Four Brain Traps You Should Avoid

How to avoid being just plain wrong in your work

Logic — and I mean the mathematical discipline of logic — is a truly pure and beautiful subject which I studied many years ago. As a result, I am always very aware that human beings can make the most basic logical errors in their reasoning, and this can lead to decisions and actions which can be just plain wrong. Analytics professionals are no different. Mathematical logic is not really taught very well on analytics programs, and in the rush to confirm a model or produce output, people rarely stop to think if their approach passes logical scrutiny.

In this article I want to outline four common logical reasoning errors that people make. When I first introduce them, each will sound obvious, and your reaction might be ‘I’d never do that’. But when I then introduce a typical situation where I commonly see this error, you might think twice.

1. ‘Affirming the Consequent’ fallacy

Let’s imagine I told you something about myself:

Whenever I have a deadline to meet, I get anxious.

If you sense that I am anxious you might be tempted to conclude that I have a deadline to meet. That might not be true. There may be reasons other than an impending deadline that are…