February 2026
- Feb 19, 2026ConceptsAnalytical Models vs IntuitionGary Klein found that expert firefighters and commanders rarely compare options, instead recognizing a situation and simulating one response, while Kahneman documented where confident intuition fails. Their 2009 joint paper sets the condition: trust intuition only where real practice meets a high-validity environment with fast, clear feedback. The page contrasts calibrated weather forecasters with stock analysts and revisits Meehl's actuarial formulas.
- Feb 17, 2026ConceptsProblem-Solving Frameworks Used by ExpertsEight frameworks with the problem type each one fits, plus where each breaks: 5 Whys, Ishikawa fishbone, MECE, issue trees, hypothesis-driven investigation, first principles, pre-mortem and 80/20. The research behind the structure-first habit is De Groot's 1965 chess study, which found grandmasters searched fewer moves than weaker players, not more. Their edge was scoping to a few promising candidates and going deep on those.
- Feb 16, 2026ConceptsSystems Thinking Models ExplainedSterman's Beer Distribution Game is the cleanest demonstration: across thousands of runs with MBA students, executives, and working supply chain managers, players reliably generate huge inventory swings even when consumer demand is flat, because they respond to local information without accounting for the delays. The page also compares six modeling approaches and ranks Meadows' leverage points from parameters up to paradigm.
December 2025
July 2025
- Jul 18, 2025ExplainersWhat Is Critical Thinking? Beginner ExplanationA plain-language introduction to critical thinking as five linked skills: questioning assumptions, judging evidence quality, spotting fallacies, generating alternative explanations, and catching your own bias. Keith Stanovich's work found IQ correlates roughly 0.2 with critical thinking performance, so raw intelligence does not supply it. The guide also covers lateral reading, the technique professional fact-checkers used to beat students and historians at judging sources.
- Jul 4, 2025ExplainersIntuition vs Analytical Decision MakingGary Klein interviewed 26 fire commanders averaging 23 years of experience across 156 decision points and found they seldom generated multiple options; they recognized the situation, simulated one action and acted. Expert and naive intuition feel identical from inside, which is why Tetlock's work matters: his superforecasters beat CIA analysts working from classified data by roughly 30 percent on Brier scores, through probabilistic habits rather than better hunches.
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