Quotes from Leonard Mlodinow

medieval scholars made surprising progress, despite living in an age in which people routinely judged the truth of statements not according to empirical evidence but by how well they fit into their preexisting system of religion-based beliefs—a culture that is inimical

kendini bilmek hem kabullenme hem deÄŸiÅŸim için ilk ad?md?r

There is therefore a fundamental clash between our need to feel we are in control and our ability to recognize randomness.

It is dangerous to judge ability by short-term results.

People expect good luck to follow bad luck, or they worry that bad will follow good.

medieval scholars made surprising progress, despite living in an age in which people routinely judged the truth of statements not according to empirical evidence but by how well they fit into their preexisting system of religion-based beliefs—a culture that is inimical to science as we know it today.

To the voters in 1960, the name Nikita Khrushchev carried great emotional significance. To these students, he sounded like just another hockey player.

Langer showed again and again how the need to feel in control interferes with the accurate perception of random events.

As the psychologist Jonathan Haidt put it, there are two ways to get at the truth: the way of the scientist and the way of the lawyer. Scientists gather evidence, look for regularities, form theories explaining their observations, and test them. Attorneys begin with a conclusion they want to convince others of and then seek evidence that supports it, while also attempting to discredit evidence that doesn't.

In particular, what seems special about humans is our desire and ability to understand what other people think and feel. Called "theory of mind," or "ToM," this ability gives humans a remarkable power to make sense of other people's past behavior and to predict how their behavior will unfold given their present or future circumstances.

Or as the Nobel laureate Max Born wrote, "Chance is a more fundamental conception than causality."3

Ever notice that when you lack sleep, things that seemed important before no longer seem to matter so much? Setting up and programming the coffeemaker so the coffee will be ready when I wake up the next day seems like a great idea at 9:00 p.m., but at 2:00 a.m.

other words, the movement of the dye molecule was virtually impossible to predict before the fact even though it was relatively easy to understand afterward.

Thomas Edison is often said to have advised, "To have a great idea, have a lot of them.

This again is a probabilistic process whose future is difficult to predict but whose past is easy to understand.

The first step in battling the illusion of control is to be aware of it.

whenever we have a new idea—instead of searching for ways to prove our ideas wrong, we usually attempt to prove them correct.

Psychologists call this the confirmation bias

That is, if the winners (at the left of the graph) continued to do better than the others, and the losers (at the right) worse, this graph should be nearly identical to the last.

We afford automatic respect to superstar business moguls, politicians, and actors and to anyone flying around in a private jet, as if their accomplishments must reflect unique qualities not shared by those forced to eat commercial-airline food.

The confirmation bias has many unfortunate consequences in the real world.

talepte bulunan kiÅŸi ne kadar aç?k veya yetersiz olduÄŸu fark etmeksizin bir sebep sunduÄŸunda, rutin taleplerin kabul edilmesi daha olas?d?r.

recent years psychologists have found that the ability to persist in the face of obstacles is at least as important a factor in success as talent.

When a teacher initially believes that one student is smarter than another, he selectively focuses on evidence that tends to confirm the hypothesis.