Everything Is Obvious

*Once You Know the Answer

By: Duncan J. Watts

Narrated by: Duncan J. Watts

By understanding how and when common sense fails, we can improve our understanding of the present and better plan for the future.

Drawing on the latest scientific research, along with a wealth of historical and contemporary examples, Watts shows how common sense reasoning and history conspire to mislead us into believing that we understand more about the world of human behavior than we do; and in turn, why attempts to predict, manage, or manipulate social and economic systems so often go awry.

It seems obvious, for example, that people respond to incentives; yet policy makers and managers alike frequently fail to anticipate how people will respond to the incentives they create. Social trends often seem to be driven by certain influential people; yet marketers have been unable to identify these “influencers” in advance. And although successful products or companies always seem in retrospect to have succeeded because of their unique qualities, predicting the qualities of the next hit product or hot company is notoriously difficult even for experienced professionals.

Watts' argument has important implications in politics, business, and marketing, as well as in science and everyday life.

Thought provoking

Duncan Watts is a physics professor turned sociology professor. I was intrigued by the idea of someone who could bring 'hard science' approaches to sociology. You might want to read the last chapter first as he summarizes the differences between sociological and hard science research. However, this is done in a most positive way - he points out that sociologic studies are important and that there are means and methods that can be used and developed to achieve better understanding into human behavior.

His insights are very thought provoking. He points out that many aspects of sociological studies that are generally not considered. For instance, we have a way of explaining history after we already know the outcome. Was the surge in Iraq really responsible for turning around that conflict or was it some combination of other factors such as rebuidling infrastructure, training new police, training new Iraqi military, more experienced government etc. There's really no way to tell because we can't run an 'experiment' to see what would happen if there was no surge...

Sociologist often fall upon what they term common sense explanations....but these explanations only work well when you already know the answer.

This is a great addition to the series Outliers and Predictably Irrational. I look forward to the contributions of his approach into important social issues.

I would have given it 5 stars, but I found it unfortunate that he often did not credit some of the work he cited. I understand that this is not a scientific paper but some of the more important and lengthy examples he cites should have been credited.

Brilliant and Self-Read

Love the fact that Mr. Watts read this himself, gives it so much more texture than most. And more importantly, his insights and ideas are brilliant, fun to listen to and think about.

Its obvious

This is a great book for anyone who does not understand why others cannot understand the obvious truth. For each truth there are equal and opposite truths based on the observers own experiences.

Great take on anthropology and why humans do what they do and think what they think. Great book to get you thinking.

Listen to this book and rethink everything!

I had not heard of Duncan Watts when I first listened to this book... but since I've noticed he's been sited in several other books I've read recently. If this book doesn't change the way you view the world you are a more evolved person than I. Between reading this book, and 'How to Measure Anything' this year, I feel like my mind has been turned upside down.

Read Duncan Watts, read Douglas Hubbard, then go out and change the world!

We're not as smart as we think we are

Watts lays out a solid survey about why, in many cases, the reasons we think cause certain things to happen, just may not be the case. Solid narration.