An outstanding guide to nonsense for critical readers.
America is awash in lies, liars, and scams as well as books denouncing them, and this is among the best.
Simons, a professor of psychology, and Chabris, a cognitive scientist, are aware of the popularity of stories about scammers. In this collaboration, they deliver a steady stream of such tales in which the well known (Bernie Madoff, Elizabeth Holmes) barely scratch the surface. Mostly, scammers exploit habits that serve us well in daily life but make us easy prey. We believe what others tell us unless something seems fishy. We see what we expect to see. Without adequate critical thinking, it’s a formula for disaster. A respected psychology journal published a study in which subjects walking through dirty streets were more likely to think racist thoughts. Had the study—which turned out to be fake—reached the opposite conclusion, the editors might have paid more attention. We also tend to accept fascinating stories without question. Told that Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg are college dropouts who became billionaires and then asked if dropouts are more likely to strike it rich, most subjects answer yes. In fact, nearly all billionaires are college graduates. The authors promote Ronald Reagan’s dictum about negotiating with the Soviet Union: “Trust, but verify.” Readers will agree but also admit that we readily distrust statements that contradict our beliefs and accept without question information we agree with. The authors present a delightful parade of fakery in which scammers compete with equally dishonest entrepreneurs, scientists, journalists, and politicians, with special attention to the psychologists. As to the “What We Can Do About It” in the title, Simons and Chabris prescribe easy, common-sense rules, not-so-easy-to-implement but excellent advice on researching dubious claims, and repeated warnings to question our deeply held beliefs and distrust gut feelings.
An outstanding guide to nonsense for critical readers.Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781541602236
Page Count: 336
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
IN THE NEWS
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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