It says exactly what it means. It outlines several different examples and causes for how human thought can actually work against us as a society. While I thought most of this made a lot of sense, especially in today's current political climate of intense polarity, I thought the author was off base about a few things.
That's the reason for the 3 stars. I also thought the book could have been shorter, as it was pretty repetitive at times. Now on to the things I disagreed with. First of all, I'm a creative person. I do believe in the power of the mind and imagination, but I am also somewhat of a skeptic. The author surmises that people can make themselves believe whatever they want to believe.
I think this is true. I do it myself on a regular basis. While there's no scientific evidence for such things as aliens, ghosts or angels, people vehemently believe they exist. The author believes that we should view everything scientifically, and everything should be analyzed before being accepted as truth. I definitely think he has a point to a certain extent. What I take issue with is that it would appear the author thinks we should all become purely skeptical and rational.
While I believe this is true most of the time, I think I would lead a pretty boring existence if I didn't allow my imagination to run wild every now and then. Another thing is that the author outlined scenarios in which people had made certain things happen simply by believing they'd reached a solution. Such things as a placebo actually curing a certain ailment. My question is Why does the author view it as not being successful simply because the power of the mind was at work. It seemed he was contradicting himself and actually, at times, while trying to get people to think rationally, was proving that the power of positive thinking is actually a real and existing force.
Anyway, I could go on, but that was the main quibble I had with this book. But there were many things I actually did agree with, so I'm still glad I read it. I will just simply take it with a grain of salt and hope that I can stop myself from one day falling victim to the actual bad ways my mind can play tricks on me.
This was a required book for a class, but it was an easy read and well worth the time. I believe the time will come when I will require my children to read this. They are too young yet, but I want to make sure they look at the world with a critical eye and accurately assess all the information presented to them. I get these forwards and FB posts daily!
Author 6 books 66 followers. Excellent summary of several common errors we're all prone to making in our thinking, especially if we're not on guard against them.
This book flows well, and the author provides numerous examples of each category of mistake he describes. This should be a text for the required courses on critical thinking that should be in the curricula at every high school and college in the country - make that in the world. There's some overlap here with the list of formal fallacies covered in a course on logic, but this book covers some ground the logic texts don't; both together are better than either alone, and it never hurts to have more lights shining into our blind spots.
This is a pretty good book, which reads somewhere between conversational and "psychology textbook". However, it's still good coverage of the material.
The author acknowledges that all people are very vulnerable to the mistakes in this book, including himself. That's good because he repeats a classic mistake that has become a pet peeve for me: evolutionary biology stories. Despite mentioning repeatedly that we tend to believe stories over statistics despite the fact that stories are anecdotal and don't have science to back them up, he also repeats a story about how we evolved to look for causes to things and how that desire must run strongly in the human race because the people who did that survived better and had more offspring.
It's a nice story, but as the author himself reminds us, there is absolutely no scientific evidence for populations of humans who didn't look for causes to things dying out in the face of populations of humans who did.
One other nit-pick I have is the author's claim that no one selling an investing strategy has a solid money-making strategy, because why wouldn't they just keep it to themselves and get rich that way? While that is a strong argument, there are a couple of valid reasons for it: 1 A good strategy usually only works within a certain range of wealth, and if you've made enough money you have to find other strategies that's why strategies that would be good for me would not for Warren Buffett and vice versa.
So, theoretically someone could be selling a strategy they can no longer use at a larger scale unlikely, but at least possible. It's much safer and steadier money to sell a strategy for example, by managing a fund of other people's money that follows that strategy than to employ it yourself using only your own money. In any case, I enjoyed this and other psychology enthusiasts probably would too. Sarah Whitney. I'm not much a reviewer, but I do have a few thoughts to share regarding this book, especially considering its higher than average rating.
Our local used bookshop had the previous and not the latter, so I picked it up. My honest opinion is, don't waste your time, unless you're easily impressed or have truly never read anything on the subject matter before. I still intend to read the aforementioned book, but I sincerely felt that this particular book was, for the large part, a waste of time.
You can ascertain all the information from the prologue and epilogue. This enlightening book discusses how to recognize faulty thinking and develop the necessary skills to become a more effective decision maker. Author Thomas Kida identifies a "six-pack of problems" that leads many of us to accept false ideas.
The book vividly illustrates these tendencies with numerous eye-opening examples that demonstrate how easily we can be fooled into believing something that isn't true.
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