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To be fair to Kahneman by 2012 he did come around and recognize that there were serious issues with "priming" research[0]. The chapter on priming in "Thinking

To be fair to Kahneman by 2012 he did come around and recognize that there were serious issues with "priming" research[0]. The chapter on priming in "Thinking Fast Thinking Slow" completely ruined the book for me. The very premise of the book is (paraphrased): "I will teach you to overcome bias and think rationally" and then here is an entire chapter that should make anyone with a critical eye strongly question the research. Even if one is ignorant of the issues these experiments have with reproducability the experiment design itself is terrible, and there seems to be no way to draw the wild conclusion that are drawn. Not to mention that if priming actually worked as claimed you would see it become a hotter topic among marketers than SEO. I fail to see how a world expert on cognitive bias can fail to question such an obvious fault in a topic that he covers in his own book. [0] http://www.nature.com/news/nobel-laureate-challenges-psychologists-to-clean-up-their-act-1.11535 http://www.nature.com/news/nobel-laureate-challenges-psychol...

freshhawk 12y ago
I have to say it's nice to hear someone else say that. That chapter ruined the book for me as well. But everywhere I looked I found nothing but praise for it, even in the most skeptical camps. I also found the arguments throughout the book to be very focused on "I went for a walk with my colleague and we discussed X, we came up with a plausible just so story and we are very intelligent so that's that figured out." rather than an emphasis on evidence, so I was primed to dislike the book from the start but I figured that was caused by coming from an economics background rather than a science background so was trying to let it go.
d136o 12y ago
Indeed, I had a very strong feeling that the quote came from the book and waited until I had a chance to log into amazon and search for the text within the book. In pages 56-57 of this NYTimes best seller you will find this gem. I remember wincing when I read it, repelled by the idea that I "[have] no choice but to accept that the major conclusions of these studies are true." I picked up the book with an open mind but was turned off by citation after citation of what felt like were probably very weak experiments. The worst part is that this type of book, which must have sold millions (?) of copies, perpetuates possibly mistaken ideas and overstates the strength of the "effects" studied.

freshhawk 12y ago

I have to say it's nice to hear someone else say that. That chapter ruined the book for me as well. But everywhere I looked I found nothing but praise for it, even in the most skeptical camps. I also found the arguments throughout the book to be very focused on "I went for a walk with my colleague and we discussed X, we came up with a plausible just so story and we are very intelligent so that's that figured out." rather than an emphasis on evidence, so I was primed to dislike the book from the start but I figured that was caused by coming from an economics background rather than a science background so was trying to let it go.

d136o 12y ago

Indeed, I had a very strong feeling that the quote came from the book and waited until I had a chance to log into amazon and search for the text within the book. In pages 56-57 of this NYTimes best seller you will find this gem. I remember wincing when I read it, repelled by the idea that I "[have] no choice but to accept that the major conclusions of these studies are true." I picked up the book with an open mind but was turned off by citation after citation of what felt like were probably very weak experiments. The worst part is that this type of book, which must have sold millions (?) of copies, perpetuates possibly mistaken ideas and overstates the strength of the "effects" studied.