The Population Bomb shared Paul Ehrlich’s predictions about the future. After his doom-laden warnings about mass starvation and the need for population control, by compulsion if necessary, Ehrlich asked, “What if I’m wrong?” What if his Malthusian thinking is a mistake? (See here for Malthus). The author was trying to make the point that it…
Category: Assumptions
People Aren’t Getting Worse
Ever since I was in secondary school (high school in US terms) I have thought it is bizarre that people think that humans are getting worse. Adam Mastroianni and Dan Gilbert wrote a paper in Nature on this phenomenon which they call The Illusion of Moral Decline. In many ways, they have written the paper…
Surviving In The Misinformation Age
David Helfand has written a book designed to illuminate thinking that will help spot problems in the public discourse. He gives a guide to surviving in the misinformation age. Big Issues Around Scientific Understanding He is aiming for a popular book, but not too much. He doesn’t dumb it down. At times I felt he…
Stereotyping And Market Entry Strategy
I have a paper just published in Customer Needs and Solutions on stereotyping and market entry strategy. This paper has quite a history, with early versions arising from my dissertation (13 years ago). It was quite a journey. The final paper looks nothing like where it started. (For example, it contains a minor nod to…
The Data Gender Gap
Caroline Criado Perez’s book focuses on the challenges facing women in a world where the primary gatherers of data have been/usually still are men. It highlights the problem of data heavy systems not being as fair as the idea of impartial ‘math’ might imply. (See also here). The problem of what Perez calls the data…
A Positive View Of The World Using Facts
I thought Han Rosling’s book (written with his son and daughter in law) ‘Factfulness‘ was wonderful. It was engagingly written but the real joy was the author’s ability to explain the world using data rather than hunches and pre-conceptions. It may come as a great surprise to many that Rosling’s take on the world is…
A Defense Of Enlightenment Thinking
Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment Now is a wonderful book. Pinker’s work is precisely the sort of thing that we need more of. I.e. writing from knowledgeable people able to see the big picture. The big picture in Enlightenment Now is about the biggest picture one can have. It is a defense of enlightenment thinking. The Enlightenment:…
Testing Psychic Powers
One of the most ‘interesting’ academic papers of recent times is Daryl Bem’s paper in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (a reputable journal) on psi. (Yes, psychic phenomenon, he was interested in testing psychic powers). He purported to show that people had the ability to ‘feel’ the future and so predict it better…
Do Facts Matter To Persuasion?
One of the major debates in marketing is: Do Facts Matter To Persuasion? The good news is that it will never be finished. Sometimes they do, sometimes less so is probably the answer. Still, it generates debate. Understanding People Who Don’t Think Like Us I really wanted to like Scott Adams’ Win Bigly. What was…
Behaviourally Informed Government Policy
In a companion piece to the article published on the BEAR (Behavioural Economics In Action at Rotman) website Dilip Soman, Katie Chen, and myself have an article in the Spring issue of the Rotman Management magazine. This is an issue completely dedicated to behavioral insights. It has some major academic names in the field — Richard Thaler, George…
