≫ Libro Everything Is Obvious *Once You Know the Answer Duncan J Watts 9780385531689 Books

Everything Is Obvious *Once You Know the Answer Duncan J Watts 9780385531689 Books

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Everything Is Obvious *Once You Know the Answer Duncan J Watts 9780385531689 Books

Duncan Watts has written an important and thought-provoking book on how ,,,

- Things that we think of as "common-sense" are actually quite complex, and our "common Sense" can often deceive our logic by applying simple causation to complex situations. For instance did the "Surge" in Iraq reduce the region violence or was it a much more complex combination of increased competency by the local police force, change in Iraqi leadership, and other unreported factors.

- We can't actually "Learn" from history since history does not provide us with testable situations. What does this mean? History only runs once... so we do not get the full array of potential outcomes.... we just see one. Therefore, we only learn about one of the possible outcomes - and since no two circumstances are absolutely identical we can not forward project conclusions. The best we can do is probable outcomes.

- influence - it may be a fallacy to assume that there is a select group of "influencers" who hold sway over the general public. While it may be true of Oprah (due to her role in media) it is not true over individuals. It is much more likely that chaos theory like scenarios determine the outcome of a scenario, product, or other thing

- Trying to improve models only offers slightly better predictability over very basic models. One of the examples shows that in predicting the outcome of NFL games simply picking the home team is *almost* accurate as any model that can be devised (when compared to complex Vegas models).

Lots of interesting examples to be sure, however "Everything is Obvious" is a very tedious read. I found myself interested in the examples but bogged down in the text. Rarely was I able to read more than 20 pages at one sitting So while I enjoyed the intellectual challenge I had a very difficult time retaining what I had read. While some books such as Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (P.S.) is very readable and easy to digest - I had a much harder time with Everything Is Obvious: *Once You Know the Answer. Call it writing style but "Everything is Obvious" reads much more like a classroom assignment.

Final Verdict - Very interesting material that is not presented in an interesting way... I know that doesn't make too much sense, but in my opinion the use of a ghost writer or other writer would have likely made this a full 5 star recommendation.

3 1/2 Stars


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Everything Is Obvious *Once You Know the Answer Duncan J Watts 9780385531689 Books Reviews

... which is not meant to minimize it at all. The content was enjoyable, thought and question prompting, and noteworthy from time to time (literally).
The book introduces successfully why social science has come of age to start and use the tools of social media to investigate and observe human behavior. Our discovered physical sciences provide an example of successful investigative work that have generated principles and theories that have advanced our human culture over the past three centuries. It’s time to start with social sciences.
I found the vast majority of this book interesting in its examination of what we think we know versus what we really do know. Understanding how we interpret events to have them make sense to us, and then understanding that we are assuming many things based on our point of view which is likely not relevant at all was quite interesting. The book makes you think about things perhaps more dispassionately.
Whether you are rich or poor, political left or right, God-worshipping or atheist, a scientist, parent, cashier, C.E.O, customer service rep., fast food worker, this book is for EVERYONE! We all believe so strongly in our, well, beliefs, that we rarely give others the time of day or the benefit of a doubt. The author challenges us to consider-, even for a moment-the possibility that everything is not always as it seems, and that we may all be far more ALIKE than we are different.
Whenever our government leaders fail to solve a problem such as reducing unemployment or stopping terrorism, a lot of people, including some fairly learned pundits, complain that the solution would be easy if our leaders just used some common sense. Similarly, when business decisions go poorly, such as a heavily promoted new product failing, critics say that the mistake could easily have been avoided if the company's CEO had just used common sense. But, as "Everything is Obvious," a fascinating book by Duncan Watts, points out, applying "common sense" answers to major political and economic problems is equally, if not more, unlikely to yield a good result.

Watts begins by pointing out the difference between individual “common sense” decisions and attempting to use those same solutions on a business-wide or society-wide basis. Looking in all directions before driving into traffic makes an accident less likely because you only need to take into account a few other drivers over a limited period of time. The nation’s economy, on the other hand, is affected by thousands of businesses and millions of individuals throughout the world, interacting in a highly complex manner. And, as Watts notes over and over, groups operate in a vastly different manner than individuals do.

In “Everything is Obvious,” Watts explores and debunks many of the common myths that affect “commons sense” thinking. He notes the tendency to try to explain a highly successful phenomenon, like the “Harry Potter” books, simply by listing its attributes. In essence, it’s an argument that “Harry Potter” succeeded because it was more like “Harry Potter” than anything else, and not how or why any or all of those attributes contributed to the success. Part of the reason for blockbusters like “Potter” is that success breeds success. The more people who like something, the more that others will want to try it and find themselves liking it as well. He points to an experiment in which people were asked to select among a variety of songs to download. Some proved more popular than others, of course. But, when people saw how many people had already downloaded each of the songs, the popular ones became much more popular as a result.

The music experiment is one of the reasons why finding answers to sociologically problems has proved more difficult than finding answers to physical ones, Watts notes that physical phenomena can be easily measured and their relationships determined. Once we had accurate telescopes and measuring devices, early astronomers measured the movements of stars and planets, and eventually Newton promulgated his laws. Similarly, in medicine, we can determine if a particular drug is effective in fighting a disease by performing a controlled experiment. Unfortunately, as Watts points out, you can’t invade half of Iraq to determine whether it’s the right thing to do. Sociologists and historians can examine history to determine what happened, but that result may well have been a fluke, since you only fight a war one time. Further, it’s almost always impossible to isolate a single reason, or even the combination of reasons, for why something succeeded or failed.

From a literary standpoint, “Everything Is Obvious” is a highly entertaining read. Watts fills the book with familiar anecdotes (Sony’s failed decision to push Betamax instead of Matushita’s VHS format) and other not-so-familiar ones (how the theft of the Mona Lisa in the early 20th century contributed to its popularity). Trivia buffs will have hours of fun just going through the book for its entertainment value alone. But, along the way, Watts is able to poke holes in some very commonly held misconceptions that affect not just the thinking of the average person but those making decisions as well. And, by the way, the “representative person” myth, namely that you seek to determine the behavior of a group by isolating a representative person and figuring out how and why he or she acts is doomed to failure simply because it ignores the group dynamic.

As for finding solutions to the “common sense” problem, Watts’s book is somewhat short on answers, in large part because the types of problems he addresses still often aren’t susceptible to scientific solutions in practice. Fortunately, with the advent of the Internet and social media, we can now perform some experiments, like the music sampling one, on a large enough scale and with enough variations, to begin to get some answers. And, as he points out, companies that already practice “measure and react” planning are finding a lot of success.

I enjoyed “Everything Is Obvious” a great deal, although at times I found Watts a bit more interested in giving readers the benefit of all the “goodies” his research had unearthed as opposed to writing a more disciplined, highly structured book. So, it’s possible to lose sight of the forest for the trees at times here. However, this book is not a doctoral dissertation or a manual for CEO’s and planners. Instead, it’s a breezy attempt to give the average person better insight into how and why we try, and usually fail, to solve some major problems through “common sense.” And, while it’s not an answer to many problems, common sense tells me that a lot of people will have fun reading “Everything is Obvious.”
Duncan Watts has written an important and thought-provoking book on how ,,,

- Things that we think of as "common-sense" are actually quite complex, and our "common Sense" can often deceive our logic by applying simple causation to complex situations. For instance did the "Surge" in Iraq reduce the region violence or was it a much more complex combination of increased competency by the local police force, change in Iraqi leadership, and other unreported factors.

- We can't actually "Learn" from history since history does not provide us with testable situations. What does this mean? History only runs once... so we do not get the full array of potential outcomes.... we just see one. Therefore, we only learn about one of the possible outcomes - and since no two circumstances are absolutely identical we can not forward project conclusions. The best we can do is probable outcomes.

- influence - it may be a fallacy to assume that there is a select group of "influencers" who hold sway over the general public. While it may be true of Oprah (due to her role in media) it is not true over individuals. It is much more likely that chaos theory like scenarios determine the outcome of a scenario, product, or other thing

- Trying to improve models only offers slightly better predictability over very basic models. One of the examples shows that in predicting the outcome of NFL games simply picking the home team is *almost* accurate as any model that can be devised (when compared to complex Vegas models).

Lots of interesting examples to be sure, however "Everything is Obvious" is a very tedious read. I found myself interested in the examples but bogged down in the text. Rarely was I able to read more than 20 pages at one sitting So while I enjoyed the intellectual challenge I had a very difficult time retaining what I had read. While some books such as Freakonomics A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (P.S.) is very readable and easy to digest - I had a much harder time with Everything Is Obvious *Once You Know the Answer. Call it writing style but "Everything is Obvious" reads much more like a classroom assignment.

Final Verdict - Very interesting material that is not presented in an interesting way... I know that doesn't make too much sense, but in my opinion the use of a ghost writer or other writer would have likely made this a full 5 star recommendation.

3 1/2 Stars