{"id":55852,"date":"2020-12-03T08:18:10","date_gmt":"2020-12-03T13:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=55852"},"modified":"2020-12-03T08:18:10","modified_gmt":"2020-12-03T13:18:10","slug":"the-streetlight-effect-when-people-look-within-the-system-for-solutions-to-the-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=55852","title":{"rendered":"The Streetlight Effect: When People Look Within The System For Solutions To The System"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Streetlight Effect: When People Look Within The System For Solutions To The System<\/a><\/h3>\n
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A policeman sees a drunk man crawling around on his hands and knees at night and asks what the problem is. The drunk man says he\u2019s trying to find his keys, so the officer gets down and starts searching with him. For a few minutes they crawl around hunting for the missing key ring by the light of the street lamp before the policeman stands up frustrated.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you sure this is where you lost them?\u201d he asks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis isn\u2019t where I lost them,\u201d replies the drunk.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen why are we searching here??\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s where the light is.\u201d<\/p>\n

This old joke is the source of the name for\u00a0the streetlight effect<\/a>, one of the many, many glitches in human cognition which cause us to tend toward misperception of our world and the way it\u2019s happening. This one describes our tendency to only look for things where it\u2019s easy to look for them, and it distorts our understanding of subjects from\u00a0science<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0big data analysis<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0history<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0spirituality<\/a>.<\/p>\n