the evolving mind

Talk about bad science writing, check this out: Our Unconscious Brain Makes The Best Decisions Possible.

Does the unconscious brain exist on a higher plane of our spinal column? I wonder — was this piece of poor reporting intentionally penned in a manner to give New Agers a chubby in their over-extending-the-meaning-of-science-findings chakra?

The article starts off with this doozy of a statement:

Researchers at the University of Rochester have shown that the human brain—once thought to be a seriously flawed decision maker—is actually hard-wired to allow us to make the best decisions possible with the information we are given.

So all those folks at roulette tables in Las Vegas should leave the “red” or “black” decision up to their unconscious brain? What about the decision to even book a flight in the first place to that Mecca for the statistically-impaired? Should that decision be left to the unconscious brain as well? What about the decision on whether or not to have a second, third and fourth martini?

What the researchers did find is that most of their subjects were better at estimating a large-number solution to a question of “probabilistic distributions” when they viewed a brief selection of data versus much more data.

Pouget says a probabilistic decision-making system like this has several advantages. The most important is that it allows us to reach a reasonable decision in a reasonable amount of time.

And why didn’t the heading to an article discussing their finding reflect that idea? Instead, the title read, Our Unconscious Brain Makes The Best Decisions Possible.

Oh please.

Technorati Links: brain, critical thinking

Trackback URI | Comments RSS