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The End of Intuition?

This past week, I wrote a book review of Super Crunchers for the Motley Fool. From the review (which you can read here), you’ll see that I really enjoyed the book, and I’d recommend it for anyone who is serious about “learning to unlearn.” In my forthcoming book, Jump the Curve, I dedicate an entire chapter to the idea of “unlearning.” The world is now moving so fast and we are acquiring so much new knowledge that it is inevitable that we are going to discover a great many things that challenge conventional wisdom. But before we can let go of conventional wisdom and absorb these new truths, we must first learn how to unlearn .

Let me just offer a few highlights from the book. Up until recently, wine experts felt they were the only ones who could adequately assess whether a wine would grow in value over time. Well, a fellow by the name of Orley Ashenfelter has demonstrated that using only data from the weather he can now regularly beat the pants off snobbish wine experts in selecting the most valuable wines.

Another case in point comes from Michael Lewis’ excellent book, Moneyball. For years, crusty old baseball scouts felt only they could pick the next “phenom.” Wrong! Billy Beane of the Oakland A’s has demonstrated that a palyer’s statistics are a much more accurate predictor of future success. It has taken some time, but now a number of baseball teams (including the recently crowned World Series champions, the Boston Red Sox)have “unlearned” their heavy reliance on those crusty old baseball scouts and have instead learned to trust a bunch of pimpled-faced Ivy League data crunchers to tell them which prospects have the best chance of succeeding in the Big Leagues.

Stiil another case occurred in the field of medicine. For years doctor’s felt ulcers were caused by stress and spicy food. In 1985, a young Australian doctor, Barry Marshall, had the audacity to suggest that ulcers they were caused by bacteria. When he first proposed his theory at a medical conference, he was booed off the stage! Twenty years, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine. Just imagine how many more people could have been better served if only hundreds of arrogant doctors were willing to unlearn!

If you hope to jump the curve, one of the most vital skills that you will need to develop is an ability to unlearn. It’ll be hard work, but the pay-off could be exponentially large.

Related Posts

Questioning Intuition
Learning to Unlearn: A Case Study
Examples of Unexponential Thinking
Stonger Than a Speeding Bullet

Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, public speaker and host of jumpthecurve.net. He is the author of seven books, including Jump the Curve and The Next Big Thing is Really Small: How Nanotechnology Will Change the Future of Your Business. He is also a frequent speaker on future technology and future trends, nanotechnology, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and trade associations.

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