So I was reading for HFID today and I ran across this:
The contrast in our understanding before and after an event can be dramatic. The psychologyist Baruch Fischhoff has studied explanations given in hindsight, where events seem completely obivious and predictable after the fact but completely unpredicatable beforehand. Fischhoff presented people with a number of situations and asked them to predict what would happen: they were correct only at the chance level. He then presented the same situation along with the actual outcome to another group of people, asking them to state how likely the outcome was: when the actual outcome was known, it appeared to be plausible and likely, whereas the others appeared unlikely. When the actual outcome was not known, the various alternative had quite different plausibility. It is a lot easier to determined what is obvious after it has happened.
–Norman, Design of Everyday Things
Wow it sums hindsight so beatifully and even backs it up with scientific evidence. Now if only I could see the future with the clarity of hindsight.
On a somewhat different note, Olin Phoenix (Olin’s intramural soccer team) played our semifinal match against Sig Ep. Sadly we were outplayed. We started off behind and never got any momentum going. There were three different times that I swear I had a goal but it never made it in.
On a positive note it was our best season so far (3-1) so maybe we will improve next year.