Dense with facts, convincing arguments, and curious statistics, this is an ingenious collection of light entertainment for...
A collection of 75 of the Scientific American columns by author and gadfly Shermer (The Moral Arc: How Science and Reason Lead Humanity Toward Truth, Justice, and Freedom, 2015, etc.).
The author turns a critical eye toward questions big, small, and trivial. One of the biggest: is religion a good thing? Studies and statistics give the answer: it depends. Though Western nations with high rates of religious belief and church attendance also have higher incidents of suicide, teen pregnancy, and sexually transmitted disease, as individuals, religious people are healthier, friendlier, happier, and more charitable. Simple math, not science, proves that extraordinarily rare events occur regularly. Despite 1 in 200,000,000 odds, someone must win the lottery, yet the winner never doubts that it’s a miracle. Those with low opinions of eyewitness testimony, tabloid science, quacks who write bestsellers, paranormal phenomena, alien abductions, and folk medicine will find plenty of supporting arguments in this book. Most readers do not yearn for proof that actual events (9/11, the Holocaust, the moon landing) really happened, but deniers exist, and Shermer refutes them at every turn. Satanic cults, Bigfoot, and hermit geniuses who disprove Einstein turn out to be extremely difficult to find, and Shermer explains why. He admits that, sadly, most people admire science and the advancements that result from experimentation, but only a minority believe that a phenomenon is probably true if backed by evidence and unlikely if it isn’t. Two-thirds of Americans prefer creationism to evolution, and 60 percent believe in extrasensory perception. Worse, belief in reason is uncool. In movies and TV, the skeptic is always wrong.
Dense with facts, convincing arguments, and curious statistics, this is an ingenious collection of light entertainment for readers who believe that explaining stuff is a good idea.Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-62779-138-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2015
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
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
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