Insightful, convincing, instructive reading.
A sharp addition to the why-people-believe-weird-things genre.
An optimist and fine writer, van der Linden, professor of social psychology at the University of Cambridge and an expert on human belief systems, explains why humans accept something as true or false and how they can fend off misinformation. Leaning heavily on the metaphor of misinformation as a virus infecting the mind and spreading from one person to another, the author proclaims the need for an effective remedy, perhaps a psychological “vaccine” against fake news. He begins by explaining why we are susceptible, discusses how falsehoods persist, and then explains how to inoculate ourselves and others. Innumerable studies prove that debunking—i.e., pointing out the facts—almost never works. We must “prebunk” to fend off misinformation before it takes hold. Readers may squirm as the author shows how and why we accept nonsense. Humans embrace the familiar, so the easiest way to spread a lie is to keep repeating it. Despite the fact that there has been zero evidence to support their claims, roughly 75% of Trump voters “continue to believe that the 2020 elected was rigged.” If the moon landing was faked, 400,000 NASA employees would have had to be “complicit in the conspiracy.” True to his assertion that facts are feeble, van der Linden devotes the final chapters of this well-researched, psychologically astute book to the specific strategies of fakers (“Six Degrees of Manipulation”) and a powerful argument for the effectiveness of delivering a small dose of misinformation in order to inoculate against a major infection. Studies show that it works, and readers—or at least the 67% who are not suspicious of vaccines—can boost their immunity by playing a popular computer game that tests their ability to spread fake news. Google “bad news.” The author may be preaching to the choir, but it’s a message that bears repeating and continued deep consideration.
Insightful, convincing, instructive reading.Pub Date: March 21, 2023
ISBN: 9780393881448
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
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
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
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