Irrationality: The enemy within - Softcover

Stuart Sutherland

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1780660251 ISBN 13: 9781780660257

Publisher: Pinter & Martin Ltd., 2013

Synopsis

New, 21st anniversary edition, with a new foreword by Ben Goldacre, author of Bad Science and Bad Pharma, and an afterword by James Ball, covering developments in our understanding of irrationality over the last two decades.

Why do doctors, army generals, high-ranking government officials and other people in positions of power make bad decisions that cause harm to others? Why do prizes serve no useful function? Why are punishments so ineffective? Why is interviewing such an unsatisfactory method of selection?

Irrationality is a challenging and thought-provoking book that draws on statistical concepts, probability theory and a mass of intriguing research to expose the failings of human reasoning, judgement and intuition. The author explores the inconsistencies of human behaviour, and discovers why even the experts find it so hard to make rational and unbiased decisions.

Written with clarity and occasional flashes of wry humour, this classic volume is just as relevant today as when it was first written twenty-one years ago.

About this title

Review:

Terrifying, sometimes comic, very readable and totally enthralling --Oliver Sacks

Book Description:

Superb! The thinking man's self help book; it left me infinitely wiser, but I know it won't change my behaviour one tiny bit.

About this edition

• Publisher: Pinter & Martin Ltd.
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1780660251
• ISBN 13: 9781780660257
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 356