Questions About How We Decide

by Jonah Lehrer (Goodreads Author)

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Answered Questions (2)

Can I believe anything that's in this book? http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2015/03/jon_ronson_on_jonah_lehrer_a_new_book_says_we_were_too_hard_on_the_disgraced.html

Daniel Can you believe anything in this book? You probably can (people can believe all sorts of things), but perhaps you are asking whether you should. Anoth…moreCan you believe anything in this book? You probably can (people can believe all sorts of things), but perhaps you are asking whether you should. Another issue is whether by "anything" you mean "everything" or "at least one thing."

I will address the question "Should you believe everything in this book?" Questions that begin with "should" are questions of morality or ethics. Since there is no consensus on morality or ethics, different people will have different answers to "should" questions.

My take is that you shouldn't take any single source as the only word on anything, except as a record of what a particular person claimed at a particular time. To quote (or paraphrase) Miguel de Unamuno, the more books you read, the less harm they do. Applying the Unamuno principle, if you read enough books, this one probably won't hurt (i.e., fool) you. Reading multiple books on a given topic, written at different times, gives you multiple points of view, showing you which topics appear to be "settled" (for now), which topics are still contentious, how opinions have varied over time, and (above all) the quality of evidence for each point of view. For example, some scientific claims have not yet emerged from academia, while other claims have given rise to multi-billion-dollar industries. The science that enables your smartphone to work is probably about as close to true as human ideas about the real world can ever get. Effectively, each one of the world's billions of smartphones is testing and re-confirming that science around a billion times per second. It's hard to create such an improbable industry with bad science.

In addition it's vital to read books about the process of thinking itself (such as Critical Thinking: The Art of Argument), to better equip oneself to evaluate claims and to recognize rhetorical flim-flam.

In the realm of psychology there probably aren't many books whose every claim will stand the test of time. Given that the human brain is the most complex object in the known universe, psychologists have barely begun to understand and explain it. Therefore psychology might stand in relation to its subject somewhat like 18th century astronomers stood in relation to their subject. And even present-day astronomy is still changing. For example, The Universe from 1962 is badly out of date now. It's not so much that all its claims have proven grossly wrong, but the book is woefully incomplete by present standards, given all the astronomical discoveries since then. We might expect that in another 60 years, today's astronomy books (and even moreso, today's psychology books) will be badly in need of updates, assuming no calamity interrupts scientific progress.

Some of today's psychology suffers from something called the "replication crisis." (See the Wikipedia article by that name, or Science Fictions: The Epidemic of Fraud, Bias, Negligence and Hype in Science by Stuart Ritchie.) It seems a number of popular psychology "facts" rest on a surprisingly limited number of (often poor-quality) studies and don't stand up to the replication test. Another problem, acknowledged by many psychologists, is that many psychology experiments recruit subjects from the most convenient population: undergraduate students. Thus the studies may suffer from various forms of bias such as range restriction, given that college students differ considerably from the general population, especially at elite schools having rigorous admission standards. And of course, the most influential researchers tend to work at the most elite schools, making their handiest study subjects among the least representative.

Still another problem is that much psychology research doesn't control for factors known to matter, such as IQ. Individuals differ markedly in terms of IQ, and this can skew results if you don't take it into account. Whenever a pop psychology author uses broadly inclusive pronouns such as "we" or "our" to characterize what "people" do, he or she may be ignoring the important world of differential psychology - the psychology of human differences.

Only you can decide what you should believe. What evidentiary standard do you ordinarily demand? For example, do you believe the claims of a religion? I chuckled when I read about the hue and cry over Lehrer's sins of plagiarism and misquoting (as documented in his Wikipedia article). His publisher pulled some of his books for not meeting journalistic standards. But at the same time, millions of bibles continue to be published, sold, read, quoted, and used to shape Supreme Court decisions. The bible makes a mockery of journalistic standards, filled as it is with internal contradictions and inconsistencies, textual variants (the original manuscripts are long gone), errors of fact and history, unsourced claims, anonymous authorship, and forgeries. I hope to God (heh) that anyone getting their panties in a bunch over Lehrer's indiscretions is an atheist. The holy books of any religion are drastically less reliable, yet people still go to war over them.(less)

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I'm one of the people who have many worries and are afraid of failure. Therefore, I spend a lot of time to decide something. I found this book because I'm in need of some advice. I checked many positive reviews, but I wonder whether it is really helpful for people like me. In addition, I want a book which is easy to read. How about this book? Thank you!!

Baires Visitor did you ever visit a therapist? one doesnt need to be sick to have some wonderful discoveries about oneself, it might be helpful to know yourself a bi…moredid you ever visit a therapist? one doesnt need to be sick to have some wonderful discoveries about oneself, it might be helpful to know yourself a bit more, maybe going for some advice or to solve a problem could be the starting point without too much expectation. Personally I struggle to live without so much inherited superstition habits that dont help me at all. Sorry that I can't give you details about the book, just commented on what first came to my mind after reading you. Regards(less)

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Unanswered Questions (3)

Anyone seen any lists on here of discredited and plagiarised books that we need to avoid? GoodReads needs a feature of warning readers about certain authors ('authors' actually) and books that are a waste of time and should not be trusted. I have a 'Waste' bookshelf, it was for Robert Kiyosaki books. Anyone else have a 'Do Not Read' list?

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how can i read this book in my monitor?

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In fact, I enjoyed reading this book because it is open my mind about many things and I know how we think and make our decisions. In addition, the language of the writer was not difficult and he did not use difficult vocabularies. I recommend reading this book because we take many decisions in our life, but most of these decisions regret them later so this book will help to choose the right decision.

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