A very interesting article which compares Humans ability to predict future events, based on past trends, with those of rats and pigeons; and Humans do not come up on top! The author then goes on to explain it based on the the way the brain functions.
Very fascinating!
This reminds me of something we used to joke about in our college days in India. Our hostel was right next to a wooded area and if you forgot to shut your window, monkeys would come in and rummage through your stuff and go off with your food, especially bananas. Now, there was a banana vendor right next to the gate of our hostel. Monkeys being held sacred by a large section of the population in India, a lot of people would buy some bananas and feed them to the monkeys. What was amazing was that, never once would a monkey attack the open cart laden with ripe bananas, but would patiently wait for someone to buy one to feed it to them. Now let the same monkey spot an open window in a forgetful student's room ---different story. Those being the days of "rational expectations" theory, we had our own rational expectations joke about the monkeys optimizing their steady flow of bananas, and not driving the the vendor out of business by attacking him!
Well we might have been correct! Looks like animals brain are better wired for rational actions.
Enjoy the article.
-- datamining_guy
The Durango Herald 02/16/2011 Rats can teach humans some investing savvy
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