BLIND SPOT

What Can Chess Masters teach us about how humans become experts? Why can't reace car drivers explain decisions they've made behind the wheel? What does predicting the winner of a soccer match say about our ability to make the right choice?

When we talk about experts, we typically have bought into the idea that they have all the answers. Now, in this groundbreaking book, Gordon Rugg exposes the surprising ways in which all people tend to make the same sorts of mistakes, regardless of what field they are in, how smart they are, or even their level of expertise. Focusing on why and how we make decisions, Rugg offers insight into what motivates us, how we fail to find the answers we are looking for, how we can learn to ask the essential questions, and more. Rugg has devoted his life to learning how experts solve problems. He gained international attention after arguing persuasively that the famous Voynich Manuscript is a hoax. Now, he demonstrates his techniques in the Verifier Method, which can be applied to any seemingly unsolvable problem. Drawing on his personal odyssey in the field of human expertise, Rugg makes astute and entertaining conclusions about how and why we inevitably fail, and explains how to make better mistakes, work backwards, and reengineer the ways we pursue success. Dr. Gordon Rugg is a senior lecturer in computer science at Keele University and a visiting senior research fellow in computing at the Open University, Milton Keynes. Rugg’s research has delved into everything from attitude theory and artificial intelligence to information retrieval and software engineering for safety-critical systems. Rugg lives in Shropshire, UK. Joseph D'Agnese is a journalist who has written chiefly for science magazines, such as Discover, Wired, and Seed. His pieces have appeared in the annual anthology Best American Science Writing, edited by Oliver Sacks, among others (HarperCollins). He has written for the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.