From: Mikko Särelä (msarela@cc.hut.fi)
Date: Sun Mar 28 2004 - 02:06:08 MST
On Sun, 28 Mar 2004, Emil Gilliam wrote:
> This article is in the Apr 2004 issue of SciAm, but unfortunately, it's
> not freely available online. Here is a preview:
>
> http://sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=1&articleID=0006AD38
> D9FB-1055-973683414B7F0000
>
> The Tyranny of Choice, by Barry Schwartz
>
> Logic suggests that having options allows people to select precisely
> what makes them happiest. But, as studies show, abundant choice often
> makes for misery
>From the short introduction, it seems like this is another study that has
only found correlation but has nothing that implies actual causation. At
best they'll have a tremendous amount of statistics and they show that
from these they can find correlation when they control for n different
things they believe might effect the levels of unhappiness. It seems to me
that this article below is a good read for dispelling that kind of
nonsense:
http://www.crab.rutgers.edu/~goertzel/mythsofmurder.htm
In addition their study probably fails to take into account that economic
efficiency can of course provide less choice, if that is what people want
(as can be seen from the teenager dressing culture).
-- Mikko Särelä Emperor Bonaparte: "Where does God fit into your system?" Pièrre Simon Laplace: "Sire, I have no need for that hypothesis."
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