Strawberry

While reading Dobelli’s book, I was particularly impressed by the story of strawberry experiment.

It goes like this:

A group of experienced tasters and a group of college students were asked to sample 45 different brands of strawberry jelly, and the results were almost identical. In short, both groups preferred the same type. However, when the tasting experiment was repeated by asking the students to fill in a structured questionnaire to score each individual component of the “taste”, the ranking became completely different. Some of the best samples ended up at the bottom of the list.

What lesson do we learn? Yes, if we think too much, we lose the wisdom of our feelings. This is particularly true if we are talking about the assessment of practiced activities by experts of the field.

For example, I dare say, clinical examination conducted by experienced physicians.