An interesting study from Science is reported today in the Guardian. A study has found that snap decisions – the sort of thing traditionally called “emotional” and products of “women’s intuition” – are often better than those that involve careful weighing of the facts of a problem, i.e. “rational” decisionmaking.
“Conscious thinkers were better able to make the best choice among simple products, whereas unconscious thinkers were better able to make the best choice among complex products,” wrote Dr Dijksterhuis …
The problem with thinking about things consciously is that you can only focus on a few things at once. In the face of a complex decision this can lead to giving certain factors undue importance. Thinking about something several times is also likely to produce slightly different evaluations, highlighting inconsistencies.”
It makes me think of the real estate theory that people decide within two minutes of reaching the front door whether or not they are going to buy a house – surely this sort of decision. It might not be as silly a method as it sounds.
So perhaps we could all just feel that global warming is happening, and dangerous, and do something about it?
In The Times today:
If mankind does not put its house in order, temperatures could have risen by 15C (27F) by the year 3000 and sea levels by more than 11 metres (36ft), flooding much of London, the team, from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, says in a report for the Environment Agency. Abrupt changes could make Britain much hotter, or even — such is the uncertainty of the predictions — first colder and then hotter.
This could happen if the North Atlantic current system collapsed, denying Britain the warming effect of the Gulf Stream. Ocean surface temperatures would fall by 3C (5.4F), but as the Arctic sea ice melted, they would rise again by 8C (14.4F) in an abrupt turnabout over a period of no more than about 20 years.
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