Review: What We Believe But Cannot Prove: Today’s Leading Thinkers on Science in the Age of Certainty

What We Believe But Cannot Prove: Today’s Leading Thinkers on Science in the Age of Certainty by John Brockman


My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Out of the hundred or so essays in this book, only about five were thought-provoking. Around half were something like ‘God does not exist’ or ‘string theory is very complicated,’ both of which are things I could probably have predicted these people (psychologists, physicists, etc.) would say anyway.

The most interesting belief presented was that humans are not conscious – that is, we don’t actually make decisions. We act by instinct, in the same complex ways that ants and bees do, but we also happen to be able to think about the way we’re acting, and have convinced ourselves that we’re actually in control of it all.





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