Story - Admission/Application Essay Example

A six pack of problems A six pack of problems is a story by Thomas Kida that tries to explain the fact that human beings are often willing to form very extraordinary beliefs based on very weak evidence. Thus Kida attempts to expound on how most people are onto beliefs that have very little evidence to support them (and have considerable evidence against them as well).People, according to Kida believe things just because they want to believe them; and not necessarily based on substantial evidence.

He starts his story by a vision of a ghost which resembles Kathy. After telling people around him about it, they concur with him that he had seen a ghost and that they really do exist. This is just an example of what most of us are willing to accept just because there is some flimsy evidence regarding an issue.It is therefore apparent that several individuals go against the grain by rejecting what a research or mainstream study says. Such individuals hang on to such beliefs; however research indicates that they are not true.

People therefore form several incorrect beliefs since we have natural tendencies to evaluate evidence in a biased and faulty manner. People’s beliefs are closely related to the decisions they end up making. Kida gives an example of his friend, one Chris, who he says thinks can beat the market and thus can earn substantially more than the average investor. Such a belief like that of Chris is fueled by several books written by so called ‘experts’, who claim that one who uses their method can beat the market and make a killing, even though it is hard to analyse a company’s financial condition and consistently pick stocks that outperform the market.

Though human beings are amazing and very intelligent creatures, they still fall prey to thinking that is flawed. Kida’s book is basically about how individuals form beliefs as well as make decisions. The book is also about the several ways that our beliefs and decisions can go wrong. Inspite of making many good decisions, human beings, also make many mistakes, and frequently they are not aware that they have made them. Kida explores why humans fall prey to erroneous thinking whether educated or not.

Kida narrows down to key points of his book which he calls our “six pack of problems” and they include the fact that we as human beings have; preference for stories over statistics, seeking to confirm, rarely appreciating the role of chance and coincidence in life, misperceiving our world, oversimplifying things and having faulty memories. Kida concludes by warning us not to get angered if we find ourselves making such mistakes since he and his friends have also made them.