thinking critically

To me there is no level of the importance of research. The way i see it, we would have nothing as we do today if people hadn't gone out and researched. Would America even exists if somebody hadn't said, "hey lets sail the other way maybe we can get there faster". Research is huge, everything we base our lives on today is based on past peoples research, and the future will depends on people going out and expanding our knowledge. Look at the big craze for alternative fuels, we all ready have some great ideas out there, hydrogen power, how are we going to fit that into a affordable car, with research and development. I hope to someday become a mechanical engineer someday and i hope to invent or improve something that will make our living better. Research is of the utmost importance.

While reading on Psyblog i found a very interesting blog titled, "why do we do dumb or irrational things?" I found this interesting because i find myself asking this same question. Its pretty funny I think when people say "why would you do such a thing?" Well if you don't know how would I. In the blog it lists 10 "insightful stories" about why people might do dumb things with out realizing it. The first one is the best i believe the "halo effect" it states that because we see Hollywood stars as people above us we might also assume that there are also smarter than us. How untrue, yea Brittany Spears is a genius in Hollywood, and i can fly. I found this blog to be very interesting, and i really could relate it to my life.

One of the things i learned while reading this chapter was about overconfidence. I think this is important because i can relate. Just as the people talked about in the book, they made decisions a head of time and were a 100% sure that they were correct, but really they weren't. Just like a test i thought was going to be so easy and when i had taken it, i went through it as if it was nothing, guaranteeing that it is correct to myself and get the results back to find i got only 80% correct. If only i would have been a little more concerned about it i would have really thought it through and done better.

Another thing i learn from this chapter is the placebo effect. I have always wanted to learn about this, i have heard of studies that show people are given basically vitamins that are said to help them study. I find this important because it shows how you make your brain rely on something to insure that you do well. Could you just saying i will study and it will all come back to me during the test be enough. No. So we rely on basically nothing to give are selves that confidence that we had in us all along. I couldn't stop reading about it.

Finally i learned about measures of variations. This important/useful in so many ways, mathematically and psychologically. You can use it to understand peoples habits, like what time they would get to work or what time they show up to school. I think this would be a good way to test habits, and you need measures of variations so that's why i believe it is important.

Three door dilemma

For such a simple game, it was fun i thought. It makes you want to play more, before i started it said play 20 times, i was thinking there is no way i am going to play this 20 times by the time i looked down i had played it 34 times. I thought for sure i had a pattern figured out and just like that it was broken. I found it to be really addicting.