【正文】 即回應(yīng)?！澳愕那疤崾羌s會就如同吃東西?？赡悴皇堑案猓闶莻€男孩?！?3 I laughed with somewhat less amusement, hiding my dread that she39。d learned her lessons too well. A few more false steps would be my doom. I decided to change tactics and try flattery instead.我又笑了笑，不過不覺得那么有趣了，同時還不能表露出我害怕她學得太好了。再錯幾步我可就無法挽回了。我決定改變策略，轉(zhuǎn)而嘗試奉承她的辦法。34 Polly, I love you. Please say you39。ll go out with me. I39。m nothing without you.“波莉，我愛你。請答應(yīng)做我的女朋友，沒有你我什么也不是?！?5 Ad Misericordiam, she said.“文不對題，”她說。36 You certainly can discern a fallacy when you see it, I said, my hopes starting to crumble. But don39。t take them so literally. I mean this is all academic. You know the things you learn in school don39。t have anything to do with real life.“你還真是能在遇到邏輯謬誤時一一辨別它們了，”我說，心里的希望已經(jīng)開始動搖。“不過不要對它們太死板，我是說這都是些學術(shù)的東西。你知道，學校里學的東西和實際生活根本沒有什么聯(lián)系?！?7 Dicto Simpliciter, she said. Besides, you really should practice what you preach.“絕對判斷，”她說道，“而且，你自己教的東西應(yīng)該自己身體力行?！?8 I leaped to my feet, my temper flaring up. Will you or will you not go out with me?我一下跳了起來，怒火中燒，“你到底愿不愿意做我的女朋友？”39 No to your proposition, she replied.“我不愿意，”她答道。40 Why? I demanded.“為什么？”我追問道。41 I39。m more interested in a different petitioner — Rob and I are back together.“我對另一位求愛者更感興趣——羅伯和我重歸于好了。”42 With great effort, I said calmly, How could you give me the axe over Rob? Look at me, an ingenious student, a tremendous intellectual, a man with an assured future. Look at Rob, a muscular idiot, a guy who39。ll never know where his next meal is ing from. Can you give me one good reason why you should be with him?我極力地保持著平靜，說道：“你怎么會甩了我而選擇羅伯？看看我，一個聰明過人的學生，一個不同凡響的學者，一個前途無量的人。再看看羅伯，一個肌肉發(fā)達的蠢材，一個有了上頓沒下頓的家伙。你是否能給我一個充足的理由，為什么要選擇跟他？”43 Wow, what presumption! I39。ll put it in a way someone as brilliant as you can understand, retorted Polly, her voice dripping with sarcasm. Full disclosure — I like Rob in leather. I told him to say yes to you so he could have your jacket! “喔，這是什么假設(shè)??！為了讓像你這樣聰明的人能夠明白，我這么說吧，”波莉反駁道，聲音里充滿了諷刺，“事情的真相是——我喜歡羅伯穿皮衣。是我讓他同意你們的協(xié)議的，這樣他就能擁有你的夾克！”TextBWhy do smart people do dumb things?聰明人為何會做蠢事？1 Orthodox views prize intelligence and intellectual rigor highly in the modern realm of universities and tech industry jobs. One of the underlying assumptions of this value system is that smart people, by virtue of what they39。ve learned, will formulate better decisions. Often this is true. Yet psychologists who study human decisionmaking processes have uncovered cognitive biases mon to all people, regardless of intelligence, that can lead to poor decisions in experts and laymen alike.傳統(tǒng)觀念將智力和思維的縝密性看作現(xiàn)代大學領(lǐng)域和科技產(chǎn)業(yè)工作的重要素質(zhì)。這一價值體系所隱含的前提是，聰明人借助自己豐富的學識會作出更高明的決定。在大多數(shù)情況下，確實如此。但是，研究人類決策過程的心理學家們卻發(fā)現(xiàn)了每個人身上都常見的“認知偏差”。不管智力水平如何，這些認知偏差都會引導人們作出錯誤的決定，不論他們是專家還是門外漢。2 Thankfully these biases can be avoided. Understanding how and in what situations they occur can give you an awareness of your own limitations and allow you to factor them into your decisionmaking.好在這些偏差是可以避免的。只要知道這些偏差如何及在何種情況下發(fā)生，你就能意識到自身的缺陷，并在決策過程中考慮到這些因素的影響。3 One of the most mon biases is what is known as the fundamental attribution error. Through this people attribute the failures of others to character flaws and their own to mere circumstance, subconsciously considering their own characters to be stainless. Jenkins lost his job because of his inpetence。 I lost mine because of the recession. It also leads us to attribute our own success to our qualifications, discounting luck, while seeing others39。 success as the product of mere luck.最常見的偏差之一就是通常所說的“基本歸因錯誤”。犯這種錯誤的人會將別人的失敗歸因于性格缺陷，而將自己的失敗僅僅歸因于周遭環(huán)境，潛意識中認為自己的性格是完美無瑕的?！罢步鹚箒G掉了工作是因為他能力太差，我丟掉了工作則是因為經(jīng)濟衰退。”同樣，這種偏差也會讓我們將自己的成功歸功于自身素質(zhì)而不是運氣，而將別人的成功僅僅看作是運氣使然。4 In other words, we typically demand more accountability from others than we do from ourselves. Not only does this lead to petty judgments about other people, it also leads to faulty risk assessment when you assume that certain bad things only happen to others. For example, you might assume, without evidence, that the price of your house will go up even though 90 percent of them have dropped in price, because you yourself are more petent.換句話說，我們通常要求別人承擔更多的責任，而不是自己。這不僅導致我們心胸狹窄地對別人進行評價也會由于假定某種壞事只會發(fā)生在別人身上而致使我們做出錯誤的風險評判。舉一個例子，你可能會毫無根據(jù)地假定自己的房子會升值，哪怕周圍百分之九十的房子都已經(jīng)貶值了，因為你總認為自己的能力更強。5 Confirmation bias is sometimes found together with fundamental attribution error. This one has two parts. First, we tend to gather and rely upon information that only confirms our existing views. Second, we avoid or veto things that refute our preexisting hypotheses.“確定性偏差”有時會和“基本歸因錯誤”一并出現(xiàn)。這種偏差包含兩部分：第一，我們往往只收集且只依賴對我們的已有觀點起支持作用的信息；第二，我們回避或否認那些與自己之前所持的假設(shè)相左的信息。6 For example, imagine that you suspect your puter has been hacked. Every time it stalls or has a little error, you assume that it was triggered by a hacker and that your suspicions are valid. This bias plays an especially big role in rivalries between two opposing views. Each side partitions their own beliefs in a logicproof loop, and claims their opponent is failing to recognize valid points. Outwitting confirmation bias therefore requires exploring both sides of an argument with equal diligence.比如說，假設(shè)你懷疑自己的電腦受到了黑客攻擊，那么它每次死機或出個小錯，你都會認定是由黑客引起的，而且你認定自己的懷疑正確無誤。這種偏差在兩種敵對觀點的對抗中會起到尤其重要的作用。每一方都會把自己的觀點隔離出來，認為其在邏輯上無懈可擊，并聲稱他們的對手忽略了某些要點。所以，要克服“確定性偏差”，就要以同樣的努力認真探究論點的正反兩面。7 Similar to confirmation bias is the overconfidence bias. In an ideal world, we could be correct 100 percent of the time we were 100 percent sure about something, correct 80 percent of the time we were 80 percent sure about something, and so on. In reality, people39。s confidence vastly exceeds the accuracy of those judgments. This bias most frequently es into play in areas where someone has no direct evidence and must make a guess — estimating how many people are in a crowded plaza, for example, or how likely it will rain. To make matters worse, even when people are aware of overconfidence bias, they will still tend to overstate the chances that they are correct. Confidence is no pro