false<![CDATA[How We Decide]]>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255913904m/3860977.jpg38609779The first book to use the unexpected discoveries of neuroscience to help us make the best decisions.<br><br>Since Plato, philosophers have described the decision-making process as either rational or emotional: we carefully deliberate, or we blink and go with our gut. But as scientists break open the mind's black box with the latest tools of neuroscience, they re discovering that this is not how the mind works. Our best decisions are a finely tuned blend of both feeling and reason and the precise mix depends on the situation. When buying a house, for example, it s best to let our unconscious mull over the many variables. But when we re picking a stock, intuition often leads us astray. The trick is to determine when to use the different parts of the brain, and to do this, we need to think harder (and smarter) about how we think.<br><br>Jonah Lehrer arms us with the tools we need, drawing on cutting-edge research as well as the real-world experiences of a wide range of deciders from airplane pilots and hedge fund investors to serial killers and poker players.<br><br>Lehrer shows how people are taking advantage of the new science to make better television shows, win more football games, and improve military intelligence. His goal is to answer two questions that are of interest to just about anyone, from CEOs to firefighters: How does the human mind make decisions? And how can we make those decisions better?3906123book922009How We Decidetotal:535|5:119|4:245|3:136|2:30|1:5|5352048194617655falsefalseThu Feb 26 00:00:00 -0800 2009Sat Feb 14 15:28:59 -0800 2009Thu Feb 26 15:47:34 -0800 2009 Things I learned:
People need to use both rational thought and emotion to make the best decisions.
We need to make our own mi...more...]]>
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The brain is our defining organ, giving us not only self-awareness, but also the ability to wonder about ourselves, our world, and our own mortality. It is, nevertheless, a mystery why brains work better than others---why some of us make consistently good decisions, and others never seem to learn fr...more...]]>
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With Blink, The Tipping Point, and Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell has cornered the market on popular studies of human behavior. But Jonah Lehrer's How We Decide holds its own with Gladwell, Stephen Pinker, Daniel Dennett, and the host of science writers increasingly focused on the complexities of the hu...more...]]>
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51falsefalseFri May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009Sat May 23 07:27:33 -0700 2009Sat May 23 07:52:29 -0700 2009
How We Decide is a very important book. I've read many good books about the human brain, but this is perhaps the most up-to-date, accessible, and entertaining one yet. Jonah Lehrer uses fascinating real-life stories to illustrate what scientists have so-far discovered about why we do what we do and ...more...]]>
51falsefalseThu May 14 00:00:00 -0700 2009Sat May 09 14:37:28 -0700 2009Thu May 14 15:57:53 -0700 2009
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40falsefalseThu Aug 20 00:00:00 -0700 2009Tue Aug 11 20:13:45 -0700 2009Sat Aug 22 18:50:32 -0700 2009
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20falsefalseSat Oct 10 00:00:00 -0700 2009Wed Oct 14 09:26:12 -0700 2009Wed Oct 14 11:36:09 -0700 2009 I don't know if it needed better editing, but I was not finding any consistent narrative that drove the book forward, and that's a shame. There were many instances whe...more...]]>
50falsefalseFri Jul 24 00:00:00 -0700 2009Sun Jul 12 11:36:13 -0700 2009Fri Jul 24 06:55:50 -0700 2009 So you think you are in control and make rational decisions? Think again. Scientists have only recently started to see how the brain works when we make decisions. Lehrer does a great job of communicating science’s most recent studies on decision maki...more...]]>
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30falsefalseMon Sep 28 00:00:00 -0700 2009Tue Sep 29 12:54:47 -0700 2009Tue Sep 29 12:57:23 -0700 2009
How We Decide is expertly composed and succinct, but I can't but feel discontent with the fact that I've already encountered nearly all of Lehrer's illustrative examples in other media (e.g. Diane Rehm interviewed gambling addicts created by L-Dopa treatment for Parkinson's disease; Norman Maclean's...more...]]>
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40falsefalseWed Mar 25 00:00:00 -0700 2009Sun Mar 08 11:04:40 -0700 2009Wed Mar 25 21:54:46 -0700 2009
This book is only 250 pages, but it's dense. Lehrer boils down the science of the brain...more...]]>
50falsefalseWed Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009Sun Mar 22 08:08:19 -0700 2009Thu Apr 09 07:46:33 -0700 2009
How We Decide belongs to the same class of books as Gladwell's Blink and Outliers yet is ultimately more satisfying because it eschews anecdotal analysis for scientific explanation.
It you like Malcolm Gladwell's writing or enjoyed Sway...more...]]>
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40falsefalseThu Apr 23 00:00:00 -0700 2009Wed Apr 01 06:59:57 -0700 2009Thu Apr 23 14:54:09 -0700 2009
Blink and it was by Malcolm Gladwell. The two books are different to a certain degree: How We Decide was much more focused on how the brain works to make decisions, while Blink focused on the types of decisions we can make without thinking.
I...more...]]>
40falsefalseTue Mar 10 00:00:00 -0700 2009Sat Mar 07 19:11:26 -0800 2009Tue Mar 17 12:21:17 -0700 2009
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