p.2 A kluge is a clumsy or inelegant - yet surprisingly effective - solution
to a problem.
p.3 MacGyver's shoes and Rube Goldberg's pencil sharpeners are nothing,
though, compared to perhaps the most fantastic kluge of them all - the human mind, a quirky yet magnificent
product of the entirely blind process of evolution.
p.5 a careful look at biology reveals kluge after kluge.
p.6 Nature is prone to making kluges because it doesn't "care" whether its
products are perfect or elegant. If something works, it spreads. If it doesn't work, it dies out.
p.51 as a rough guide, our thinking can be divided into two streams, one
that is fast, automatic, and largely unconscious, and another that is slow, deliberate, and judicious.
The former stream, which I will refer to as the...
reflexive system, seems to do its thing rapidly and automatically, with or without conscious awareness. The latter
stream I will call the deliberative system, because that's what it does: it deliberates, it considers,
it chews over the facts
The reflexive system is... found in some form in virtually every multicellular
organism. It underlies many of our everyday actions... The deliberative system, which consciously considers the logic of our
goals and choices, is... found in only a handful of species, perhaps only humans.
p.52 the reflexive system... Most of the time, it does what it does well,
even if (by definition) its decisions are not the product of careful thought.
p.52 The reflexive system... is about making snap judgments based on experience
p.94 In the final analysis, evolution has left us with two systems,
each with different capabilities: a reflexive system that excels in handling the routine and a deliberative system
that can help us think outside the box.
Wisdom will come ultimately from recognizing and harmonizing
the strengths and weaknesses of the two, discerning the situations in which our decisions are likely to be
based, and devision strategies to overcome those biases.
p.124 This sort of automatic evaluation, largely the
domain of the reflexive system, is remarkably sophisticated.
p.125 Why do humans fool around so much when there is, inevitably,
work to be done? Although other species have been known to play, no other species goofs around so much, or in so
many ways.
p.150 diagnosis remains an inexact science.
p.161-172 True Wisdom... 1. Whenever possible, consider alternative hypotheses... 2. Reframe
the question... 3. Always remember that correlation does not entail causation... 4. Never forget the size of your
sample... 5. Anticipate your own impulsivity and pre-commit... 6. Don't just set goals. Make contingency plans... 7. Whenever
possible, don't make important decisions when you are tired or have other things on your mind... 8. Always weigh benefits
against costs... 9. Imagine that your decisions may be spot-checked... 10. Distance yourself... 11. Beware
the vivid, the personal, and the anecdotal... 12. Pick your spots... 13. Try to be rational
p.165 One of the simplest things we can do to improve our capacity
to think and reason is to discipline ourselves to consider alternative hypotheses. Something as simple as merely
forcing ourselves to list alternatives can improve the reliability of reasoning.
p.175 Scientists didn't even determine that the brain was the source of
thinking until the seventeenth century.
