COMMENTARY
DECISION DOMINANCE
The science of decisions is a new science for future military leaders.
by Richard A. Nabors, Ph.D., Nathan Burkholder and Jacqueline A. Randall
Testing." Te report resulted from an empirical study in which six positions were created halfway through a chess game for 20 players, including both amateurs and grandmasters.
W
Te authors concluded that what differentiated the grandmasters from the novice players was using a scientific approach to making decisions. Te approach, called falsification, ultimately led to more accurate and winning moves.
THE SCIENCE OF WINNING Te process of making hypotheses and trying to disprove them by testing their limitations, before committing resources to that hypothesis, is called falsification. Austrian-English philosopher Karl Popper (1902-1994) coined the term "falsification" in his 1937 book, Te Logic of Scientific Discovery. Popper's view is that scientific theories can never be proven true, but they also cannot be disproven; instead, they are either supported or refuted based on their ability to withstand attempts at falsification. Te more you try to disprove the theory and it withstands your attempts to falsify it, the more you can consider that theory to be well-supported.
For chess players to win, they must predict their opponents’ next possi- ble moves through what is called “look-ahead.” In essence, the difference between a winning player and a losing one is the ability to gather informa- tion from a wider field of possibilities and identify the more likely outcomes. Once these possible scenarios have been identified, players can quickly and
https://asc.ar my.mil 109
e all know that chess is a thinking game, but did you know there is a science to winning? In 2004, cognitive scientists Michelle Cowley and Ruth Byrne published a major scholarly article titled "Chess Masters' Hypothesis
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140
