The Ancient Low Cost of False Positives
Value improvement work is threatened by both false positives and false negatives. Humans are notoriously bad at recognizing randomness. We want patterns. There’s a reasonable (and fun) hypothesis suggesting that humans won our place atop the food chain because of our ability to recognize patterns and the high rate of false positives. That is, seeing pattern where there is none.
Imagine two Pleistocene hunters, Grak and Krurk, headed back to their caves with fresh kills.
Grak is prone to anxiety about the dangers of the savannah. Every snap, crackle, and pop causes Grak alarm followed by swift defensive turns, spear raised, ready to fight. All these false positives cost Grak little more than stress.
Krurk is more relaxed and understands that 99% of nature’s noises pose little risk. As he walks, Krurk spends time thinking about how best to prepare the fresh meat and impress the target of his affections. Perhaps a lime-based marinade would woo. Krurk was more prone to false negatives and he died without passing on his chill DNA because he assumed that rustling behind him was the wind, not a stalking cheetah.
Eons later, the cheetahs have culled most of the Krurks from the proto-human herd, leaving the Graks to pass on their DNA; thousands of generations later we’re wired to spot everyday objects when gazing at
clouds
and
potato chips
. Value leaders needn’t worry about cheetahs but they better worry about false patterns in data that should only be attributed to randomness.
That’s two emails in a row involving the Pleistocene. I think I see a pattern.
Click here
to see the caveman name generator I used.
