THINKER'S ALMANAC - December 7

Why is Pearl Harbor Day a good reminder of how to correctly evaluate decisions and how to correctly set goals? 

Subject: Outcome Bias - The Attack on Pearl Harbor

Event:  Pearl Harbor Day, 1941

 

The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction not a destination. -Carl Rogers

This day in 1941 is known as “a date which will live in infamy.”  It is the day that sparked the United States’ involvement in World War II when the Japanese unexpectedly attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

                                                                    Image by WikiImages from Pixabay 

On what was a quiet Sunday morning, hundreds of Japanese fighter planes descended on Pearl Harbor just before 8:00 AM. and destroyed nineteen vessels and over 300 planes.  More than 2,400 Americans were killed in the surprise attack.

After what was the worst disaster in American military history, officials immediately began searching for answers as to how it happened.  Although there had been signs of a possible attack by Japan before December 7, the problem was that there was too much intelligence, and much of it was conflicting.  The conventional wisdom before the attack was that Japan was incapable of mounting such an operation so far from its home shores; instead, an attack on the Philippines seemed a much more likely target.  Nevertheless, many looked at the intelligence and saw signs that should have caused U.S. military leaders to anticipate the attack and to evacuate the base (1).

The attack on Pearl Harbor is a classic case study in outcome bias:  the tendency to evaluate a decision based on its results rather than on its process.  It was easy to cherry pick from the plethora of intelligence after the fact and find evidence that an attack was imminent; however, because so much of the data was contradictory, a decision in real time was very difficult to make (2).

The lesson of outcome bias is to avoid judging a decision purely by its result. Randomness and chance play a big role in how things happen, and if we leap to judging things based on outcome rather than process or other external factors, we might miss important insights.   Imagine, for example, you take an important test such as the SAT and do poorly.  If you judge yourself solely on the result, it leaves little room for improvement.  If you focus instead on what you can learn from the process, you’ll be better prepared to improve your performance next time.

When setting goals, it is especially important to distinguish between process and outcome.  For example, you might set an outcome goal of achieving a certain score on the SAT; however, in pursuit of this goal, it is important to consider process goals:  specific acts or tasks that you need to complete in service of reaching your goal.  For example, setting an outcome goal of running a marathon in under four hours means little if you don’t have specific process goals.  How many miles, for example, are you going to run per week in training? What specific things should you consider regarding your diet and sleep schedule?

 

Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason:  What can the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 teach us about evaluating decisions and setting goals?

Challenge - Process Versus Product:  Do some research on quotations about the theme of process versus product (outcome).  Pick a quotation you like, write it down, and explain why you think it is insightful.

ALSO ON THIS DAY:

December 7, 1928:  Today is the birthday of linguist and social critic Noam Chomsky, who was born in Philadelphia in 1928.  Chomsky spent more than 50 years as a professor at MIT and has authored over 100 books.  Chomsky has been called “the father of modern linguistics” and is one of the founders of the field of cognitive science.  Despite all of his accomplishments, Chomsky is perhaps best known for a single sentence:

 

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

 

Published in his 1957 book Semantic Structures, Chomsky’s famous sentence illustrates the difference between two essential elements of language:  syntax and semantics.  Syntax relates to the grammar of a language or the order in which words are combined.  Semantics, in contrast, relates to the meaning of individual words.  Chomsky’s sentence illustrates the difference between syntax and semantics, showing that a grammatically or syntactically correct sentence can be constructed that is semantically nonsensical.

Sources:

1-Miller, Nathan. “Why Was the Surprise Attack At Pearl Harbor Such a Surprise?” The Baltimore Sun 1 December 1991.

2-Dobelli, Rolf. The Art of Thinking Clearly. New York: Harpercollins, 2013: 58-60.

THINKER'S ALMANAC - December 7

Subject: Outcome Bias - The Attack on Pearl Harbor

Event:  Pearl Harbor Day, 1941

 

The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction not a destination. -Carl Rogers

This day in 1941 is known as “a date which will live in infamy.”  It is the day that sparked the United States’ involvement in World War II when the Japanese unexpectedly attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

On what was a quiet Sunday morning, hundreds of Japanese fighter planes descended on Pearl Harbor just before 8:00 AM. and destroyed nineteen vessels and over 300 planes.  More than 2,400 Americans were killed in the surprise attack.

After what was the worst disaster in American military history, officials immediately began searching for answers as to how it happened.  Although there had been signs of a possible attack by Japan before December 7, the problem was that there was too much intelligence, and much of it was conflicting.  The conventional wisdom before the attack was that Japan was incapable of mounting such an operation so far from its home shores; instead, an attack on the Philippines seemed a much more likely target.  Nevertheless, many looked at the intelligence and saw signs that should have caused U.S. military leaders to anticipate the attack and to evacuate the base (1).

The attack on Pearl Harbor is a classic case study in outcome bias:  the tendency to evaluate a decision based on its results rather than on its process.  It was easy to cherry pick from the plethora of intelligence after the fact and find evidence that an attack was imminent; however, because so much of the data was contradictory, a decision in real time was very difficult to make (2).

The lesson of outcome bias is to avoid judging a decision purely by its result. Randomness and chance play a big role in how things happen, and if we leap to judging things based on outcome rather than process or other external factors, we might miss important insights.   Imagine, for example, you take an important test such as the SAT and do poorly.  If you judge yourself solely on the result, it leaves little room for improvement.  If you focus instead on what you can learn from the process, you’ll be better prepared to improve your performance next time.

When setting goals, it is especially important to distinguish between process and outcome.  For example, you might set an outcome goal of achieving a certain score on the SAT; however, in pursuit of this goal, it is important to consider process goals:  specific acts or tasks that you need to complete in service of reaching your goal.  For example, setting an outcome goal of running a marathon in under four hours means little if you don’t have specific process goals.  How many miles, for example, are you going to run per week in training? What specific things should you consider regarding your diet and sleep schedule?

Challenge - Process Versus Product:  Do some research on quotations about the theme of process versus product (outcome).  Pick a quotation you like, write it down, and explain why you think it is insightful.

Sources:

1-Miller, Nathan. “Why Was the Surprise Attack At Pearl Harbor Such a Surprise?” The Baltimore Sun 1 December 1991.

2-Dobelli, Rolf. The Art of Thinking Clearly. New York: Harpercollins, 2013: 58-60.

THINKER'S ALMANAC - January 28

What can the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster in 1986 teach us to understand how memory works?

Subject:  Flashbulb Memory - Challenger Study

Event:  Challenger Disaster, 1986

On Tuesday, January 28, 1986, at precisely 11:30 EST, the Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart shortly after takeoff from Cape Canaveral, Florida.  The explosion killed everyone aboard. 

Not only was the Challenger disaster a major tragedy of the United States space program but it was also an unprecedented public tragedy:  it is estimated that 17% of the U.S. population witnessed the launch on live television.  This audience included thousands of students who watched from their school classrooms to see Christa McAulliffe, a high school teacher, who was attempting to become the first teacher in space.  

                                                                Image by WikiImages from Pixabay 

At the time of the tragedy, psychological researcher Ulric Neisser was in the midst of research on human memory, attempting to better understand how memories are stored and retrieved.  He saw an opportunity to test the accuracy of what is known as flashbulb memory, a supposedly vivid and detailed memory of a dramatic moment, such as the memories that people have of remembering where they were and what they were doing when JFK was assassinated in 1963.  Based on his own flashbulb memory of December 7, 1941, Neisser was having doubts about just how accurate these memories are; he initially remembered hearing the news of the Pearl Harbor attack when the broadcast of a baseball game he was listening to was interrupted.  He later realized that although this was a vivid memory, it could not be true.  There were no baseball games in December.

Seizing on the recency and the public nature of the Challenger tragedy, Neisser saw an opportunity to gather more data on flashbulb memories.   The day after the tragedy, Neisser asked students to write down detailed accounts of where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news of the Challenger explosion.

The next step in Neisser’s research required patience; after waiting nearly three years, he then asked the same students to recount their memories of the fateful 

day.  Although all the students were confident that their memories of the day were accurate, the results of the study revealed something different: one fourth of the students had memories that were completely different, while half had memories that were somewhat different.  Less than ten percent of the students got all the details correct. 

Neisser’s work gives us all a better, more realistic picture of human memory.  It shows that even those memories that seem most vivid and distinct to us may not be completely accurate.  Each time we access a memory, we reconstruct it and potentially conflate some details, such as how Neisser remembered listening to a baseball game when it was more likely a December football game (1).

Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason:  What is a flashbulb memory, and what does the research show us about how accurate these memories are?

Challenge - Memory On Trial:  What are the implications of research on flashbulb memories when it comes to eyewitness testimony in a trial?  Do a little research on this topic, and write a paragraph that provides instructions for jury members that tells them what they need to know about the fallibility of human memory.

Also On This Day:

January 28, 1986:  Credulous believers in the 16th century prophecies of Nostradamus look to the following passage as a prediction of the Challenger disaster.  Most, however, realize that it is an example of hindsight bias at work, the erroneous habit of thinking that something that an event from the past was more predictable than it actually was:

From the human flock nine will be sent away,

Separated from judgment and counsel:

Their fate will be sealed on departure

Kappa, Thita, Lambda the banished dead err (I.81)

Sources:

1-Martin, Douglas. Ulric Neisser Is Dead at 83; Reshaped Study of the Mind. New York Times 25 Feb. 2012.

THINKER'S ALMANAC - January 28

What can the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster in 1986 teach us to understand how memory works?

Subject:  Flashbulb Memory - Challenger Study

Event:  Challenger Disaster, 1986

On Tuesday, January 28, 1986, at precisely 11:30 EST, the Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart shortly after takeoff from Cape Canaveral, Florida.  The explosion killed everyone aboard. 

Not only was the Challenger disaster a major tragedy of the United States space program but it was also an unprecedented public tragedy:  it is estimated that 17% of the U.S. population witnessed the launch on live television.  This audience included thousands of students who watched from their school classrooms to see Christa McAulliffe, a high school teacher, who was attempting to become the first teacher in space.  

At the time of the tragedy, psychological researcher Ulric Neisser was in the midst of research on human memory, attempting to better understand how memories are stored and retrieved.  He saw an opportunity to test the accuracy of what is known as flashbulb memory, a supposedly vivid and detailed memory of a dramatic moment, such as the memories that people have of remembering where they were and what they were doing when JFK was assassinated in 1963.  Based on his own flashbulb memory of December 7, 1941, Neisser was having doubts about just how accurate these memories are; he initially remembered hearing the news of the Pearl Harbor attack when the broadcast of a baseball game he was listening to was interrupted.  He later realized that although this was a vivid memory, it could not be true.  There were no baseball games in December.

Seizing on the recency and the public nature of the Challenger tragedy, Neisser saw an opportunity to gather more data on flashbulb memories.   The day after the tragedy, Neisser asked students to write down detailed accounts of where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news of the Challenger explosion.

The next step in Neisser’s research required patience; after waiting nearly three years, he then asked the same students to recount their memories of the fateful 

day.  Although all the students were confident that their memories of the day were accurate, the results of the study revealed something different: one fourth of the students had memories that were completely different, while half had memories that were somewhat different.  Less than ten percent of the students got all the details correct. 

Neisser’s work gives us all a better, more realistic picture of human memory.  It shows that even those memories that seem most vivid and distinct to us may not be completely accurate.  Each time we access a memory, we reconstruct it and potentially conflate some details, such as how Neisser remembered listening to a baseball game when it was more likely a December football game (1).

Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason:  What is a flashbulb memory, and what does the research show us about how accurate these memories are?

Challenge - Memory On Trial:  What are the implications of research on flashbulb memories when it comes to eyewitness testimony in a trial?  Do a little research on this topic, and write a paragraph that provides instructions for jury members that tells them what they need to know about the fallibility of human memory.

ALSO ON THIS DAY:

January 28, 1986:  Credulous believers in the 16th-century prophecies of Nostradamus look to the following passage as a prediction of the Challenger disaster.  Most, however, realize that it is an example of hindsight bias at work, the erroneous habit of thinking that something that an event from the past was more predictable than it actually was:

From the human flock nine will be sent away,

Separated from judgment and counsel:

Their fate will be sealed on departure

Kappa, Thita, Lambda the banished dead err (I.81).

Sources:

1-Martin, Douglas. Ulric Neisser Is Dead at 83; Reshaped Study of the Mind. New York Times 25 Feb. 2012.

THINKER'S ALMANAC - December 16

What does it mean to think that nothing is indubitable?

Subject: Epistemology - Russell’s New Decalogue

Event:  Bertrand Russell’s essay “The Best Answer to Fanaticism - Liberalism,”1951

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts. -Bertrand Russell

On this day in 1951, British philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote an essay in The New York Times entitled “The Best Answer to Fanaticism - Liberalism.”

Liberalism, according to Russell, is not a belief; instead, it is a disposition or attitude toward belief.  He credits John Locke as liberalism’s “great apostle” because he argued that all people should be capable of living at peace and that it was not necessary for everyone to agree.  Instead, Locke argued that all opinions should be treated as fallible and any belief should be open to question.  

Russell called into question those who argue that the truth is already known.  These people hold the opposite view of liberalism because their purpose “is not to discover truth but to strengthen belief in truths already known.”

                                                                Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay 

At the core of Russell’s argument is how to approach old ideas versus new ideas.  His conclusion is that all ideas should be welcomed, but at the same time, all ideas, whether old or new, should be subject to scrutiny and debate.  To help facilitate the liberal outlook, the correct epistemological attitude, Russell ends his article with what he calls a “new decalogue,” a kind of ten commandments of epistemology, in other words, ten rules that will help bring all of us closer to the truth:

1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.

2. Do not think it worthwhile to produce belief by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.

3. Never try to discourage thinking, for you are sure to succeed.

4. When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.

5. Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.

6. Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.

7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.

8. Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.

9. Be scrupulously truthful, even when truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.

10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool’s paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.

Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason:  What is the purpose of Russell’s New Decalogue?

 

Challenge - The Best of the Ten: Read through Russell’s ten rules.  Pick the one rule that you like the best, and write a paragraph explaining why you feel that the rule is important for people who are trying to find the truth.

 

ALSO ON THIS DAY

December 16, 1906: On this day in 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt wrote a letter to a friend explaining a recent political defeat.  Roosevelt, who won fame as a Rough Rider in the Spanish-American War and served two terms as president from 1901-1909, was not used to defeat.  He broke up monopolies, championed federal regulation of railroads, spurred the conservation of natural resources, and began the construction of the Panama Canal.  As the leader of the Progressive Movement, however, there was one reform that Roosevelt could not make happen:  spelling reform. In addition to being an age of reform, the 19th century was also a time when public education was being expanded and democratized in America.  Roosevelt, along with other education advocates, viewed spelling reform as a practical and economical way to improve education.  After all, English orthography is plagued with words that have more letters than necessary as well as inconsistent and capricious spelling rules. In March 1906 the Simplified Spelling Board was founded and funded by industrialist Andrew Carnegie.  Its mission was to reform and simplify English spelling.  On August 27, 1906, President Roosevelt issued an executive order that 300 words from the Simplified Spelling Board’s list of revised spellings be used in all official communications of the executive department.  Some of the examples of changes are as follows:

 

blessed to blest

kissed to kist

passed to past

purr to pur

though to tho

through to thru

 

On December 3, 1906, Roosevelt wrote his annual message to Congress using the new spelling.  He became an easy target for criticism, however, as can be seen in the following sentence from a newspaper editorial:

[Roosevelt] now assales the English langgwidg, constitutes himself as a sort of French academy, and will reform the spelling in a way tu soot himself.

On December 13, 1906, soon after it received Roosevelt’s annual message, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution rejecting the new spellings and urging that government documents be written using “the standard of orthography prescribed in generally accepted dictionaries of the English language.” At this point Roosevelt decided to surrender.  He withdrew his executive order, and wrote a letter to his friend Brander Matthews, who was also the chairman of the Simplified Spelling Board, admitting defeat:

I could not by fighting have kept the new spelling in, and it was evidently worse than useless to go into an undignified contest when I was beaten. (2)

Sources:

1-Russell, Bertrand.  “The Best Answer to Fanaticism -- Liberalism.”  The New York Times 16 Dec. 1951.

2-Thomas V.  Teddy Roosevelt, Rough Ride Over Spelling Rules. The Wall Street Journal 16 April 2015.

THINKER'S ALMANAC - December 18

How did a young girl manage to convince a visitor to her aunt’s house that he was seeing ghosts?

Subject: Imagination - The Narrative Fallacy

Event:  Birthday of Saki, 1870

The narrative fallacy addresses our limited ability to look at sequences of facts without weaving an explanation into them, or, equivalently, forcing a logical link, an arrow of relationship upon them. -Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Today is the birthday of Scottish writer Hector Hugh Munro (1870-1916), better known by the pen name Saki.  Munro was born in British Burma, where his father was an Inspector General for the Indian Imperial Police. Munro later served in the Burma police force himself, but he was forced to resign after he contracted malaria.  Near the end of his life, Munro joined the British Army and served in World War I.  He was killed in 1916, shot by a German sniper in France during the Battle of the Ancre

Munro’s writing career began as a journalist in England, but he is best known for his carefully crafted short stories.  The stories often satirized social conventions and frequently featured surprise endings.  Saki’s stories are often compared to those of American writer O’Henry (1862-1910), whose stories also feature endings with a surprising twist (1).

One particularly brilliant story by Saki is called “The Open Window.”  The story features a character named Frampton Nuttel, who is visiting the country in hopes of finding relief for his nervous condition.  Nuttel, with letters of introduction from his sister in hand, visits the home of Mrs. Sappleton.  While waiting for Mrs. Sappleton to come down, Nuttel talks with Sappleton’s niece, a precocious fifteen-year-old named Vera.  In the room where the two characters are sitting, a French door is kept open, despite the fact that it’s October.  Vera explains to Nuttel that the door is left open because Mrs. Sappleton is under the delusion that her husband and her brothers will return from hunting, despite the fact that the three men died three years ago, sinking into “a treacherous piece of bog.”

When Mrs. Sappleton arrives in the room and begins talking about the imminent return of her husband and brothers, Nuttel listens politely, but based on Vera’s explanation, he perceives his hostess to be deranged.

When Mrs. Sappleton announces the return of the hunters, Nuttel turns and sees three men approaching the French doors, accompanied by their hunting dog.  Thinking he is seeing ghosts, Nuttel leaps up, fleeing the house in horror.   At this point in the story, the reader realizes that Vera made up the story of the hunting tragedy simply to entertain herself.  Next, instead of explaining the trick she played on Nuttel to her aunt, she spins another tale on the spot to explain Nuttel’s odd behavior, saying that Nuttel was spooked by the dog:

He was once hunted into a cemetery somewhere on the banks of the Ganges by a pack of pariah dogs, and had to spend the night in a newly dug grave with the creatures snarling and grinning and foaming just above him.  

The story’s final line sums up Vera’s propensity for impromptu fiction:  “Romance at short notice was her specialty” (2).

                                                            Image by 愚木混株 Cdd20 from Pixabay 

The meaning of the word “romance” in the context in which Saki uses it does not mean romantic love.  Instead, in this context, romance relates to the long tradition of Medieval romances — imaginative and extravagant stories of the adventures of heroic characters.  Therefore, if he were writing today, Saki probably would have written:  “Imagination at short notice was her specialty.”  

The reality is that “Romance at short notice” is the specialty of most people.  However, unlike Vera, we’re not always consciously aware of what we’re doing.  We find it very difficult to look at facts without building a narrative to explain them. Psychologists call this the narrative fallacy; in essence, instead of having a Vera to make up stories for us, we make up our own, and then we believe them.  Very seldom do people say to themselves or others, “What might be some alternative explanations (narratives) that would explain this?”  For example, because Mr. Nuttel never questioned Vera’s narrative, she was able to manipulate him, making him believe that he really was seeing ghosts.

In the classic film Twelve Angry Men, a jury spends a hot day locked in a room trying to come up with a verdict in a murder case.  Based on the narratives provided by two witnesses, eleven of the jury members vote for a guilty verdict.  For them, the testimony (narrative) of what happened on the night of the murder becomes fact.  The twelfth juror, however, has the courage to challenge the narrative.  He doesn’t say that the accused is not guilty; instead, he challenges the other jurors to entertain alternative explanations (narratives).  By doing this, they begin to see other possible interpretations of what happened.  As a result, they begin to doubt the original narratives.  Instead of jumping to a hasty conclusion based on a single narrative, they are able to envision other possible narratives. By thinking rationally about these narratives, they arrive at reasonable doubt and -- spoiler alert -- submit a unanimous non-guilty verdict.

Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason:  What is the narrative fallacy, and how did one courageous juror overcome it to persuade his fellow jurors that a defendant was not guilty?

 

Challenge:  Short Notice, Short Fiction: What is something odd that a character might wear or carry, and why would the character wear or carry it?  Practice using your imagination at short notice.  Pick a number at random, from 1 to 7.  Then write the opening of a short story in which you, the narrator, give the backstory of why the character wears or carries the odd item.  Give the character a name, and also establish the setting of your story.

A character who wears a Santa hat in May

A character who wears a toga in January

A character who wears earmuffs in July

A character who always carries a rubber chicken

A character who always carries a cheese grater

A character who carries a guitar with no strings

A character who carries an open umbrella when there is no chance or sign of rain

 

ALSO ON THIS DAY:

-December 18, 1865:  The Thirteenth Amendment was formally adopted, ending slavery in the U.S.

-December 18, 1974:  Japanese soldier Teruo Nakamura was discovered hiding on the Indonesian island of Morotai. He was the last known Japanese holdout, surrendering 29 years after World War II had ended.

Sources:

1-Encyclopedia Britannica. Saki. 

2-Saki (1870-1916). The Open Window. Public Domain. East of the Web.com.