Cutting-edge research and effective storytelling create an insightful book on an ever changing field.
The human brain, according to this absorbing book, has a mind of its own.
Robson, a former editor at New Scientist and a senior journalist at the BBC, has been studying the brain for years, and he admits that he is still surprised by the way it works. Why do athletes who believe in lucky charms perform better when they carry them? Why do people who believe that age leads to wisdom live longer than people who see getting older as a collection of physical problems? One of the keys to understanding this, writes the author, is the placebo effect, with which most readers will be familiar. The author also describes the “nocebo effect.” As he writes, “placebo means ‘I shall please,’ and nocebo means ‘I shall harm’—and the nocebo response occurs when we believe the body to be under threat. Through the actions of the prediction machine, such expectations will change our physiology so that the mere thought of having a symptom or disease can make us ill.” The reasons for the placebo/nocebo effect lie in the brain’s tendency to fill in the blanks. Since it can only process a small portion of received information, it makes up the rest with pieces of memory and assumption. Then it generates a response, which might involve releasing needed chemicals into the body. Mental becomes physical; expectations shape reality. Robson delves into the underpinning research, which includes methods to train the brain into positive patterns and processes, but he also emphasizes the limits. You cannot become rich by merely wishing for it, for example, but the brain can be trained into experiencing greater satisfaction with life. Robson’s many anecdotes and examples give a human dimension to these ideas. There is no doubt that there is still much to learn about the brain, but the author provides a solid grounding and a useful map on where future paths might lead.
Cutting-edge research and effective storytelling create an insightful book on an ever changing field.Pub Date: Feb. 15, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-82763-0
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Nov. 29, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.
A warts-and-all portrait of the famed techno-entrepreneur—and the warts are nearly beyond counting.
To call Elon Musk (b. 1971) “mercurial” is to undervalue the term; to call him a genius is incorrect. Instead, Musk has a gift for leveraging the genius of others in order to make things work. When they don’t, writes eminent biographer Isaacson, it’s because the notoriously headstrong Musk is so sure of himself that he charges ahead against the advice of others: “He does not like to share power.” In this sharp-edged biography, the author likens Musk to an earlier biographical subject, Steve Jobs. Given Musk’s recent political turn, born of the me-first libertarianism of the very rich, however, Henry Ford also comes to mind. What emerges clearly is that Musk, who may or may not have Asperger’s syndrome (“Empathy did not come naturally”), has nurtured several obsessions for years, apart from a passion for the letter X as both a brand and personal name. He firmly believes that “all requirements should be treated as recommendations”; that it is his destiny to make humankind a multi-planetary civilization through innovations in space travel; that government is generally an impediment and that “the thought police are gaining power”; and that “a maniacal sense of urgency” should guide his businesses. That need for speed has led to undeniable successes in beating schedules and competitors, but it has also wrought disaster: One of the most telling anecdotes in the book concerns Musk’s “demon mode” order to relocate thousands of Twitter servers from Sacramento to Portland at breakneck speed, which trashed big parts of the system for months. To judge by Isaacson’s account, that may have been by design, for Musk’s idea of creative destruction seems to mean mostly chaos.
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781982181284
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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