gorilla reveals the myriad ways that our intuitions can deceive us, but it’s much more than a catalog of human failings. Chabris and Simons explain why we succumb to these everyday illusions and what we can do to inoculate ourselves against their effects. Ultimately, the book provides a kind of x-ray vision into our own minds, making it possible to pierce the veil of illusions that clouds our thoughts and to think clearly for perhaps the first time.
Asking the Right Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking by M. Neil Browne, Stuart M. Keeley
3.94 · Rating details · 1,290 ratings
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/394398.Asking_the_Right_Questions The habits and attitudes associated with critical thinking are transferable to consumer, medical, legal, and general ethical choices. When our surgeon says surgery is needed, it can be life sustaining to seek answers to the critical questions encouraged in Asking the Right Questions This popular book helps bridge the gap between simply memorizing or blindly accepting information, and the greater challenge of critical analysing the things we are told and read. It gives strategies for responding to alternative points of view and will help readers develop a solid foundation for making personal choices about what to accept and what to reject.
On Truth by Simon Blackburn 3.60 · Rating details · 62 ratings
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36722220-on-truth Truth is not just a recent topic of contention. Arguments about it have gone on for centuries. Why is the truth important? Who decides what the truth is? Is there such a thing as objective, eternal truth, or is truth simply a matter of perspective, of linguistic or cultural vantage point?
In this concise book Simon Blackburn provides an accessible explanation of what truth is and how we might think about it.
The first half of the book details several main approaches to how we should think about, and decide, what is true.
These are philosophical theories of truth such as the correspondence theory, the coherence theory, deflationism, and others.
He then examines how those approaches relate to truth in several contentious domains: art, ethics, reasoning, religion, and the interpretation of texts.
Blackburn's overall message is that truth is often best thought of not as a product or an end point that is 'finally' achieved, but--as the American pragmatist thinkers thought of it--as an ongoing process of inquiry. The result is an accessible and tour through some of the deepest and thorniest questions philosophy has ever tackled
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
4.16 · Rating details · 317,352 ratings
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11468377-thinking-fast-and-slow?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=ZNhf1bAIxd&rank=1 In the highly anticipated Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think. System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. Kahneman exposes the extraordinary capabilities—and also the faults and biases—of fast thinking, and reveals the pervasive influence of intuitive impressions on our thoughts and behavior. The impact of loss aversion and overconfidence on corporate strategies, the difficulties of predicting what will make us happy in the future, the challenges of properly framing risks at work and at home, the profound effect of cognitive biases on everything from playing the stock market to planning the next vacation—each of these can be understood only by knowing how the two systems work together to shape our judgments and decisions.
Engaging the reader in a lively conversation about how we think, Kahneman reveals where we can and cannot trust our intuitions and how we can tap into the benefits of slow thinking.
He offers practical and enlightening insights into how choices are made in both our business and our personal lives—and how we can use different techniques to guard against the mental glitches that often get us into trouble. Thinking, Fast and Slow will transform the way you think about thinking.
Before You Know It: The Unconscious Reasons We Do What We Do by John A. Bargh (Goodreads Author)
3.97 · Rating details · 788 ratings
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35011639-before-you-know-it Dr. John Bargh, the world’s leading expert on the unconscious mind, presents a “brilliant and convincing book” (Malcolm Gladwell) cited as an outstanding read of 2017 by Business Insider and The Financial Times—giving us an entirely new understanding of the hidden mental processes that secretly govern every aspect of our behavior.
For more than three decades, Dr. John Bargh has conducted revolutionary research into the unconscious mind, research featured in bestsellers like Blink and Thinking Fast and Slow. Now, in what Dr. John Gottman said was “the most important and exciting book in psychology that has been written in the past twenty years,” Dr. Bargh takes us on an entertaining and enlightening tour of the forces that affect everyday behavior while transforming our understanding of ourselves in profound ways.
Dr. Bargh takes us into his labs at New York University and Yale—where he and his colleagues have discovered how the unconscious guides our behavior, goals, and motivations in areas like race relations, parenting, business, consumer behavior, and addiction.
With infectious enthusiasm he reveals what science now knows about the pervasive influence of the unconscious mind in who we choose to date or vote for, what we buy, where we live, how we perform on tests and in job interviews, and much more.
Because the unconscious works in ways we are completely unaware of, Before You Know It is full of surprising and entertaining revelations as well as useful tricks to help you remember items on your to-do list, to shop smarter, and to sleep better.
Before You Know It is “a fascinating compendium of landmark social-psychology research” (Publishers Weekly) and an introduction to a fabulous world that exists below the surface of your awareness and yet is the key to knowing yourself and unlocking new ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving.
Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38315.Fooled_by_Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb 4.07 · Rating details · 49,010 ratings
Fooled by Randomness is a standalone book in Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s landmark Incerto series, an investigation of opacity, luck, uncertainty, probability, human error, risk, and decision-making in a world we don’t understand.
Philosophy books Epistemology by Richard Feldman 3.84 · Rating details · 182 ratings
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/387295.Epistemology Sophisticated yet accessible and easy to read, this introduction to contemporary philosophical questions about knowledge and rationality goes beyond the usual bland survey of the major current views to show that there is argument involved. Throughout, the author provides a fair and balanced blending of the standard positions on epistemology with his own carefully reasoned positions or stances into the analysis of each concept. KEY TOPICS: Epistemological Questions. The Traditional Analysis of Knowledge. Modifying the Traditional Analysis of Knowledge. Evidentialist Theories of Justification. Non-evidentialist Theories of Knowledge and Justification. Skepticism. Epistemology and Science. Relativism.
Problems of Knowledge: A Critical Introduction to Epistemology by Michael J. Williams
3.79 · Rating details · 86 ratings
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/477904.Problems_of_Knowledge "What is epistemology or 'the theory of knowledge'? Why does it matter? What makes theorizing about knowledge 'philosophical'? And why do some philosophers argue that epistemology - perhaps even philosophy itself - is dead?" "
In this introduction, Michael Williams answers these questions, showing how epistemological theorizing is sensitive to a range of questions about the nature, limits, methods, and value of knowing.
He pays special attention to the challenge of philosophical scepticism: does our 'knowledge' rest on brute assumptions? Does the rational outlook undermine itself?"
Williams explains and criticizes all the main contemporary philosophical perspectives on human knowledge, such as foundationalism, the coherence theory, and 'naturalistic' theories. As an alternative to all of them, he defends his distinctive contextualist approach.
As well as providing an accessible introduction for any reader approaching the subject for the first time, this book incorporates Williams's own ideas which will be of interest to all philosophers concerned with the theory of knowledge.
Philosophy: The Basics by Nigel Warburton 3.84 · Rating details · 1,928 ratings
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31854.Philosophy Now in its fourth edition, Nigel Warburton's best-selling book gently eases the reader into the world of philosophy. Each chapter considers a key area of philosophy, explaining and exploring the basic ideas and themes.
What is philosophy? Can you prove God exists? Is there an afterlife? How do we know right from wrong? Should you ever break the law? Is the world really the way you think it is? How should we define Freedom of Speech? Do you know how science works? Is your mind different from your body? Can you define art? For the fourth edition, Warburton has added new sections to several chapters, revised others and brought the further reading sections up to date. If you've ever asked what is philosophy, or whether the world is really the way you think it is, then this is the book for you.
The Oxford Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14829260-the-oxford-handbook-of-thinking-and-reasoning by Keith J. Holyoak (Editor), Robert G. Morrison (Editor)
4.08 · Rating details · 12 ratings
Thinking and reasoning, long the academic province of philosophy, have over the past century emerged as core topics of empirical investigation and theoretical analysis in the modern fields of cognitive psychology, cognitive science, and cognitive neuroscience. Formerly seen as too complicated and amorphous to be included in early textbooks on the science of cognition, the study of thinking and reasoning has since taken off, brancing off in a distinct direction from the field from which it originated.
The Oxford Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning is a comprehensive and authoritative handbook covering all the core topics of the field of thinking and reasoning.
Written by the foremost experts from cognitive psychology, cognitive science, and cognitive neuroscience, individual chapters summarize basic concepts and findings for a major topic, sketch its history, and give a sense of the directions in which research is currently heading.
Chapters include introductions to foundational issues and methods of study in the field, as well as treatment of specific types of thinking and reasoning and their application in a broad range of fields including business, education, law, medicine, music, and science.
The volume will be of interest to scholars and students working in developmental, social and clinical psychology, philosophy, economics, artificial intelligence, education, and linguistics.
Feminist Epistemologies (Thinking Gender) by Linda Martín Alcoff, Elizabeth Potter 4.14 · Rating details · 43 ratings
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/477960.Feminist_Epistemologies Noticed this review by an evangelical:
"I have found this an immensely suggestive book, collecting as it does essays from both prominent and rising figures in feminist philosophy of knowledge--albeit from about two decades ago. I am struck by how little impact feminist thought, even of this high and generally temperate quality, has had on evangelical theology, to the shame of my guild."
-John
The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone - Especially Ourselves by Dan Ariely 3.94 · Rating details · 13,620 ratings
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13426114-the-honest-truth-about-dishonesty The New York Times bestselling author of Predictably Irrational and The Upside of Irrationality returns with thought-provoking work to challenge our preconceptions about dishonesty and urge us to take an honest look at ourselves.
Does the chance of getting caught affect how likely we are to cheat? How do companies pave the way for dishonesty? Does collaboration make us more honest or less so? Does religion improve our honesty?
Most of us think of ourselves as honest, but, in fact, we all cheat.
From Washington to Wall Street, the classroom to the workplace, unethical behavior is everywhere. None of us is immune, whether it's the white lie to head off trouble or padding our expense reports. In The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty, award-winning, bestselling author Dan Ariely turns his unique insight and innovative research to the question of dishonesty.
Generally, we assume that cheating, like most other decisions, is based on a rational cost-benefit analysis.
But Ariely argues, and then demonstrates, that it's actually the irrational forces that we don't take into account that often determine whether we behave ethically or not.
For every Enron or political bribe, there are countless puffed résumés, hidden commissions, and knockoff purses. In The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty, Ariely shows why some things are easier to lie about; how getting caught matters less than we think; and how business practices pave the way for unethical behavior, both intentionally and unintentionally. Ariely explores how unethical behavior works in the personal, professional, and political worlds, and how it affects all of us, even as we think of ourselves as having high moral standards.
But all is not lost. Ariely also identifies what keeps us honest, pointing the way for achieving higher ethics in our everyday lives. With compelling personal and academic findings, The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty will change the way we see ourselves, our actions, and others.
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (Goodreads Author)
4.27 · Rating details · 59,893 ratings
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17349.The_Demon_Haunted_World How can we make intelligent decisions about our increasingly technology-driven lives if we don’t understand the difference between the myths of pseudoscience and the testable hypotheses of science? Pulitzer Prize-winning author and distinguished astronomer Carl Sagan argues that scientific thinking is critical not only to the pursuit of truth but to the very well-being of our democratic institutions.
Casting a wide net through history and culture, Sagan examines and authoritatively debunks such celebrated fallacies of the past as witchcraft, faith healing, demons, and UFOs. And yet, disturbingly, in today's so-called information age, pseudoscience is burgeoning with stories of alien abduction, channeling past lives, and communal hallucinations commanding growing attention and respect. As Sagan demonstrates with lucid eloquence, the siren song of unreason is not just a cultural wrong turn but a dangerous plunge into darkness that threatens our most basic freedoms.
What Is the Name of This Book? by Raymond M. Smullyan
4.24 · Rating details · 757 ratings
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/493576.What_Is_the_Name_of_This_Book_ If you're intrigued by puzzles and paradoxes, these 200 mind-bending logic puzzles, riddles, and diversions will thrill you with challenges to your powers of reason and common sense. Raymond M. Smullyan — a celebrated mathematician, logician, magician, and author — presents a logical labyrinth of more than 200 increasingly complex problems. The puzzles delve into Gödel’s undecidability theorem and other examples of the deepest paradoxes of logic and set theory. Detailed solutions follow each puzzle
The Art of Logic in an Illogical World by Eugenia Cheng 3.55 · Rating details · 740 ratings
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38400400-the-art-of-logic-in-an-illogical-world How both logical and emotional reasoning can help us live better in our post-truth world
In a world where fake news stories change election outcomes, has rationality become futile? In The Art of Logic in an Illogical World, Eugenia Cheng throws a lifeline to readers drowning in the illogic of contemporary life. Cheng is a mathematician, so she knows how to make an airtight argument. But even for her, logic sometimes falls prey to emotion, which is why she still fears flying and eats more cookies than she should. If a mathematician can't be logical, what are we to do? In this book, Cheng reveals the inner workings and limitations of logic, and explains why alogic--for example, emotion--is vital to how we think and communicate. Cheng shows us how to use logic and alogic together to navigate a world awash in bigotry, mansplaining, and manipulative memes. Insightful, useful, and funny, this essential book is for anyone who wants to think more clearly.
How to Think about Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New Age by Theodore Schick Jr. Lewis Vaughn, Martin Gardner (Foreword)
4.00 · Rating details · 530 ratings
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41756.How_to_Think_about_Weird_Things This text serves well as a supplemental text in:
- critical thinking
- logic
- introduction to philosophy
- philosophy of science
- epistemology
- metaphysics
- introduction to psychology
- anomalistic psychology
- perception and cognition
as well as any introductory science course.
It has been used in all of the courses mentioned above as well as introductory biology, introductory physics, and introductory chemistry courses. It could also serve as a main text for courses in evaluation of the paranormal, philosophical implications of the paranormal, occult beliefs, and pseudoscience.
Popular Statistics Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data by Charles Wheelan 3.94 · Rating details · 10,367 ratings
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17986418-naked-statistics Once considered tedious, the field of statistics is rapidly evolving into a discipline Hal Varian, chief economist at Google, has actually called “sexy.” From batting averages and political polls to game shows and medical research, the real-world application of statistics continues to grow by leaps and bounds. How can we catch schools that cheat on standardized tests? How does Netflix know which movies you’ll like? What is causing the rising incidence of autism? As best-selling author Charles Wheelan shows us in Naked Statistics, the right data and a few well-chosen statistical tools can help us answer these questions and more. For those who slept through Stats 101, this book is a lifesaver. Wheelan strips away the arcane and technical details and focuses on the underlying intuition that drives statistical analysis. He clarifies key concepts such as inference, correlation, and regression analysis, reveals how biased or careless parties can manipulate or misrepresent data, and shows us how brilliant and creative researchers are exploiting the valuable data from natural experiments to tackle thorny questions.
And in Wheelan’s trademark style, there’s not a dull page in sight. You’ll encounter clever Schlitz Beer marketers leveraging basic probability, an International Sausage Festival illuminating the tenets of the central limit theorem, and a head-scratching choice from the famous game show Let’s Make a Deal—and you’ll come away with insights each time. With the wit, accessibility, and sheer fun that turned Naked Economics into a bestseller, Wheelan defies the odds yet again by bringing another essential, formerly unglamorous discipline to life.
The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail—But Some Don't by Nate Silver
3.98 · Rating details · 43,804 ratings · 3,049 reviews
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13588394-the-signal-and-the-noise One of Wall Street Journal's Best Ten Works of Nonfiction in 2012
New York Times Bestseller
"Not so different in spirit from the way public intellectuals like John Kenneth Galbraith once shaped discussions of economic policy and public figures like Walter Cronkite helped sway opinion on the Vietnam War…could turn out to be one of the more momentous books of the decade." -New York Times Book Review
"Nate Silver's The Signal and the Noise is The Soul of a New Machine for the 21st century." -Rachel Maddow, author of Drift
"A serious treatise about the craft of prediction-without academic mathematics-cheerily aimed at lay readers. Silver's coverage is polymathic, ranging from poker and earthquakes to climate change and terrorism." -New York Review of Books
Nate Silver built an innovative system for predicting baseball performance, predicted the 2008 election within a hair's breadth, and became a national sensation as a blogger-all by the time he was thirty. He solidified his standing as the nation's foremost political forecaster with his near perfect prediction of the 2012 election. Silver is the founder and editor in chief of FiveThirtyEight.com.
Drawing on his own groundbreaking work, Silver examines the world of prediction, investigating how we can distinguish a true signal from a universe of noisy data. Most predictions fail, often at great cost to society, because most of us have a poor understanding of probability and uncertainty. Both experts and laypeople mistake more confident predictions for more accurate ones. But overconfidence is often the reason for failure. If our appreciation of uncertainty improves, our predictions can get better too. This is the "prediction paradox": The more humility we have about our ability to make predictions, the more successful we can be in planning for the future.
In keeping with his own aim to seek truth from data, Silver visits the most successful forecasters in a range of areas, from hurricanes to baseball, from the poker table to the stock market, from Capitol Hill to the NBA. He explains and evaluates how these forecasters think and what bonds they share. What lies behind their success? Are they good-or just lucky? What patterns have they unraveled? And are their forecasts really right? He explores unanticipated commonalities and exposes unexpected juxtapositions. And sometimes, it is not so much how good a prediction is in an absolute sense that matters but how good it is relative to the competition. In other cases, prediction is still a very rudimentary-and dangerous-science.
Silver observes that the most accurate forecasters tend to have a superior command of probability, and they tend to be both humble and hardworking. They distinguish the predictable from the unpredictable, and they notice a thousand little details that lead them closer to the truth. Because of their appreciation of probability, they can distinguish the signal from the noise.
With everything from the health of the global economy to our ability to fight terrorism dependent on the quality of our predictions, Nate Silver's insights are an essential read.
Bayesian Statistics the Fun Way: Understanding Statistics and Probability with Star Wars, Lego, and Rubber Ducks by Will Kurt 4.20 · Rating details · 126 ratings
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41392893-bayesian-statistics-the-fun-way Fun guide to learning Bayesian statistics and probability through unusual and illustrative examples.
Probability and statistics are increasingly important in a huge range of professions. But many people use data in ways they don't even understand, meaning they aren't getting the most from it. Bayesian Statistics the Fun Way will change that.
This book will give you a complete understanding of Bayesian statistics through simple explanations and un-boring examples. Find out the probability of UFOs landing in your garden, how likely Han Solo is to survive a flight through an asteroid shower, how to win an argument about conspiracy theories, and whether a burglary really was a burglary, to name a few examples.
By using these off-the-beaten-track examples, the author actually makes learning statistics fun. And you'll learn real skills, like how to:
- How to measure your own level of uncertainty in a conclusion or belief
- Calculate Bayes theorem and understand what it's useful for
- Find the posterior, likelihood, and prior to check the accuracy of your conclusions
- Calculate distributions to see the range of your data
- Compare hypotheses and draw reliable conclusions from them
Next time you find yourself with a sheaf of survey results and no idea what to do with them, turn to Bayesian Statistics the Fun Way to get the most value from your data.
Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions by Brian Christian (Goodreads Author), Tom Griffiths (Goodreads Author)
4.15 · Rating details · 19,580 ratings
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25666050-algorithms-to-live-by A fascinating exploration of how insights from computer algorithms can be applied to our everyday lives, helping to solve common decision-making problems and illuminate the workings of the human mind
All our lives are constrained by limited space and time, limits that give rise to a particular set of problems. What should we do, or leave undone, in a day or a lifetime? How much messiness should we accept? What balance of new activities and familiar favorites is the most fulfilling? These may seem like uniquely human quandaries, but they are not: computers, too, face the same constraints, so computer scientists have been grappling with their version of such issues for decades. And the solutions they've found have much to teach us.
In a dazzlingly interdisciplinary work, acclaimed author Brian Christian and cognitive scientist Tom Griffiths show how the algorithms used by computers can also untangle very human questions. They explain how to have better hunches and when to leave things to chance, how to deal with overwhelming choices and how best to connect with others. From finding a spouse to finding a parking spot, from organizing one's inbox to understanding the workings of memory, Algorithms to Live By transforms the wisdom of computer science into strategies for human living.
The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World by David Deutsch 4.12 · Rating details · 5,026 ratings
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10483171-the-beginning-of-infinity The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World
In this book David Deutsch argue that all progress, both theoretical and practical, has resulted from a single human activity: the quest for what I call good explanations. Though this quest is uniquely human, its effectiveness is also a fundamental fact about reality at the most impersonal cosmic level – namely that it conforms to universal laws of nature that are indeed good explanations. This simple relationship between the cosmic and the human is a hint of a central role of people in the cosmic scheme of things.
I don’t even know what to title this but I am just going to start writing and title it later. Sorry it’s long. I had a lot to say.
So I (f23) met this guy (m23) in sixth grade. He was bullied TERRIBLY. There were kids who would even bully him because his dad had died a few years earlier. He always seemed nice to me. A bit odd but is was I. We didn’t have any classes together but I was on student council so I saw most everyone.
Fast forward several years. My middle year of high schools (I graduated in three years) he is at a theatre camp I was volunteering at as the camp directors assistant. He and I didn’t talk much but it really seemed like he had found his own. I had always been rooting for him.
A year or two later it’s time for me to go to college. I end up being accepted and paying the deposit to go to a state school to study theatre and even get a small scholarship. A few weeks later I find out late that I got into my top choice top tier private university with $100k in scholarships. Obviously I go there.
I find out later that my friend went to the state school I was going to go to to study theatre as well. I secretly wish him the best but notice how tall and handsome he has gotten. (Boy is 6’6”)
While home for summer later in college he and I match on tinder. We talk and end up flirting.
The problem.
He and I had both recently (within a couple years) gotten out of abusive relationships were our partners had tried to convince us to commit suicide. They would use us sexually and even be physically abusive. Neither of us knew the other was going through that.
We ending up spending a day together having fun around our small country town and eventually go back to his place and hookup. After we hook up everything goes to shit. We both get really awkward and old coping/survival mechanisms we had developed emerge and we end up really being awful. To the point he dropped me off at my car with in thirty minutes of sex and we don’t talk again for months.
I had been acting out sexually after my abusive relationship and honestly was worried the only thing I had to offer anyone was sex. After that I was pretty convinced that is all anyone would really want from me. And after he said it was okay. Which made me feel like I wasn’t even good at that. (For context he has a large penis and I have a small vagina so he was hitting my cervix the whole time and it got uncomfortable because neither of us communicated about what was going on and just assumed it was fine. It wasn’t.)
Months go by and we don’t speak. This sweet boy I had seen grow up I was convinced had turned into a raging womanizing asshole.
A few months ago we start talking again. Just as friends. We talk about the way the world is and a bit about our pasts.
At this same time I take quite a bit of time off of the dating scene to try and figure myself out. To see why I was acting out and how I could improve my mental state and deal with traumas so I would be ready if/when I meet my soulmate. (Listen I’m squishy and believe that soulmates exist still)
I finally get to a point I feel like I might be ready to get back out there. I meet a nice guy online and we talk a bit but I realize I’m not as in to him as I thought. And I even have this nagging feeling in my heart that he isn’t my soulmate so why bother.
A few days later my friend and I are talking more. I find out he is also on a journey to figure himself out lien i have been. But he isn’t at the same point I am. He still had more stuff to work through. I totally respect that.
The more we talk we kinda work through some of the stuff that went down between us. About how he made me feel and he explains why it happened the way it did and apologizes. I understand and accept his apology. We end up realizing we have been through similar stuff.
Last night we go to dinner. (With masks and stuff of course) and we have a wonderful time. We both have a drink and mine hits harder than expected because I haven’t been drinking much and when I do I’ve switched to low alcohol wine.
We end up going to the local mall because I have keys to walk around after it has closed for me to sober up a bit before I drive home. (For reference I trust this man and know he would never try anything when I am intoxicated)
As we are walking around we are talking and things get really really deep.
He lets me into his world. How he blames himself for his dads death because at the age of 8 after it happened some shit head kid told him it was his fault and he internalized it. He tells me about the abuse he received and how since he is such a big guy he couldn’t defend himself at all or he would get labeled an abuser just based on his size verses theirs. (More than one abusive partner) and that one of his exes even scratched him so bad he gushed blood and she had chunks of his flesh under her nails and he still has massive scars from the wounds.
He tells me about his intimacy issues and how he can’t even have people touch him without him flinching and freaking out.
I tell him about how I have been raped my three different guys and how my ex would try to get me to kill myself and rape me and make other people hate me. I share with him how much it has hurt me and made me lose my sense of self worth. Or worth at all really.
We talk about how we are both college graduates and feel like failures because we had to move back I. With our parents and get remedial jobs. We know it’s because of the pandemic and that we have no control but it still effects us greatly.
The whole time we are holding hands and hugging and just being close. (Both of use recently tested negative for covid)
We end up joking around more and he kisses me lightly. I kiss him back harder and we end up going to his car to make out. (Like teenagers. It’s awful I know) we end up taking a pause to discuss what is happening and what we are comfortable with. We make out and decide big to hook up. He takes me back to my car as I have sobered up. (This was about five hours long)
Being sexual is really big for me because the past six months since I’ve been working on myself I have had ZERO lebido. Even with just myself.
We start talking more about what is happening with us. He tells me he isn’t ready for romance. I tell him I don’t this he is my soulmate and I don’t want to be with someone who isn’t ready. We end up decided that with with have an exclusive friends with benefits situation. We discuss what that means and he tells me fhat he has planned a trip to visit college friends in the next three or so months. And he might hook up with someone there (just to be transparent) and I tell him if that happens we have to end out arrangement because I can’t risk getting covid and taking back to my family. He understands.
We then discuss if one of us develops feelings we need or be honest and end things.
We decide to be in sort of relationship with out the romance stuff.
I bring up (I want to discuss everything so I’m not caught in a grey area) that what happens if a while down the line when we are both feeling better we both develop feelings. He tells me he can’t speak for that future version of himself. I tell him I understand but just wanted to bring it up because it might happen. (We are both super romantic people)
The night ends with a few nice good bye kisses and we both let the other know when we get home. (He lives like five blocks from me)
Today we don’t talk much but we decided last night that we wouldn’t expect to talk everyday because neither of us are in the place to talk everyday with someone and don’t want that pressure.
We text some but not a ton.
I feel really weird.
On my drive home today I was singing in my car and my thought drifted to last night and I had this over whelming feeling that he might be my soulmate. I was over whelmed. Like turn off the music and sit in silence over whelmed.
It felt like when I was reading cheesy fantasy novels about werewolves as a preteen and they talked about soulmates. How you just knew. It was like it hit me in the face.
A few days ago I made a post about having a vision thing about feeling my soulmate. About felling his warmth and smile. But this felt very different. That felt magical and this felt... sudden. It was like in my minds eye I was seeing a scene in a high school. I saw him a me I and just meeting and knowing that we were it. I feel disgusting even typing that out.
I think back on all the ways we could have gotten closer. I transferred out of our middle school to go to a different school with my younger brother. I the. Went to a different high school. Both of those places I could have gotten closer to him.
I almost went to the same college as him in the same department. A major place we could have gotten closer.
We used to volunteer at the same local theatre but never at the same time. Another place we could have gotten closer.
Thinking back on all of these things makes my stomach turn.
I felt like an idiot. He and I can’t be romantic. But I have always felt oddly drawn to him even as a kid when I barely knew him.
I know for a fact it could not work. And I keep thinking of reasons I would not want to date him. Of reasons he is wrong for me and the arrangement we have now is the best possible option. I keep thinking about how I know he doesn’t feel the same. How he can’t. How he needs to focus on himself and how in so many ways he isn’t what I want.
But when I think back to last night and how comfortable every thing was. How we connected and how the whole time we were together it felt like I was spending time with my best friend when he very much is NOT that to me. It just felt so familiar and comfortable and wonderful. But still new and slightly uncomfortable in the not knowing. In the knowing that I should the feeling the way I was and that I personally didn’t want to be feeling the way I was.
I hate the fact that I felt that way. I feel disgusting and like an idiot for thinking that he could be that. It makes me feel like I could feel that about anyone that I am involved with. It makes me feel like I am still that dumb girl looking to feel special by getting attention from any guy who will pay attention to me.
The thing is now this feeling just feels like something I have accepted. It feels like it has settled in my soul and that I can fully function and just know it like I know the sun is in the sky and I live in a blue house.
I feel ridiculous. I don’t want to tell him this. I don’t want to tell anyone this. I want this to go away. I don’t have romantic feelings for him. At least... I don’t think I do? I hate myself for feeling this way.
I feel pathetic and like a silly girl with a crust that means nothing when I am a 23 year old woman with a $250k from a top tier university who has a clear plan of what she wants to do when he world opens back up. I am strong. I am beautiful. (I hate sounding so vain but I have worked really hard to build my confidence back up after being abused)
This man cannot give me what I want and what I ah e worked my ass off to deserve. He is not in a place to give anyone anything. I hate that I am even considering that this feeling might be even a sliver of the truth.
I am worried. When this doesn’t work out (because how on earth could it. He told me point blank he CANNOT have a romantic relationship with where he is at mentally and I respect that) what if I get hurt. What if he hooks up with someone else. He said it is a possibility and I have been okay with it. I am not controlling and I know that he isn’t either. This ends and I feel alone and crushed.
I have worked my ass off for months to not feel lonely anymore. To be independent. To know I can still be my own person around people and not lose myself to the situation and to them.
Do I just leave and not see what happens. Knowing me I could realize this feeling is fake and dumb and just use this situation for what it is worth and learn from it then move on with my life after the pandemic. I could wake up tomorrow and be like “damn I was being insane yesterday. Must be about to start my period” (sounds sexist but I do go a bit wild hormonally at that time)
In this moment I feel like something in me has shifted as a person. Not just about him. Not just about us. But as myself. I feel like something has clicked into place and I hate it. I feel ashamed of myself.
I don’t know what any of this means.
Sorry for the stupid long post. I refuse to talk to anyone in my life about this and needed to get this out.
Please don’t be mean if you decide to comment.
submitted by Sky transfer odds: Messi, Isco and more January transfer window specials. By Tony Mogan. Published: 16:41, 1 January 2021 . The January Transfer Window is officially open – with teams across the Stay ahead with Sky Sports. Our Transfer Centre has the latest football transfer news, details on done deals, and speculation from the rumour mill. Find out the odds on some of the key summer transfer targets Here at BetVictor, we know that a hive of transfer activity provides for plenty of transfer window betting opportunities. That means there are plenty of ways in which to bet on football transfer odds, even when the action on the pitch has finished for the season. From next club odds to football transfer special, BetVictor have you covered. Football specials betting, including next manager markets, club, player and country specials. All transfer odds can be found here. Sign up with free bets Check out the odds on our Transfer Specials outright Cristiano Ronaldo Next Permanent Club page, and show your football knowledge. Who will win the Transfer Specials? It looks like PSG is the favourite at the moment, at odds of 7/5. A £10 bet on it to win the Transfer Specials at these odds would win you £24. The next favourite is Man Utd, at odds of 10/3*. A £10 bet on it at these odds Football Transfer Specials: Player Transfer Odds. Many bookmakers Transfer Specials during the two windows every year. The bet is made on the chances of the transfer occurring, and you can bet on the specific player to switch or to stay. Different bookies have different rules regarding transfers betting, so loan deals count as transfers for some of them and don't count as transfers for others Transfer Football Players and Transfer Specials Odds: Top 8 Bookmakers. Bet365; Betfair; BetVictor; Coral; Ladbrokes; Paddy Power; Unibet; William Hill; We do want to be clear though when it comes to our expectations of odds quality on the latest Premier League Transfers. Like we said, there is no bookmaker which consistently just offers the best odds on each and every football transfer window ODDS OF 1/1 OR GREATER. 2 X £10 BET TOKENS. FREE BET STAKES NOT INCLUDED IN RETURNS. FREE BETS ARE NON WITHDRAWABLE. NO FREE BET EXPIRY. ELIGIBILITY RESTRICTIONS. FURTHER T&CS APPLY. 18+. BEGAMBLEAWARE.ORG . Terms and Conditions Bet £5 Get a £20 Free Bet - Terms and Conditions. This promotion is only available to individuals aged 18 years and over who have registered as new customers of Sky SkyBet transfer specials are the only place to go to get all the latest transfer news and latest odds. The SkyBet transfer centre is in overdrive and is getting busier by the minute with Ashley Young and Samir Nasri heading the bill. With Transfer specials at SkyBet, you can be sure to have all the latest news views straight from the Sky Sports news centre on who is going where and when. Today
