| I apologize up front for my abrasive style, but | | | | more data. |
| fortunately I have not substituted my emotional | | | | From my perspective, Business Intelligence and Data |
| strength with a lifeless 'super crunching' machine, | | | | Mining produce an unintelligible mess of data that has |
| despite being a software architect. | | | | little to no meaning for business decisions, automated |
| | | | or not. Imagine that we create codified |
| Ayres says that humans put far too much trust in | | | | decision-making knowledge based on abstract |
| their intuition and would often be better off listening | | | | statistical illusions? That will ruin each and every |
| to the numbers. Right, but these are mostly given to | | | | business. Humans solve this problem of |
| them by large corporations and the government. It is | | | | decision-making on inaccurate data by use of an |
| statistics, so it MUST BE true! | | | | emotionally weighted pattern-matching ability of the |
| This book promotes - with a few examples but no | | | | brain - its called INTUITION. Read "Gut Feelings: The |
| proof whatsoever - the idea that our life is being | | | | Intelligence of the Unconscious" by Gerd Gigerenzer. |
| improved by 'experts' who use statistical analysis and | | | | Emotions play an important part in that process. Are |
| prediction. But worse is to come as in chapter 8 | | | | not strong managers and entrepreneurs mostly very |
| Ayres writes about statistical standard deviation and | | | | emotional, even unreasonable people? Antonio |
| how it applies it to IQ, student grades and the stock | | | | Damasio - today Professor of Neuroscience at the |
| market. I propose that IQ measurements and | | | | University of Southern California - has long |
| student grades are dehumanizing and tell us nothing | | | | researched neural systems for memory, language, |
| about how our children will fare in life! When will we | | | | emotion, and decision-making. In his 1994 book, |
| finally stop to discriminate humans in this horrible | | | | "Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human |
| way? | | | | Brain" he documents his discovery that "humans with |
| To understand the stupidity in stock markets I | | | | dysfunctional emotional centers face grave difficulties |
| suggest to read "Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden | | | | in decision-making." |
| Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets" by Nassim | | | | To improve decision making with the help of |
| Nicholas Taleb. If the 'experts' using Super Crunching | | | | computing we need to invent technology to model |
| are so smart Mr. Ayres, why do we have a crisis | | | | emotional human decision-making far beyond logical |
| with bad real estate loans in the US? | | | | rules. While Ayres mentions Neural Networks and |
| There is nothing wrong with using statistics to find | | | | Pattern Matching he fails to understand that both do |
| out what happened in the past. One has to be very | | | | not need masses of data but REAL decision-points |
| careful to collect that information and interpret it. | | | | linked to real data. It is not important how many |
| Ayres uses numerous mostly disjointed examples | | | | people took a certain decision, but what data pattern |
| that are supposed to show how powerful and | | | | was used by each individual to come to the decision. |
| accurate statistics are. He mixes statistical data | | | | The Google-Ad testing Ayres did for the book title is |
| mining and interactive random testing and other | | | | very basic decision point sampling but he misses to |
| methods and calls it Super Crunching. None of these | | | | distinguish it. |
| methods provide better decision making (a.k.a. as | | | | Ayres asks a few critical questions but then claims |
| being SMART), rather the opposite. For statistics to | | | | that Super Crunching is better than intuiton. Decision |
| be useful, data filtering is the key. Therefore a | | | | making based on abstract statistical data illusions is |
| human conscious decision has to be made | | | | one of the reasons why governments and large |
| beforehand about what data is going to be used. | | | | corporations are so inept. The sizes of organizations |
| After the data has been collected human intuitive | | | | in business and government have simply become too |
| (experience based) decisions have to be used to act. | | | | large to be managed well. The reason is greed for |
| The same intuitive decision can be made by simply | | | | money and power and not the wished for economies |
| exposing the decision maker to a subset of that | | | | of scale. Statistical data analysis is no more than a |
| information. Those decisions can be made in real time | | | | desperate try to solve that. The 'expert elite' claims |
| while statistics are about the past. I am not talking | | | | they know what they are doing. Read Thomas |
| about normal just-in-time warehousing logistics as | | | | Sowell's "Knowledge and Decisions" and "The Vision |
| used by the likes of Walmart. The most successful | | | | of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation As a Basis for |
| methods to improve decision making limit information | | | | Social Policy" to understand that it is doomed to fail. |
| gathering to the relevant detail and do not provide | | | | |