Gourmet reading—rich in ideas, global references and amusing and provocative examples, served with great style.
The mother-son co-authors of Chances Are…: Adventures in Probability (2006) turn their considerable authorial skills and wit to human behavior, from our isolated cave-dwelling ancestors to today’s globalized, interconnected world.
Humans make a lot of mistakes, write documentarian Michael and archaeologist Ellen (co-author: Out of the Labyrinth: Setting Mathematics Free, 2007, etc.). Rather than use logic and reason, our brains are hardwired to make snap judgments, go with gut feelings, surrender to passions and celebrate our in-group as Us and dislike others as Them. It’s all part of the adaptability mechanisms that favored cooperation and sharing among small hunter-gatherer groups and wariness, if not fear, of unknown Others. Much of this behavior can be found in other primates as well—along with strategies for getting along, resolving conflict and overthrowing leaders who become too powerful. Before expanding on the tenets of evolutionary biology, the authors offer a timely discussion of behavioral economics, including flawed logic, the failure to apply rules of probability and the irrational exuberance underlying the current economic meltdown. They also include some nifty new vocabulary—“hyperbolic discounting” describes the never-have-to-pay thinking that drives credit-card spending; “availability heuristic” describes the tale that a Ponzi schemer tells to explain his financial genius; and so on. Our beliefs and our errors, write the Kaplans, derive from the complexity of the brain, a parallel processor with myriad connections linking visceral, emotional and rational parts. These enable us to construct our idiosyncratic perceptions of the world—which are susceptible to illusions—but they are also hardwired to read gestures and facial expressions common to all cultures, as well as interpret notions of civility and fairness. The authors discuss how concepts of morality and justice have developed, and the last chapters concentrate on the dilemmas of life, love, marriage and child-rearing in modern society. In a world grown enormously complex, culture may be our salvation, giving us the tools to create new explanations when we err, and in so doing enable us to rewrite our history and survive.
Gourmet reading—rich in ideas, global references and amusing and provocative examples, served with great style.Pub Date: May 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-59691-400-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2009
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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