Predictable Irrationality

Following up on this, just a couple of short comments. The book is readable, and some of Ariely’s insights are interesting. But you just know somehow that a lot of our tax dollars funded some of it, and it’s not really profound enough to make you think it justifies that. Ariely makes observations of various behaviors, and then examines the rationality behind them to uncover a more irrational basis. To do this, he sets up tests. These tests, while sometimes revealing, can hardly be described as scientific experiments, and many are biased in such a way as to confirm his conjectures. All in all, that makes for so much witch doctory. It’s an interesting book, but don’t confuse it with authentic science.