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The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life
Whether it’s in a cockpit at takeoff or the planning of an offensive war, a romantic relationship or a dispute at the office, there are many opportunities to lie and self-deceivebut deceit and self-deception carry the costs of being alienated from reality and can lead to disaster. So why does deception play such a prominent role in our everyday lives? In short, why do we deceive?
In his bold new work, prominent biological theorist Robert Trivers unflinchingly argues that self-deception evolved in the service of deceitthe better to fool others. We do it for biological reasonsin order to help us survive and procreate. From viruses mimicking host behavior to humans misremembering (sometimes intentionally) the details of a quarrel, science has proven that the deceptive one can always outwit the masses. But we undertake this deception at our own peril.
Trivers has written an ambitious investigation into the evolutionary logic of lying and the costs of leaving it unchecked.
416 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2011
205 people are currently reading
3825 people want to read
About the author
Robert Trivers
14 books111 followersRobert L. Trivers (born February 19, 1943, pronounced /ˈtrɪvɚz/) is an American evolutionary biologist and sociobiologist, most noted for proposing the theories of reciprocal altruism (1971), parental investment (1972), and parent-offspring conflict (1974). Other areas in which he has made influential contributions include an adaptive view of self-deception (first described in 1976) and intragenomic conflict. Along with George C. Williams, Trivers is arguably one of the most influential evolutionary theorists alive today.
A 1961 graduate of Phillips Academy, Andover, Trivers went to Harvard to study mathematics, but wound up studying U.S. history in preparation to become a lawyer. He received his A.B. degree in History on June 16, 1965 from Harvard University. He took a psychology class after suffering a breakdown, and was very unimpressed with the state of psychology. He was prevented from getting into Yale law school by his breakdown, and wound up with a job writing social science textbooks for children (never published, due in part to presenting evolution by natural selection as fact). This exposure to evolutionary theory led him to do graduate work with Ernst Mayr at Harvard 1968-1972. He earned his Ph.D. in Biology on June 15, 1972 also from Harvard University. He was on faculty at Harvard 1973-1978, then moved to UC Santa Cruz.
He met Huey P. Newton, Chairman of the Black Panther Party, in 1978 when Newton applied (while in prison) to do a reading course with him as part of a graduate degree in History of Consciousness at UC Santa Cruz. Trivers and Newton became close friends: Newton was even godfather to one of Trivers' daughters. Trivers joined the Black Panther Party in 1979. Trivers and Newton published an analysis of the role of self-deception by the flight crew in the crash of Air Florida Flight 90.
Trivers was a faculty member at UC Santa Cruz 1978-1994. He is currently a Rutgers University notable faculty member. In the 2008-2009 academic year, he is a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin).
He wrote the original foreword to Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, and was recently awarded the 2007 Crafoord Prize in Biosciences for "his fundamental analysis of social evolution, conflict and cooperation".
—— From Wikipedia
A 1961 graduate of Phillips Academy, Andover, Trivers went to Harvard to study mathematics, but wound up studying U.S. history in preparation to become a lawyer. He received his A.B. degree in History on June 16, 1965 from Harvard University. He took a psychology class after suffering a breakdown, and was very unimpressed with the state of psychology. He was prevented from getting into Yale law school by his breakdown, and wound up with a job writing social science textbooks for children (never published, due in part to presenting evolution by natural selection as fact). This exposure to evolutionary theory led him to do graduate work with Ernst Mayr at Harvard 1968-1972. He earned his Ph.D. in Biology on June 15, 1972 also from Harvard University. He was on faculty at Harvard 1973-1978, then moved to UC Santa Cruz.
He met Huey P. Newton, Chairman of the Black Panther Party, in 1978 when Newton applied (while in prison) to do a reading course with him as part of a graduate degree in History of Consciousness at UC Santa Cruz. Trivers and Newton became close friends: Newton was even godfather to one of Trivers' daughters. Trivers joined the Black Panther Party in 1979. Trivers and Newton published an analysis of the role of self-deception by the flight crew in the crash of Air Florida Flight 90.
Trivers was a faculty member at UC Santa Cruz 1978-1994. He is currently a Rutgers University notable faculty member. In the 2008-2009 academic year, he is a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin).
He wrote the original foreword to Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, and was recently awarded the 2007 Crafoord Prize in Biosciences for "his fundamental analysis of social evolution, conflict and cooperation".
—— From Wikipedia
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May 27, 2013
the weaknesses of this book are all the more frustrating given the potentially highly important target the aims for — an understanding of how biological self-deception leads to problematic errors and biases in our daily existence.
three major weaknesses keep this book from reaching its target. first, trivers seems to have a highly inconsistent definition of self-deception and often seems to be developing a theory, not of self deception but of error per se. this is a fairly major problem given that he completely eschews the social sciences (and psychology) which seems much better positioned to offer a useful account of error than does trivers's discipline of evolutionary biology. second, trivers follows his insights from evolutionary biology all the way through to insights on the realms of human behavior (e.g. aviation, war, religion). instead, there are select observations from both realms in isolation, but the connections between these realms are unclear. third, (and i'll be honest this really annoyed me from the beginning) trivers argues with a style that is annoyingly selective and brief. he summarizes extremely complex evidence without any accounting for the quality of that evidence, the wider body of evidence or alternate hypotheses. trivers argues with data-influenced narratives that never feel remotely solid — he covers incredibly wide swaths of conceptual ground in leaps and bounds and creates little confidence that the parts that he skipped over are trivial. consequently, section after section left me with more questions than answers and very little confidence that trivers's preferred answers were accurate.
three major weaknesses keep this book from reaching its target. first, trivers seems to have a highly inconsistent definition of self-deception and often seems to be developing a theory, not of self deception but of error per se. this is a fairly major problem given that he completely eschews the social sciences (and psychology) which seems much better positioned to offer a useful account of error than does trivers's discipline of evolutionary biology. second, trivers follows his insights from evolutionary biology all the way through to insights on the realms of human behavior (e.g. aviation, war, religion). instead, there are select observations from both realms in isolation, but the connections between these realms are unclear. third, (and i'll be honest this really annoyed me from the beginning) trivers argues with a style that is annoyingly selective and brief. he summarizes extremely complex evidence without any accounting for the quality of that evidence, the wider body of evidence or alternate hypotheses. trivers argues with data-influenced narratives that never feel remotely solid — he covers incredibly wide swaths of conceptual ground in leaps and bounds and creates little confidence that the parts that he skipped over are trivial. consequently, section after section left me with more questions than answers and very little confidence that trivers's preferred answers were accurate.
February 17, 2014
A very personal, sometimes a little crazed exploration of the whole issue of self-deception from a leading and interesting evolutionary biologist. There are times when you can sense his out thereness. Indeed someone just told me he (at 70 or so) had been suspended from teaching because he started a course modestly saying he knew nothing much about the subject and was going to learn along with his students. One of them complained. This fits the person who emerges from the book. But I just enjoyed this whole exploration of why we find it so hard to be honest with ourselves and how there are evolutionary advantages to our convincing others of our righteousness and the best way to do this is by self deception as we are not that damn righteous in reality....I read it by Pacific Ocean waves in Northern California and that helped...
September 9, 2013
Robert Trivers’s new book is a curious document — a book about deception and self-deception that is itself deceptive, in structure, voice and argument.
A celebrated evolutionary biologist, Trivers uses the tools of his trade to answer a basic question: Why are deception and self-deception so prevalent? Our eyes, noses, tongues, ears and skin tell us so much about the world, why is it that our brains then deny some of this information, hide it from ourselves and others? Natural selection should have rooted out such tendencies — unless they offer some evolutionary advantage.
(Basic Books/Basic Books) - ’The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life’ by Robert Trivers
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Trivers thinks they do. We deceive ourselves to better deceive others.
Lying can obviously be helpful, keeping us out of trouble, making us seem better than we are. But our bodies are not so good at fibbing. We have “tells” — an uptick in our voices, sweating palms — and as lies multiply, it becomes difficult to keep track of them. Much better, then, to first deceive ourselves, to believe the lie, so that when we present it to the world all those giveaways are gone.
Trivers offers this bit of ratiocination as the basis of a “science of self-deception.” But in making his arguments, he turns away from the algebraic logic of modern evolutionary biology and opts, instead, for the approach of 19th-century romantic natural history.
Like a work of Romantic Natural History (as described by historian Bernhard Helmut Kuhn), “The Folly of Fools” assumes the unity of all nature and seeks to comprehend it not merely by observation and reason, but also by subjective impressions, intuition and imagination. And thus Trivers ranges across biology, anthropology, history and politics to find examples of deception and self-deception in action. Viruses and bacteria camouflage themselves from immune systems. Placebos deceive us into becoming healthy. Bettors on the stock market over-rate their aptitude. Trivers supplements these examples with incidents from his own life — we learn about his drug use and his penchant for petty thievery, among other things — as well as eureka moments when he realized that some everyday interaction could be reduced to an effect of self-deception.
Two problems arise from this arrangement. First, it is unclear for whom this book is meant. Scientists are unlikely to find the argument rigorous enough to be persuasive. But the book may not appeal to lay readers, either. Many of Trivers’s examples feel underdeveloped, and the quick jumps from one to another may give the uninitiated reader vertigo. (In a little over two pages, he touches on food-caching by ravens and squirrels, toddlers keeping secrets, his difficulty in listening to some women in his life talk to each other, molting by mantis shrimp, fighting among fiddler crabs, and chimpanzees hiding things behind their backs.) Fewer examples, more fully developed, could have better drawn in the interested non-scientist.
The second problem with his method is its breadth. The examples never gel into a coherent argument. Rather, deception comes to mean so many things that it means nothing at all: The deception that plays out between a cuckoo and the bird in whose nest it has left its eggs is not the deception that explains Japan’s refusal to come to terms with the Rape of Nanking and neither seems related to the use of misleading metaphors, another form of deception Trivers discusses.
Take his discussion of the events leading up to the Iraq War. It is well and good to say that the architects of the invasion deluded themselves in a number of ways — thinking that Saddam Hussein’s regime stockpiled weapons of mass destruction, that American forces would be welcomed as liberators, that the war would be cheap. Fair enough. But speculating on how deception came to be does nothing to explain the Bush administration’s actions. It may be that the deception and self-deception driving the rush to war resulted from an evolutionary process, or was something else — say, the side-effect of having such a clever brain. Whatever the case, to fully understand this fiasco — and much of human life — one must turn to history, sociology, psychology and political science.
Yet Trivers derides these disciplines. They are rife with self-deception, he argues in one chapter, their theories not based on the robust methods of physics — where self-deception is minimized, he insists — but on a preference for poorly defined variables and a tendency to cherry-pick examples. The irony, of course, is that these are the very problems that undermine Trivers’s own book. In the end, “The Folly of Fools” is not just about self-deception: The book seems an example of it, too.
A celebrated evolutionary biologist, Trivers uses the tools of his trade to answer a basic question: Why are deception and self-deception so prevalent? Our eyes, noses, tongues, ears and skin tell us so much about the world, why is it that our brains then deny some of this information, hide it from ourselves and others? Natural selection should have rooted out such tendencies — unless they offer some evolutionary advantage.
(Basic Books/Basic Books) - ’The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life’ by Robert Trivers
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Trivers thinks they do. We deceive ourselves to better deceive others.
Lying can obviously be helpful, keeping us out of trouble, making us seem better than we are. But our bodies are not so good at fibbing. We have “tells” — an uptick in our voices, sweating palms — and as lies multiply, it becomes difficult to keep track of them. Much better, then, to first deceive ourselves, to believe the lie, so that when we present it to the world all those giveaways are gone.
Trivers offers this bit of ratiocination as the basis of a “science of self-deception.” But in making his arguments, he turns away from the algebraic logic of modern evolutionary biology and opts, instead, for the approach of 19th-century romantic natural history.
Like a work of Romantic Natural History (as described by historian Bernhard Helmut Kuhn), “The Folly of Fools” assumes the unity of all nature and seeks to comprehend it not merely by observation and reason, but also by subjective impressions, intuition and imagination. And thus Trivers ranges across biology, anthropology, history and politics to find examples of deception and self-deception in action. Viruses and bacteria camouflage themselves from immune systems. Placebos deceive us into becoming healthy. Bettors on the stock market over-rate their aptitude. Trivers supplements these examples with incidents from his own life — we learn about his drug use and his penchant for petty thievery, among other things — as well as eureka moments when he realized that some everyday interaction could be reduced to an effect of self-deception.
Two problems arise from this arrangement. First, it is unclear for whom this book is meant. Scientists are unlikely to find the argument rigorous enough to be persuasive. But the book may not appeal to lay readers, either. Many of Trivers’s examples feel underdeveloped, and the quick jumps from one to another may give the uninitiated reader vertigo. (In a little over two pages, he touches on food-caching by ravens and squirrels, toddlers keeping secrets, his difficulty in listening to some women in his life talk to each other, molting by mantis shrimp, fighting among fiddler crabs, and chimpanzees hiding things behind their backs.) Fewer examples, more fully developed, could have better drawn in the interested non-scientist.
The second problem with his method is its breadth. The examples never gel into a coherent argument. Rather, deception comes to mean so many things that it means nothing at all: The deception that plays out between a cuckoo and the bird in whose nest it has left its eggs is not the deception that explains Japan’s refusal to come to terms with the Rape of Nanking and neither seems related to the use of misleading metaphors, another form of deception Trivers discusses.
Take his discussion of the events leading up to the Iraq War. It is well and good to say that the architects of the invasion deluded themselves in a number of ways — thinking that Saddam Hussein’s regime stockpiled weapons of mass destruction, that American forces would be welcomed as liberators, that the war would be cheap. Fair enough. But speculating on how deception came to be does nothing to explain the Bush administration’s actions. It may be that the deception and self-deception driving the rush to war resulted from an evolutionary process, or was something else — say, the side-effect of having such a clever brain. Whatever the case, to fully understand this fiasco — and much of human life — one must turn to history, sociology, psychology and political science.
Yet Trivers derides these disciplines. They are rife with self-deception, he argues in one chapter, their theories not based on the robust methods of physics — where self-deception is minimized, he insists — but on a preference for poorly defined variables and a tendency to cherry-pick examples. The irony, of course, is that these are the very problems that undermine Trivers’s own book. In the end, “The Folly of Fools” is not just about self-deception: The book seems an example of it, too.
June 11, 2012
I have been trying to convince myself to write reviews for all the books read, and this is a good time as ever to get started.
Trivers summarized his main thesis more or less within the first two chapters of the book, and the rest are a series of commentary based on life examples, ranging from personal to political. He readily admits that his account of why self-deception is selective will need more experimentation to validate, making this book a beginning of inquiry much like some of his past projects (e.g. reciprocal altruism paper back in the 70's).
I would peg this book at a sophomore college level understanding. The more general knowledge of biology, psychology, and science in general, as well as politics and history you know, the better off you'll be able to follow along with Trivers on what feels like tangents at times. Below the threshold of prior knowledge though, this book WILL frustrate. Trivers also leaves no ambiguity concerning his political affiliations; that being said, any reader must separate the facts he's trying to present from his own opinions of said facts.
At the end, Trivers calls for an integrative (if that's the right word) approach for the social sciences to proceed, namely by adopting the fruits of research from biology. He presents the typical science hierarchy that starts with physics to chemistry to biology, and in his hopes, to psychology and beyond as well. Failure to do so, Trivers contends, leads to serious blunders of various fields such as psychoanalysis, classical economics, and cultural anthropology. He then praises advances in neuroscience/psychology and somewhat does the same for behavioral economics.
Overall, I assigned the book 5 stars on this scale because of the apparent depth of familiarity Trivers has with various fields of inquiry, and the amount of stuff he throws at you while weaving an underlying concept (i.e. self-deception) to connect them all, an ambitious project worth at least looking into. Where someone stands on the various issues he mentioned will of course affect the level of interest throughout the reading (assuming one finishes at all). For my part at least, I would provide the book an 8/10.
Trivers summarized his main thesis more or less within the first two chapters of the book, and the rest are a series of commentary based on life examples, ranging from personal to political. He readily admits that his account of why self-deception is selective will need more experimentation to validate, making this book a beginning of inquiry much like some of his past projects (e.g. reciprocal altruism paper back in the 70's).
I would peg this book at a sophomore college level understanding. The more general knowledge of biology, psychology, and science in general, as well as politics and history you know, the better off you'll be able to follow along with Trivers on what feels like tangents at times. Below the threshold of prior knowledge though, this book WILL frustrate. Trivers also leaves no ambiguity concerning his political affiliations; that being said, any reader must separate the facts he's trying to present from his own opinions of said facts.
At the end, Trivers calls for an integrative (if that's the right word) approach for the social sciences to proceed, namely by adopting the fruits of research from biology. He presents the typical science hierarchy that starts with physics to chemistry to biology, and in his hopes, to psychology and beyond as well. Failure to do so, Trivers contends, leads to serious blunders of various fields such as psychoanalysis, classical economics, and cultural anthropology. He then praises advances in neuroscience/psychology and somewhat does the same for behavioral economics.
Overall, I assigned the book 5 stars on this scale because of the apparent depth of familiarity Trivers has with various fields of inquiry, and the amount of stuff he throws at you while weaving an underlying concept (i.e. self-deception) to connect them all, an ambitious project worth at least looking into. Where someone stands on the various issues he mentioned will of course affect the level of interest throughout the reading (assuming one finishes at all). For my part at least, I would provide the book an 8/10.
January 7, 2016
Biologist Robert Trivers' book The Folly of Fools tells the manifest ways human beings deceive themselves, from politics and religion to science and everyday life. In the earlier portion of the book, Trivers traces the way in which self-deception involved in human beings and other animals, particularly as a tool to make the transmission of the species' genes continue in. The basic point is that if you're fooling yourself about something, it becomes an awfully lot easier to fool others about the same thing. The rest of Trivers' book is showing what this self-deception means for us practically. I couldn't enjoy reading this book enough.
April 28, 2015
Do not be fooled by the summary, this book has no true topic. It reads as if Trivers posited an initial question and then decided to write a series of tangentially related chapters to fill the book.
The introduction identifies an interesting question and then the remainder of the book fails to address that question. It almost felt like Trivers wanted to write about deception in nature and fell on the "self-deception" angle as a way to bring in readers. He posits that self-deception may be evolutionarily useful because it reduces the likelihood that our attempts to deceive others will be identified. He brings up a few studies that demonstrate the connections between cognitive load and the likelihood that deception will be uncovered; however, these studies are handled in a cursory way and stem entirely from the field of psychology. While I generally find psychology to be a useful social science, Trivers spends 15-20 pages lambasting psychology as unscientific and prone to self-deception. He also takes issue with the the laboratory based experiments that psychology has used because they fail to demonstrate the utility of self-deception/deception. It is curious that the only evidence he uses to support his theory of self-deception comes solely from a field he seems to hold so much disdain for.
The first few chapters focus solely on deception in nature. Not self-deception, and often not even intentional deception. Mimicry, camouflage, and non-human communication take center stage. When he discusses humans it is to note the deception that human genes engage in both in utero and in development in order to increase the the chance of procreation. This chapters are almost completely irrelevant to the topic at hand. While a discussion of the utility of deception in the evolutionary context would have been a useful foundation, the discussion in this text focuses solely on involuntary deceptions (i.e. camoflage) which, while advantageous, have no logical bearing on self-deception. After spending the first half of the book building up this irrelevant base about the benefits of (largely involuntary or unintentional) deception, Trivers gives a very brief overview of the ways that humans may deceive themselves. These generally fall into the cognitive biases that have been identified in psychological studies, again curious considering the issues Trivers has with the field. Immediately after this, he launches into some examples of self-deception by criticizing American foreign policy as well as historical revisionism in a few nations. He discusses self-deception as applied to religion and gives a brief explanation of where religions may have come from. He ends the book with a short chapter dealing with how to avoid self-deception, which mainly boils down to "be conscious of you actions," and "talk things over with others."
Trivers states at the beginning of the book that he wants to deal with self-deception through the lens of evolutionary biology. He fails spectacularly in this endeavor. Nowhere is there any attempt to actually explain the benefits of self-deception beyond a few meager, unstudied, connections. Trivers provides a polemic on the deficiencies he sees with social sciences, going on to call psychoanalysis a long-running fraud and specifically decrying the popularity of Freud. Despite this vehemence, Trivers relies heavily on the laboratory studies in psychology departments, the same ones he alleges are artificial and based on morality instead of evidence, to prop up his lackluster and very weak theory. Even worse, there is not a single new idea posited in this book. The vast majority of the topics he discusses with regard to deception and self-deception have been covered by the fields of cognitive and evolutionary psychology. His discussions of religion and warfare have likewise been studied by evolutionary psychologists, and his take on the political implications of self-deception are left wanting considering the in-depth coverage they have received by political scientists.
The introduction identifies an interesting question and then the remainder of the book fails to address that question. It almost felt like Trivers wanted to write about deception in nature and fell on the "self-deception" angle as a way to bring in readers. He posits that self-deception may be evolutionarily useful because it reduces the likelihood that our attempts to deceive others will be identified. He brings up a few studies that demonstrate the connections between cognitive load and the likelihood that deception will be uncovered; however, these studies are handled in a cursory way and stem entirely from the field of psychology. While I generally find psychology to be a useful social science, Trivers spends 15-20 pages lambasting psychology as unscientific and prone to self-deception. He also takes issue with the the laboratory based experiments that psychology has used because they fail to demonstrate the utility of self-deception/deception. It is curious that the only evidence he uses to support his theory of self-deception comes solely from a field he seems to hold so much disdain for.
The first few chapters focus solely on deception in nature. Not self-deception, and often not even intentional deception. Mimicry, camouflage, and non-human communication take center stage. When he discusses humans it is to note the deception that human genes engage in both in utero and in development in order to increase the the chance of procreation. This chapters are almost completely irrelevant to the topic at hand. While a discussion of the utility of deception in the evolutionary context would have been a useful foundation, the discussion in this text focuses solely on involuntary deceptions (i.e. camoflage) which, while advantageous, have no logical bearing on self-deception. After spending the first half of the book building up this irrelevant base about the benefits of (largely involuntary or unintentional) deception, Trivers gives a very brief overview of the ways that humans may deceive themselves. These generally fall into the cognitive biases that have been identified in psychological studies, again curious considering the issues Trivers has with the field. Immediately after this, he launches into some examples of self-deception by criticizing American foreign policy as well as historical revisionism in a few nations. He discusses self-deception as applied to religion and gives a brief explanation of where religions may have come from. He ends the book with a short chapter dealing with how to avoid self-deception, which mainly boils down to "be conscious of you actions," and "talk things over with others."
Trivers states at the beginning of the book that he wants to deal with self-deception through the lens of evolutionary biology. He fails spectacularly in this endeavor. Nowhere is there any attempt to actually explain the benefits of self-deception beyond a few meager, unstudied, connections. Trivers provides a polemic on the deficiencies he sees with social sciences, going on to call psychoanalysis a long-running fraud and specifically decrying the popularity of Freud. Despite this vehemence, Trivers relies heavily on the laboratory studies in psychology departments, the same ones he alleges are artificial and based on morality instead of evidence, to prop up his lackluster and very weak theory. Even worse, there is not a single new idea posited in this book. The vast majority of the topics he discusses with regard to deception and self-deception have been covered by the fields of cognitive and evolutionary psychology. His discussions of religion and warfare have likewise been studied by evolutionary psychologists, and his take on the political implications of self-deception are left wanting considering the in-depth coverage they have received by political scientists.
January 8, 2013
Having read and studied widely in animal behavior/sociobiology since college, I was already aware of Trivers' work in the field. Having read several books about denial and related ideas in psychology, I thought this book would be a great embodiment of the overlapping area of that Venn diagram. Trivers has been thinking and writing about this stuff for years. This should be good, right?
I couldn't do it. Couldn't will myself to keep going. I am calling it quits after four chapters. Why?
I felt like he was using the more recent work of others as an excuse to rehash his own old work. While such a premise can work because newer work can strengthen previous hypotheses, I feel that Trivers was not very successful at relating his work to the work of others.
I found the book to be very disjointed, like each chapter is a loosely-related collection of vignettes but that the vignettes are too disparate to create any type of cogency.
Lastly, I found Trivers' occasional interjections of personal anecdotes that describe his own inappropriate or questionable behavior to be very off-putting.
Ultimately, my inability to follow the book's thread, however thin it was, removed any enjoyment of the book and led me to stop reading it. I found myself putting more energy into thinking about the perceived shortcomings than into the narrative. That was when I decided to move on to another book.
I couldn't do it. Couldn't will myself to keep going. I am calling it quits after four chapters. Why?
I felt like he was using the more recent work of others as an excuse to rehash his own old work. While such a premise can work because newer work can strengthen previous hypotheses, I feel that Trivers was not very successful at relating his work to the work of others.
I found the book to be very disjointed, like each chapter is a loosely-related collection of vignettes but that the vignettes are too disparate to create any type of cogency.
Lastly, I found Trivers' occasional interjections of personal anecdotes that describe his own inappropriate or questionable behavior to be very off-putting.
Ultimately, my inability to follow the book's thread, however thin it was, removed any enjoyment of the book and led me to stop reading it. I found myself putting more energy into thinking about the perceived shortcomings than into the narrative. That was when I decided to move on to another book.
June 20, 2016
La naturaleza es una mentirosa. Los animales se camuflan para cazar a otros o no ser cazados por otros. No es la excepción, sino la norma. ¿Y nosotros? Pues no sólo engañamos continuamente, sino que nos engañamos a nosotros mismos. Nos creemos mejores de lo que somos; todos creemos estar por encima de la media.
Este libro da un repaso a todo ello, desde la economía a las relaciones sociales, la empresa y el autoengaño. Muy interesante. He de decir también que es un libro largo, aunque a mí no me ha importado en absoluto.
Este libro da un repaso a todo ello, desde la economía a las relaciones sociales, la empresa y el autoengaño. Muy interesante. He de decir también que es un libro largo, aunque a mí no me ha importado en absoluto.
January 17, 2018
Some interesting and unexpected insights that, as the author says, merit greater inspection. I understand that RT also made early contributions to evolutionary psychology. Clearly, one of those who marches to a different drummer.
February 4, 2012
Difficilmente inquadrabile, Robert Trivers. Non ancora settantenne (ne compirà 69 il 19 febbraio), è considerato uno dei più importanti studiosi dell’evoluzione contemporanei. Basti pensare che è lui che ha scritto l’introduzione al libro sull’evoluzione più influente degli ultimi 40 anni, The Selfish Gene (Il gene egoista) di Richard Dawkins (non ditemi che non ne avete sentito parlare e, soprattutto che non l’avete letto: fatelo immediatamente).
A differenza di Dawkins, però, Trivers non è mai stato un “divulgatore” (per le mie riserve su questo termine, che giustifica la presa di distanza implicita nelle virgolette, vi invito a guardare questo post). Se non mi sbaglio, questo è il suo primo scritto non tecnico, se si esclude quello scritto – a 4 mani – sul disastro aereo del 13 gennaio 1982, quando un Boeing 737 diretto in Florida precipitò durante il decollo da Washington DC, schiantandosi su un ponte e precipitando nel Potomac a poche centinaia di metri dal National Mall e dalla Casa Bianca.
Robert Trivers
Non aiuta la popolarità di Robert Trivers, soprattutto nella bacchettona America, che si professi comunista, che sia stato un amico personale di Huey P. Newton, leader delle Pantere Nere, dal 1978 alla sua morte violenta nel 1989 (è con lui che Trivers ha scritto il libro sul disastro aereo del 1982 ed è a lui che The Folly of Fools è dedicato), che sia stato membro delle Pantere Nere dal 1979, che – pur essendo figlio di un ebreo profugo dalla Germania nazista – sia attivamente schierato a favore del popolo palestinese e accusi Israele di genocidio (altra posizione piuttosto impopolare negli Stati Uniti) e, last but not least, che sia un consumatore sistematico e confesso di cannabinoidi. Se vi interessa la sua biografia, che è piuttosto pittoresca, vi suggerisco la lettura di un profilo pubblicato sul Guardian nel 2005, in occasione di un precedente libro di Robert Trivers (Andrew Brown, The kindness of strangers, pubblicato il 27 agosto 2005).
Un aspetto essenziale della vita di Trivers è che è stato colpito in almeno due occasioni dalla depressione e dal disagio mentale. La prima volta fu quando, ancora intenzionato a laurearsi in legge, fu ricoverato per una grave forma di esaurimento nervoso (come si diceva all’epoca, testimoni gli Stones), apparentemente innescata da un eccesso di studio di Ludwig Wittgenstein (altro bel tipino: ma questa è tutta un’altra storia). La seconda fu quando nel 1978 lasciò Harvard per l’Università di California a Santa Cruz. Secondo lo stesso Trivers era “perhaps the second worst school in its class in the country. Lord, what a place. It was a very, very bad fit for me, and a dreadful 16 years.” Secondo il citato articolo del Guardian: “Santa Cruz [was] a university with a reputation for drug abuse and slackness. ‘It was a once-in-a-lifetime mistake,’ [Trivers] says, ‘in the sense that I can’t afford to make another one like that. I survived, and I helped raise my children for a while; but that was all.’
Trivers ha scritto 5 articoli entrati nella storia della teoria dell’evoluzione ancora prima di conseguire il Ph. D.:
Trivers, R. L. (1971). “The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism”. The Quarterly Review of Biology 46 (1): 35–57. doi:10.1086/406755. JSTOR 2822435.
Trivers, R. L. (1972) Parental investment and sexual selection. In B. Campbell (Ed.) Sexual selection and the descent of man, 1871-1971 (pp 136–179). Chicago, Aldine.
Trivers, RL; Willard, DE (1973). “Natural selection of parental ability to vary the sex ratio of offspring”. Science 179 (4068): 90–2. Bibcode 1973Sci…179…90T. doi:10.1126/science.179.4068.90. JSTOR 1734960. PMID 4682135.
Trivers, R. L. (1974). “Parent-Offspring Conflict”. American Zoologist 14 (1): 249–264. doi:10.1093/icb/14.1.249.
Trivers, R. L.; Hare, H. (1976). “Haploidploidy and the evolution of the social insect”. Science 191 (4224): 249–63. doi:10.1126/science.1108197. PMID 1108197.
Poi, come abbiamo detto, sostanzialmente sparisce. Nel 2004 John Brockman (ne abbiamo parlato qui) racconta la storia così:
Thirty years ago, Robert Trivers disappeared.
My connection to him is goes back to the 1970s. He had left Harvard and was roaming around Santa Cruz when I was introduced to him in a telephone call by our mutual friend Huey P. Newton, Chairman of The Black Panther Party. Huey put Robert on the phone and we had a conversation in which he introduced me to his ideas. I recall noting at the time the power and energy of his intellect. Huey, excited by Robert’s ideas on deceit and self-deception, was eager for the three of us to get together.
We never had the meeting. Huey met a very bad end. I lost track of Robert. Over the years there were rumors about a series of breakdowns; he was in Jamaica; in jail.
He fell off the map.
[...]
Several weeks ago, [...] the mathematician Karl Sigmund [...] and I talked about theories of indirect reciprocity, generous reciprocity, reputation, and assessment, and the relevance of these concepts in our everyday lives.
“Where did you come up with these ideas?” I asked Karl.
“In the early 70s,” he said. “I read a famous paper by Robert Trivers, one of five he wrote as a graduate student at Harvard, in which the idea of indirect reciprocity was mentioned obliquely. He spoke of generalized altruism, where you are giving back something not to the person you owed it to but to somebody else in society. This sentence suggested the possibility that generosity may be a consideration of how altruism works in evolutionary biology.”
Karl went on to explain how evolutionary concepts of indirect reciprocity, generous reciprocity, reputation assessment, cooperation, evolutionary dynamics—all inspired by Trivers’ early paper—are very much in play in all our lives: in Google’s page rankings; in amazon.com’s reader reviews; in the reputations of eBay buyers and sellers, and even in the good standing of a nonprofit web site such as Edge (for example, type the word “edge” in the Google search box, you arrive at this web site).
Nello stesso evento organizzato da Edge nel 2004 (che trovate qui) Steven Pinker (su questo blog ne abbiamo parlato, tra l’altro, qui) riassume così l’enorme influenza di quei 5 paper:
I consider Trivers one of the great thinkers in the history of Western thought. It would not be too much of an exaggeration to say that he has provided a scientific explanation for the human condition: the intricately complicated and endlessly fascinating relationships that bind us to one another.
In an astonishing burst of creative brilliance, Trivers wrote a series of papers in the early 1970s that explained each of the five major kinds of human relationships: male with female, parent with child, sibling with sibling, acquaintance with acquaintance, and a person with himself or herself. In the first three cases Trivers pointed out that the partial overlap of genetic interests between individuals should, according to evolutionary biology, put them in a conflict of psychological interest as well. The love of parents, siblings, and spouses should be deep and powerful but not unmeasured, and there should be circumstances in which their interests diverge and the result is psychological conflict. In the fourth case Trivers pointed out that cooperation between nonrelatives can arise only if they are outfitted with certain cognitive abilities (an ability to recognize individuals and remember what they have done) and certain emotions (guilt, shame, gratitude, sympathy, trust)—the core of the moral sense. In the fifth case Trivers pointed out that all of us have a motive to portray ourselves as more honorable than we really are, and that since the best liar is the one who believes his own lies, the mind should be “designed” by natural selection to deceive itself.
These theories have inspired an astonishing amount of research and commentary in psychology and biology—the fields of sociobiology, evolutionary psychology, Darwinian social science, and behavioral ecology are in large part attempt to test and flesh out Trivers’ ideas. It is no coincidence that E. O. Wilson’s Sociobiology and Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene were published in 1975 and 1976 respectively, just a few years after Trivers’ seminal papers. Both bestselling authors openly acknowledged that they were popularizing Trivers’ ideas and the research they spawned. Likewise for the much-talked-about books on evolutionary psychology in the 1990s—The Adapted Mind, The Red Queen, Born to Rebel, The Origin of Virtue, The Moral Animal, and my own How the Mind Works. Each of these books is based in large part on Trivers’ ideas and the explosion of research they inspired (involving dozens of animal species, mathematical and computer modeling, and human social and cognitive psychology).
But Trivers’ ideas are, if such a thing is possible, even more important than the countless experiments and field studies they kicked off. They belong in the category of ideas that are obvious once they are explained, yet eluded great minds for ages; simple enough to be stated in a few words, yet with implications we are only beginning to work out.
The point that partial genetic overlap among individuals leads to partial conflicts of interests in their motives explains why human life is so endlessly fascinating – why we love, and why we bicker with those we love; why we depend on one another, and why a part of us mistrusts the people we depend on; why we know so much about ourselves, but can’t see ourselves as others see us; why brilliant people do stupid things and evil men are convinced of their rectitude. Trivers has explained why our social and mental lives are more interesting than those of bugs and frogs and why novelists, psychotherapists, and philosophers (in the old sense of wise commentators on the human condition) will always have something to write about.
Trivers is an under-appreciated genius. Social psychology should be based on his theory, but the textbooks barely acknowledge him. Even in his own field he has been overshadowed in the public eye by those who have popularized his ideas. An Edge event with other leading third culture thinkers focusing on his work will be a major contribution, and begin to give this great mind the acknowledgement it deserves.
Tutte queste divagazioni per introdurre una recensione del libro che, a questo punto, è quasi superflua: il libro è come l’autore: affascinante, geniale, molto dispersivo e a tratti francamente irritante. una summa della biografia e degli interessi di Trivers. Stiamo parlando di oltre 300 pagine di testo, articolate in 14 capitoli.
I primi 3 sono dedicati alla teoria evoluzionistica dell’inganno e dell’autoinganno, come emerge dagli approfondimenti condotti nell’arco di 40 anni da Trivers, dalla sua logica evoluzionistica dell’autoinganno, alla sua presenza in natura, alla sua neurofisiologia.
I 4 capitoli successivi trattano della fenomenologia dell’inganno e dell’autoinganno, nella famiglia, nelle relazioni tra i sessi, nell’immunologia (una tesi artdita ma convincente), nella psicologia. Il passaggio alla vita quotidiana (capitolo 8) permette a Trivers di riprendere qui alcune sue ossessioni eccentriche (se così posso dire) al suo campo di ricerca principale: i disastri aerei (capitolo 9, il che permette a Trivers di riprendere l’analisi del disastro del 1982 e a noi di confrontare il suo metodo con quello proposto da Feynman per l’esplosione dello Space Shuttle), la genesi e l’inganno del sionismo (capitolo 10), la mistificazione della guerra in Iraq (11), la religione come autoinganno (12) e le stesse scienze sociali come pseudoscienze.
Lascio la parola allo stesso Trivers, in un TEDtalk in cui parla proprio di questo libro.
* * *
Citazioni: sono miei personali appunti che non siete obbligati a leggere, ma se siete curiosi qualcosa di utile e stimolante certamente lo troverete. Come di consueto il riferimento è alla posizione sul Kindle:
Although the biological approach defines “advantage” in terms of survival and reproduction, the psychological approach often defines “advantage” as feeling better, or being happier. Self-deception occurs because we all want to feel good, and self-deception can help us do so. There is some truth to this, as we shall see, but not much. [249]
[...] dishonesty has often been the file against which intellectual tools for truth have been sharpened. [273]
[...] overconfidence is one of the oldest and most dangerous forms of self-deception—both in our personal lives and in global decisions [...] [424]
It has been said that power tends to corrupt and absolute power, absolutely. This usually refers to the fact that power permits the execution of ever more selfish strategies toward which one is then “corrupted.” But psychologists have shown that power corrupts our mental processes almost at once. When a feeling of power is induced in people, they are less likely to take others’ viewpoint and more likely to center their thinking on themselves. The result is a reduced ability to comprehend how others see, think, and feel. Power, among other things, induces blindness toward others. [526]
In short, powerful men suffer multiple deficits in their ability to apprehend the world of others correctly, due to their power and their sex. [540]
We often think that greater intelligence will be associated with less self-deception—or at least intellectuals imagine this to be true. What if the reverse is true, as I believe it is—smarter people on average lie and self-deceive more often than do the less gifted? [800]
Camouflage is so common in nature as almost to escape notice. [846: Non so l'autore ne è consapevole, ma questa frase ha un meraviglioso sapore escheriano e piacerebbe da morire a Douglas Hofstadter!]
One species of squid has also evolved a female mimic, one so good that he sometimes fools even fellow female mimics, who approach in search of copulation. [859]
The importance of aggression following knowledge of deception is that it may greatly increase the costs of deceptive behavior and the benefits of remaining undetected. Fear of aggression can itself become a secondary signal suggesting deception, and its suppression an advantage for self-deception. Of course, aggression is not the only social cost of detected deception. A woman may terminate a relationship upon learning of a lie, usually a crueler punishment than her giving you a good beating, assuming she is capable. [927]
Because we live inside our conscious minds, it is often easy to imagine that decisions arise in consciousness and are carried out by orders emanating from that system. We decide, “Hell, let’s throw this ball,” and we then initiate the signals to throw the ball, shortly after which the ball is thrown. But detailed study of the neurophysiology of action shows otherwise. More than twenty years ago, it was first shown that an impulse to act begins in the brain region involved in motor preparation about six-tenths of a second before consciousness of the intention, after which there is a further delay of as much as half a second before the action is taken. In other words, when we form the conscious intention to throw the ball, areas of the brain involved in throwing have already been activated more than half a second earlier. [1039]
[...] the proof of a long chain of unconscious neural activity before conscious intention is formed (after which there is about a one-second delay before action) does not obviate the concept of free will, at least in the sense of being able to abort bad ideas and also being able to learn, both consciously and unconsciously, from past experience. [1062]
A relatively gentle form of imposed self-deception is flattery, in which the subordinate gains in status by massaging the ego or self-image of the dominant. In royal courts, the sycophant has ample time to study the king, while the latter pays little attention to the former. The king is also presumed to have limited insight into self on general grounds; being dominant, he has less time and motivation to study his own self-deception. [1243]
Remunerectomies, for example, are performed solely to remove a patient’s wallet. [1342]
The neocortex is largely the social brain, differentially involved in interactions with close relatives and other social relationships; the hypothalamus is involved in hunger and growth, much more egocentric motives. One can well imagine an argument between the two, with the (maternal) neocortex saying, “Family is important; I believe in family; I will invest in family,” while the (paternal) hypothalamus replies, “I’m hungry.” That is, each argues for its favored position as if arguing for the good of the entire organism (“I”). [1508]
[...] when there is no disagreement, a whisper will do; shouting suggests conflict. [1610]
Few relationships have more potential for deceit and self-deception than those between the sexes. Two genetically unrelated individuals get together to engage in the only act that will generate a new human being—sex, an intense experience that is at best ecstatic and at worst deeply disappointing, or when forced, extremely painful and damaging. The act is often embedded in a larger relationship that will permit the two to stay together for years or even life—long enough to raise children. Opportunities for misrepresentation and outright deception are everywhere, and selection pressures are often strong. Likewise, each partner’s knowledge of the other is usually detailed and intense and (absent denial) grows with time.
Sex itself is fraught with psychological and biological meaning at every depth. Are we misrepresenting our level of interest, sexual or romantic, our deeper orientation toward the other, positive or negative, or our very sexual orientation? [1675]
Why sexual reproduction? Why not go the simple, efficient route and have females produce offspring without any male genetic contribution? Females typically do all the work; why not get all the genetic benefits? In other words, why males? [1691]
The metabolic requirements of mammals raised in germ-free environments drops by as much as 30 percent. Supplying antibiotics in food is associated with growth gains in birds and mammals on the order of 10 percent. [2032]
After all, they may just have met you, but you have known yourself all your life. So we expect overconfidence on deceptive grounds alone. [2361]
A nice example of unconscious persuasion concerns metaphors about the stock market taken from daily news broadcasts. The stock market moves up or down in response to a great range of variables, about most of which we are completely ignorant. The movement mirrors a random walk, with no particular pattern. And yet at the end of the day, its movements are described by the media in two kinds of language (agent or object) that are often used for movement more generally. The average listener will be completely unconscious of the metaphors being used. The key distinction is whether an agent controls the movement of something or it is an object moved by outside forces (such as gravity). Here are examples of the agent metaphor for stock movements: “the NASDAQ climbed higher,” “the Dow fought its way upward,” “the S&P dove like a hawk.” The object metaphors sound more like: “the NASDAQ dropped off a cliff,” “the S&P bounced back.” Agent metaphors tempt us to think that a trend will continue; object ones do not. The interesting point is that there is a systematic bias in the use of the language—up
A differenza di Dawkins, però, Trivers non è mai stato un “divulgatore” (per le mie riserve su questo termine, che giustifica la presa di distanza implicita nelle virgolette, vi invito a guardare questo post). Se non mi sbaglio, questo è il suo primo scritto non tecnico, se si esclude quello scritto – a 4 mani – sul disastro aereo del 13 gennaio 1982, quando un Boeing 737 diretto in Florida precipitò durante il decollo da Washington DC, schiantandosi su un ponte e precipitando nel Potomac a poche centinaia di metri dal National Mall e dalla Casa Bianca.
Robert Trivers
Non aiuta la popolarità di Robert Trivers, soprattutto nella bacchettona America, che si professi comunista, che sia stato un amico personale di Huey P. Newton, leader delle Pantere Nere, dal 1978 alla sua morte violenta nel 1989 (è con lui che Trivers ha scritto il libro sul disastro aereo del 1982 ed è a lui che The Folly of Fools è dedicato), che sia stato membro delle Pantere Nere dal 1979, che – pur essendo figlio di un ebreo profugo dalla Germania nazista – sia attivamente schierato a favore del popolo palestinese e accusi Israele di genocidio (altra posizione piuttosto impopolare negli Stati Uniti) e, last but not least, che sia un consumatore sistematico e confesso di cannabinoidi. Se vi interessa la sua biografia, che è piuttosto pittoresca, vi suggerisco la lettura di un profilo pubblicato sul Guardian nel 2005, in occasione di un precedente libro di Robert Trivers (Andrew Brown, The kindness of strangers, pubblicato il 27 agosto 2005).
Un aspetto essenziale della vita di Trivers è che è stato colpito in almeno due occasioni dalla depressione e dal disagio mentale. La prima volta fu quando, ancora intenzionato a laurearsi in legge, fu ricoverato per una grave forma di esaurimento nervoso (come si diceva all’epoca, testimoni gli Stones), apparentemente innescata da un eccesso di studio di Ludwig Wittgenstein (altro bel tipino: ma questa è tutta un’altra storia). La seconda fu quando nel 1978 lasciò Harvard per l’Università di California a Santa Cruz. Secondo lo stesso Trivers era “perhaps the second worst school in its class in the country. Lord, what a place. It was a very, very bad fit for me, and a dreadful 16 years.” Secondo il citato articolo del Guardian: “Santa Cruz [was] a university with a reputation for drug abuse and slackness. ‘It was a once-in-a-lifetime mistake,’ [Trivers] says, ‘in the sense that I can’t afford to make another one like that. I survived, and I helped raise my children for a while; but that was all.’
Trivers ha scritto 5 articoli entrati nella storia della teoria dell’evoluzione ancora prima di conseguire il Ph. D.:
Trivers, R. L. (1971). “The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism”. The Quarterly Review of Biology 46 (1): 35–57. doi:10.1086/406755. JSTOR 2822435.
Trivers, R. L. (1972) Parental investment and sexual selection. In B. Campbell (Ed.) Sexual selection and the descent of man, 1871-1971 (pp 136–179). Chicago, Aldine.
Trivers, RL; Willard, DE (1973). “Natural selection of parental ability to vary the sex ratio of offspring”. Science 179 (4068): 90–2. Bibcode 1973Sci…179…90T. doi:10.1126/science.179.4068.90. JSTOR 1734960. PMID 4682135.
Trivers, R. L. (1974). “Parent-Offspring Conflict”. American Zoologist 14 (1): 249–264. doi:10.1093/icb/14.1.249.
Trivers, R. L.; Hare, H. (1976). “Haploidploidy and the evolution of the social insect”. Science 191 (4224): 249–63. doi:10.1126/science.1108197. PMID 1108197.
Poi, come abbiamo detto, sostanzialmente sparisce. Nel 2004 John Brockman (ne abbiamo parlato qui) racconta la storia così:
Thirty years ago, Robert Trivers disappeared.
My connection to him is goes back to the 1970s. He had left Harvard and was roaming around Santa Cruz when I was introduced to him in a telephone call by our mutual friend Huey P. Newton, Chairman of The Black Panther Party. Huey put Robert on the phone and we had a conversation in which he introduced me to his ideas. I recall noting at the time the power and energy of his intellect. Huey, excited by Robert’s ideas on deceit and self-deception, was eager for the three of us to get together.
We never had the meeting. Huey met a very bad end. I lost track of Robert. Over the years there were rumors about a series of breakdowns; he was in Jamaica; in jail.
He fell off the map.
[...]
Several weeks ago, [...] the mathematician Karl Sigmund [...] and I talked about theories of indirect reciprocity, generous reciprocity, reputation, and assessment, and the relevance of these concepts in our everyday lives.
“Where did you come up with these ideas?” I asked Karl.
“In the early 70s,” he said. “I read a famous paper by Robert Trivers, one of five he wrote as a graduate student at Harvard, in which the idea of indirect reciprocity was mentioned obliquely. He spoke of generalized altruism, where you are giving back something not to the person you owed it to but to somebody else in society. This sentence suggested the possibility that generosity may be a consideration of how altruism works in evolutionary biology.”
Karl went on to explain how evolutionary concepts of indirect reciprocity, generous reciprocity, reputation assessment, cooperation, evolutionary dynamics—all inspired by Trivers’ early paper—are very much in play in all our lives: in Google’s page rankings; in amazon.com’s reader reviews; in the reputations of eBay buyers and sellers, and even in the good standing of a nonprofit web site such as Edge (for example, type the word “edge” in the Google search box, you arrive at this web site).
Nello stesso evento organizzato da Edge nel 2004 (che trovate qui) Steven Pinker (su questo blog ne abbiamo parlato, tra l’altro, qui) riassume così l’enorme influenza di quei 5 paper:
I consider Trivers one of the great thinkers in the history of Western thought. It would not be too much of an exaggeration to say that he has provided a scientific explanation for the human condition: the intricately complicated and endlessly fascinating relationships that bind us to one another.
In an astonishing burst of creative brilliance, Trivers wrote a series of papers in the early 1970s that explained each of the five major kinds of human relationships: male with female, parent with child, sibling with sibling, acquaintance with acquaintance, and a person with himself or herself. In the first three cases Trivers pointed out that the partial overlap of genetic interests between individuals should, according to evolutionary biology, put them in a conflict of psychological interest as well. The love of parents, siblings, and spouses should be deep and powerful but not unmeasured, and there should be circumstances in which their interests diverge and the result is psychological conflict. In the fourth case Trivers pointed out that cooperation between nonrelatives can arise only if they are outfitted with certain cognitive abilities (an ability to recognize individuals and remember what they have done) and certain emotions (guilt, shame, gratitude, sympathy, trust)—the core of the moral sense. In the fifth case Trivers pointed out that all of us have a motive to portray ourselves as more honorable than we really are, and that since the best liar is the one who believes his own lies, the mind should be “designed” by natural selection to deceive itself.
These theories have inspired an astonishing amount of research and commentary in psychology and biology—the fields of sociobiology, evolutionary psychology, Darwinian social science, and behavioral ecology are in large part attempt to test and flesh out Trivers’ ideas. It is no coincidence that E. O. Wilson’s Sociobiology and Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene were published in 1975 and 1976 respectively, just a few years after Trivers’ seminal papers. Both bestselling authors openly acknowledged that they were popularizing Trivers’ ideas and the research they spawned. Likewise for the much-talked-about books on evolutionary psychology in the 1990s—The Adapted Mind, The Red Queen, Born to Rebel, The Origin of Virtue, The Moral Animal, and my own How the Mind Works. Each of these books is based in large part on Trivers’ ideas and the explosion of research they inspired (involving dozens of animal species, mathematical and computer modeling, and human social and cognitive psychology).
But Trivers’ ideas are, if such a thing is possible, even more important than the countless experiments and field studies they kicked off. They belong in the category of ideas that are obvious once they are explained, yet eluded great minds for ages; simple enough to be stated in a few words, yet with implications we are only beginning to work out.
The point that partial genetic overlap among individuals leads to partial conflicts of interests in their motives explains why human life is so endlessly fascinating – why we love, and why we bicker with those we love; why we depend on one another, and why a part of us mistrusts the people we depend on; why we know so much about ourselves, but can’t see ourselves as others see us; why brilliant people do stupid things and evil men are convinced of their rectitude. Trivers has explained why our social and mental lives are more interesting than those of bugs and frogs and why novelists, psychotherapists, and philosophers (in the old sense of wise commentators on the human condition) will always have something to write about.
Trivers is an under-appreciated genius. Social psychology should be based on his theory, but the textbooks barely acknowledge him. Even in his own field he has been overshadowed in the public eye by those who have popularized his ideas. An Edge event with other leading third culture thinkers focusing on his work will be a major contribution, and begin to give this great mind the acknowledgement it deserves.
Tutte queste divagazioni per introdurre una recensione del libro che, a questo punto, è quasi superflua: il libro è come l’autore: affascinante, geniale, molto dispersivo e a tratti francamente irritante. una summa della biografia e degli interessi di Trivers. Stiamo parlando di oltre 300 pagine di testo, articolate in 14 capitoli.
I primi 3 sono dedicati alla teoria evoluzionistica dell’inganno e dell’autoinganno, come emerge dagli approfondimenti condotti nell’arco di 40 anni da Trivers, dalla sua logica evoluzionistica dell’autoinganno, alla sua presenza in natura, alla sua neurofisiologia.
I 4 capitoli successivi trattano della fenomenologia dell’inganno e dell’autoinganno, nella famiglia, nelle relazioni tra i sessi, nell’immunologia (una tesi artdita ma convincente), nella psicologia. Il passaggio alla vita quotidiana (capitolo 8) permette a Trivers di riprendere qui alcune sue ossessioni eccentriche (se così posso dire) al suo campo di ricerca principale: i disastri aerei (capitolo 9, il che permette a Trivers di riprendere l’analisi del disastro del 1982 e a noi di confrontare il suo metodo con quello proposto da Feynman per l’esplosione dello Space Shuttle), la genesi e l’inganno del sionismo (capitolo 10), la mistificazione della guerra in Iraq (11), la religione come autoinganno (12) e le stesse scienze sociali come pseudoscienze.
Lascio la parola allo stesso Trivers, in un TEDtalk in cui parla proprio di questo libro.
* * *
Citazioni: sono miei personali appunti che non siete obbligati a leggere, ma se siete curiosi qualcosa di utile e stimolante certamente lo troverete. Come di consueto il riferimento è alla posizione sul Kindle:
Although the biological approach defines “advantage” in terms of survival and reproduction, the psychological approach often defines “advantage” as feeling better, or being happier. Self-deception occurs because we all want to feel good, and self-deception can help us do so. There is some truth to this, as we shall see, but not much. [249]
[...] dishonesty has often been the file against which intellectual tools for truth have been sharpened. [273]
[...] overconfidence is one of the oldest and most dangerous forms of self-deception—both in our personal lives and in global decisions [...] [424]
It has been said that power tends to corrupt and absolute power, absolutely. This usually refers to the fact that power permits the execution of ever more selfish strategies toward which one is then “corrupted.” But psychologists have shown that power corrupts our mental processes almost at once. When a feeling of power is induced in people, they are less likely to take others’ viewpoint and more likely to center their thinking on themselves. The result is a reduced ability to comprehend how others see, think, and feel. Power, among other things, induces blindness toward others. [526]
In short, powerful men suffer multiple deficits in their ability to apprehend the world of others correctly, due to their power and their sex. [540]
We often think that greater intelligence will be associated with less self-deception—or at least intellectuals imagine this to be true. What if the reverse is true, as I believe it is—smarter people on average lie and self-deceive more often than do the less gifted? [800]
Camouflage is so common in nature as almost to escape notice. [846: Non so l'autore ne è consapevole, ma questa frase ha un meraviglioso sapore escheriano e piacerebbe da morire a Douglas Hofstadter!]
One species of squid has also evolved a female mimic, one so good that he sometimes fools even fellow female mimics, who approach in search of copulation. [859]
The importance of aggression following knowledge of deception is that it may greatly increase the costs of deceptive behavior and the benefits of remaining undetected. Fear of aggression can itself become a secondary signal suggesting deception, and its suppression an advantage for self-deception. Of course, aggression is not the only social cost of detected deception. A woman may terminate a relationship upon learning of a lie, usually a crueler punishment than her giving you a good beating, assuming she is capable. [927]
Because we live inside our conscious minds, it is often easy to imagine that decisions arise in consciousness and are carried out by orders emanating from that system. We decide, “Hell, let’s throw this ball,” and we then initiate the signals to throw the ball, shortly after which the ball is thrown. But detailed study of the neurophysiology of action shows otherwise. More than twenty years ago, it was first shown that an impulse to act begins in the brain region involved in motor preparation about six-tenths of a second before consciousness of the intention, after which there is a further delay of as much as half a second before the action is taken. In other words, when we form the conscious intention to throw the ball, areas of the brain involved in throwing have already been activated more than half a second earlier. [1039]
[...] the proof of a long chain of unconscious neural activity before conscious intention is formed (after which there is about a one-second delay before action) does not obviate the concept of free will, at least in the sense of being able to abort bad ideas and also being able to learn, both consciously and unconsciously, from past experience. [1062]
A relatively gentle form of imposed self-deception is flattery, in which the subordinate gains in status by massaging the ego or self-image of the dominant. In royal courts, the sycophant has ample time to study the king, while the latter pays little attention to the former. The king is also presumed to have limited insight into self on general grounds; being dominant, he has less time and motivation to study his own self-deception. [1243]
Remunerectomies, for example, are performed solely to remove a patient’s wallet. [1342]
The neocortex is largely the social brain, differentially involved in interactions with close relatives and other social relationships; the hypothalamus is involved in hunger and growth, much more egocentric motives. One can well imagine an argument between the two, with the (maternal) neocortex saying, “Family is important; I believe in family; I will invest in family,” while the (paternal) hypothalamus replies, “I’m hungry.” That is, each argues for its favored position as if arguing for the good of the entire organism (“I”). [1508]
[...] when there is no disagreement, a whisper will do; shouting suggests conflict. [1610]
Few relationships have more potential for deceit and self-deception than those between the sexes. Two genetically unrelated individuals get together to engage in the only act that will generate a new human being—sex, an intense experience that is at best ecstatic and at worst deeply disappointing, or when forced, extremely painful and damaging. The act is often embedded in a larger relationship that will permit the two to stay together for years or even life—long enough to raise children. Opportunities for misrepresentation and outright deception are everywhere, and selection pressures are often strong. Likewise, each partner’s knowledge of the other is usually detailed and intense and (absent denial) grows with time.
Sex itself is fraught with psychological and biological meaning at every depth. Are we misrepresenting our level of interest, sexual or romantic, our deeper orientation toward the other, positive or negative, or our very sexual orientation? [1675]
Why sexual reproduction? Why not go the simple, efficient route and have females produce offspring without any male genetic contribution? Females typically do all the work; why not get all the genetic benefits? In other words, why males? [1691]
The metabolic requirements of mammals raised in germ-free environments drops by as much as 30 percent. Supplying antibiotics in food is associated with growth gains in birds and mammals on the order of 10 percent. [2032]
After all, they may just have met you, but you have known yourself all your life. So we expect overconfidence on deceptive grounds alone. [2361]
A nice example of unconscious persuasion concerns metaphors about the stock market taken from daily news broadcasts. The stock market moves up or down in response to a great range of variables, about most of which we are completely ignorant. The movement mirrors a random walk, with no particular pattern. And yet at the end of the day, its movements are described by the media in two kinds of language (agent or object) that are often used for movement more generally. The average listener will be completely unconscious of the metaphors being used. The key distinction is whether an agent controls the movement of something or it is an object moved by outside forces (such as gravity). Here are examples of the agent metaphor for stock movements: “the NASDAQ climbed higher,” “the Dow fought its way upward,” “the S&P dove like a hawk.” The object metaphors sound more like: “the NASDAQ dropped off a cliff,” “the S&P bounced back.” Agent metaphors tempt us to think that a trend will continue; object ones do not. The interesting point is that there is a systematic bias in the use of the language—up
December 1, 2014
I rarely give a book five stars, and only if I think it says something new and important. It’s not new that we humans practice deceit on others and ourselves, but Trivers takes the point much further. If human intelligence, which we love to lord over other species, is our defining quality, then why do we, as individuals and cultures, practice self-deceit on a grand and pervasive scale? We lie to ourselves about ourselves, how others view us, our pasts, what we see or don’t see, what we know and don’t know, and our certainty about all these things. If we’re so damn smart, how has self-deceit survived the rigors of natural selection?
His answer begins with straightforward logic. All animals practice deceit—to catch prey, evade predators, and attract mates. To a large degree, evolution is an arms race between competing individuals and species in deception technique and detection. Our efforts to deceive others are usually more convincing and harder for others to see through if we believe our own lies, and so self-deception is built into our hardware.
Trivers then goes on to show how self-deception infects every major area of our lives: everyday behavior, personal psychology, relationships, family, work, politics, war, religion, history, philosophy—even hard science, although its built-in system of verification and rechecks makes it less susceptible to deception than most other areas of life.
The problem with self-deception as a survival technique is that while it may help us through today’s tight spot, we pay a price with an accumulation of self-lies that ends up clouding our view and sabotaging our endeavors—which in turn leads to more tight spots. In terms of evolution, I suppose this system buys us time to reproduce and pass along the whole tragicomedy to the next generation before our crust of self-deception kills us.
How do we fix it? Trivers isn’t optimistic about self-discipline or psychotherapy as an antidote because, he says, self-deception isn’t essentially a learned behavior but an inherent one—we’re born this way. We can’t will away self-deceit any more than we can our blood type or big ears. But he does offer a few ideas and techniques he has found useful. Although the author laments his own limitations, the work is full of spiky wisdom.
Some have criticized the book as being too “political.” Trivers goes on at length about deception and self-deception in war and mass inhumanity, and his choice of examples and the anger he aims at them may reveal his own political biases, which in turn may unnecessarily raise hackles (perhaps he self-deluded himself into thinking it was necessary). None of this, however, undermines his data or logic, hence the criticism is essentially personal.
The writing is refreshingly nonacademic and direct, with plenty of dark humor, usually aimed at the author. My only beef is that here and there, I thought Trivers didn’t draw distinct lines between proven science, theory, speculation, personal rumination, and whimsy. The publisher’s copyediting could have been more diligent; especially nearer the end, the occasional convoluted sentence could have been straightened out for better clarity, and some typos remained.
I highly recommend this book for anyone who would like more insight into why the human race, individually and collectively, keeps getting itself into such trouble.
His answer begins with straightforward logic. All animals practice deceit—to catch prey, evade predators, and attract mates. To a large degree, evolution is an arms race between competing individuals and species in deception technique and detection. Our efforts to deceive others are usually more convincing and harder for others to see through if we believe our own lies, and so self-deception is built into our hardware.
Trivers then goes on to show how self-deception infects every major area of our lives: everyday behavior, personal psychology, relationships, family, work, politics, war, religion, history, philosophy—even hard science, although its built-in system of verification and rechecks makes it less susceptible to deception than most other areas of life.
The problem with self-deception as a survival technique is that while it may help us through today’s tight spot, we pay a price with an accumulation of self-lies that ends up clouding our view and sabotaging our endeavors—which in turn leads to more tight spots. In terms of evolution, I suppose this system buys us time to reproduce and pass along the whole tragicomedy to the next generation before our crust of self-deception kills us.
How do we fix it? Trivers isn’t optimistic about self-discipline or psychotherapy as an antidote because, he says, self-deception isn’t essentially a learned behavior but an inherent one—we’re born this way. We can’t will away self-deceit any more than we can our blood type or big ears. But he does offer a few ideas and techniques he has found useful. Although the author laments his own limitations, the work is full of spiky wisdom.
Some have criticized the book as being too “political.” Trivers goes on at length about deception and self-deception in war and mass inhumanity, and his choice of examples and the anger he aims at them may reveal his own political biases, which in turn may unnecessarily raise hackles (perhaps he self-deluded himself into thinking it was necessary). None of this, however, undermines his data or logic, hence the criticism is essentially personal.
The writing is refreshingly nonacademic and direct, with plenty of dark humor, usually aimed at the author. My only beef is that here and there, I thought Trivers didn’t draw distinct lines between proven science, theory, speculation, personal rumination, and whimsy. The publisher’s copyediting could have been more diligent; especially nearer the end, the occasional convoluted sentence could have been straightened out for better clarity, and some typos remained.
I highly recommend this book for anyone who would like more insight into why the human race, individually and collectively, keeps getting itself into such trouble.
October 10, 2011
This book was, as a reality show contestant would say, a roller-coaster ride (reality shows: there's a subject of self-deception that Robert Trivers doesn't cover but could have had great fun mining). At first sight I thought it was going to be deadly dull. I haven't heard of Trivers, but I gather from the bumf he's a bit of a big name academic in his field. That usually means a boring writer. Add to it that the book's (UK) cover looks half finished and it's a big fat tome (which usually means repetitive and padded) and, to be honest, it was touch and go whether I started it. But I'm glad I did.
Trivers writes in a very approachable fashion - none of the academic-speak here - and I was genuinely fascinated by the early part of his exploration of self-deception. This isn't the sort of book it's possible to read in one go (unless you've a lot of spare time), but each time I came back to it I really wanted to read on. Trivers makes a strong case that self-deception plays an important role in driving society and individuals, often because self-deception is an important tool in deceiving others (it's easier to deceive if you believe the deceit yourself). This goes all the way from individuals to whole countries, and Trivers provides good evidence, for example, for the way that this trait is responsible for everything from animal behaviour to the unwavering US support for Israel, whatever that country does.
However there were flaws. The book is too long, and in some sections it felt rather that he was stretching the truth (indulging, in fact, in self-deception) to apply his chosen topic of expertise to the area the chapter was covering. There was a feel of 'You can sort of consider this behaviour to be self-deception. Kind of.' Trivers was probably weakest when talking about country level self-deception, where his analysis of wars was simplistic and often lacking in balance. It seemed wherever the US or the UK was involved they could do no right. I found fascinating that when talking about the horrific use of aerial bombing on civilian targets in the Second World War he lists Hamburg, Cologne and Dresden, but doesn't see fit to mention London, Coventry, Birmingham, Manchester etc. You would think from his analysis of this aspect of the Second World War that the Germans were innocent victims of US/UK imperialism.
I also felt the side-comments where he allowed his own self to come through were a bit off-putting. I'm not sure I want to know about his drug misuse and sexual adventures. All that was missing was the rock and roll.
Without doubt there's a huge amount of excellent material here. It's worth buying the book for the section on NASA's self-deception over the two Shuttle disasters alone - it is both fascinating and horrifying. But overall the book doesn't work as well as it could have done.
Review first published on www.popularscience.co.uk - reproduced with permission
Trivers writes in a very approachable fashion - none of the academic-speak here - and I was genuinely fascinated by the early part of his exploration of self-deception. This isn't the sort of book it's possible to read in one go (unless you've a lot of spare time), but each time I came back to it I really wanted to read on. Trivers makes a strong case that self-deception plays an important role in driving society and individuals, often because self-deception is an important tool in deceiving others (it's easier to deceive if you believe the deceit yourself). This goes all the way from individuals to whole countries, and Trivers provides good evidence, for example, for the way that this trait is responsible for everything from animal behaviour to the unwavering US support for Israel, whatever that country does.
However there were flaws. The book is too long, and in some sections it felt rather that he was stretching the truth (indulging, in fact, in self-deception) to apply his chosen topic of expertise to the area the chapter was covering. There was a feel of 'You can sort of consider this behaviour to be self-deception. Kind of.' Trivers was probably weakest when talking about country level self-deception, where his analysis of wars was simplistic and often lacking in balance. It seemed wherever the US or the UK was involved they could do no right. I found fascinating that when talking about the horrific use of aerial bombing on civilian targets in the Second World War he lists Hamburg, Cologne and Dresden, but doesn't see fit to mention London, Coventry, Birmingham, Manchester etc. You would think from his analysis of this aspect of the Second World War that the Germans were innocent victims of US/UK imperialism.
I also felt the side-comments where he allowed his own self to come through were a bit off-putting. I'm not sure I want to know about his drug misuse and sexual adventures. All that was missing was the rock and roll.
Without doubt there's a huge amount of excellent material here. It's worth buying the book for the section on NASA's self-deception over the two Shuttle disasters alone - it is both fascinating and horrifying. But overall the book doesn't work as well as it could have done.
Review first published on www.popularscience.co.uk - reproduced with permission
March 11, 2012
This book is provocative and left me intrigued by the possibility that deception is endemic to life because it is evolutionally advantageous and that we engage in self-deception in order to better deceive others. I can't say that the book left me convinced of this, because (as Trivers acknowledges) much more work needs to be done. It was a worthwhile read because of the discussion of the various ways that people regularly deceive themselves. I particularly liked the discussion at the end of the book where he advances that social sciences must necessarily be rooted in biology or else they are meaningless. This book suffered, however, by a lack of detail in the discussion of studies. I understand the desire to make this more readable, but at least give meaningful notes. And, parts of this were sloppy. In two separate chapters, he made reference to our chimpanzee ancestors. I doubt that he is so ignorant of human evolutionary theory that he believes that, but anyone writing a book like this should recognize that most readers will know that humans and chimps are descended from a common ancestor - an ancestor that was not a chimp. His forays into left-wing politics went too far and were not adequately linked to the rest of the book. I got the feeling that he wanted to rant and forced this into the book in order to do so, and it was detracting. His personal anecdotes were downright creepy. He confesses to being a kleptomaniac, a serial groper of women, and several other sleazy trait. This is not someone that I would want to bring into my poker group. Overall, a worthwhile but flawed read.
June 9, 2013
Well, it's pretty obvious that Robert Trivers has been pondering the concept of deceit and self-deception quite a bit. Having said that, it's a pity that such a interesting topic has been ruined by his lack of objectivity. There are multiple embarrassing accounts of his own experiences with the opposite sex and speculations that aren't really well-founded. These things take some of his credibility, which is sad, because he does have some pretty awesome theories of evolutionary biology under his belt.
Another problem I have with this book is that it isn't very well formulated. There are numerous examples of deceit and self-deception in different aspects of life but it feels like a collection of examples with no consensus. The only consensus as far as I understand is that people are constantly lying to themselves and to the others. It's a pretty cynical view and I'd rather not to believe it.
Another problem I have with this book is that it isn't very well formulated. There are numerous examples of deceit and self-deception in different aspects of life but it feels like a collection of examples with no consensus. The only consensus as far as I understand is that people are constantly lying to themselves and to the others. It's a pretty cynical view and I'd rather not to believe it.
July 14, 2018
The topic of this book in intriguing: "How do deception and self-deception impact human cognition and social interaction?" Trivers provides many examples of deception and self-deception, often with disastrous long-term consequences, but fails to weave all the threads of his topic into a meaningful whole. He begins by offering the hypothesis that our expertise at self-deception evolved to make us better deceivers of others - a skill that often serves us well, at least in the short term. However, he fails to provide convincing evidence to support this hypothesis. What he offers instead is an encyclopedia of human folly ranging from false historical narratives and unjustified warfare to commonplace delusions of grandeur. In the last chapter, he opines that we'd be better off without most of our (self-)deceptions and that the antidote is to be more self-aware so that we can behave less idiotically. I hoped for more.
January 13, 2017
All the reviewers who write that this is a rambling, sloppy and biased book are quite right. The best chapters are at the beginning. They are worth the read.
I especially liked the author’s analysis of his own kleptomania (much less so his anti-Israel blathering).
Essentially: a brilliant sloppy hypocritical mess of a book. If you like the subject enough, it's worth the slog. I originally gave it 4 stars because the beginning was so good, but really, 3 stars is fairer. Someone should write a better version of this book.
Other books I've read in this vein (perception and self-deception): The Tell Tale Brain; Why We Lie; Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me); and one I have yet to read (on bookshelf): Thinking, Fast and Slow. All worthwhile, and coming from different perspectives (disciplines).
I especially liked the author’s analysis of his own kleptomania (much less so his anti-Israel blathering).
Essentially: a brilliant sloppy hypocritical mess of a book. If you like the subject enough, it's worth the slog. I originally gave it 4 stars because the beginning was so good, but really, 3 stars is fairer. Someone should write a better version of this book.
Other books I've read in this vein (perception and self-deception): The Tell Tale Brain; Why We Lie; Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me); and one I have yet to read (on bookshelf): Thinking, Fast and Slow. All worthwhile, and coming from different perspectives (disciplines).
July 25, 2022
Τροφή για σκέψη x10.
0 συγγραφέας ορμάει στον πυρήνα της έρευνας του, μα και περιμετρικά. Στην πορεία 'αδειαζει', Αμερική, Ισραήλ, θρησκείες, ιστορία και πολλά άλλα. Συναρπαστικό ανάγνωσμα, κατάφερε να κάνει page turner ένα επιστημονικό βιβλίο.
0 συγγραφέας ορμάει στον πυρήνα της έρευνας του, μα και περιμετρικά. Στην πορεία 'αδειαζει', Αμερική, Ισραήλ, θρησκείες, ιστορία και πολλά άλλα. Συναρπαστικό ανάγνωσμα, κατάφερε να κάνει page turner ένα επιστημονικό βιβλίο.
August 11, 2019
Trivers goes all over the place in this text. His premise is that to survive all the wars and such people evolved in themselves a cunning way to become conmen (and -women and -sexually nondescript).
However, he does go on a bit of a tangent about his marijuana escapades & such which might have bulked this up significantly beyond its worth as a book of science. Or I had previously thought it might be classified as historiography but perhaps that is a little too generous. I see it on some evolution, sociology, biology, anthropology, behavioral science shelves.
So that is the truth. I had previously thought maybe, just maayybe it was historiography like the great Thucydides and Herodotus but no I got confused.
I too have been told my own prose is overly verbose, so we all have room to improve.
It was interesting to read, and I didn't have any problems following his conclusions.
However, he does go on a bit of a tangent about his marijuana escapades & such which might have bulked this up significantly beyond its worth as a book of science. Or I had previously thought it might be classified as historiography but perhaps that is a little too generous. I see it on some evolution, sociology, biology, anthropology, behavioral science shelves.
So that is the truth. I had previously thought maybe, just maayybe it was historiography like the great Thucydides and Herodotus but no I got confused.
I too have been told my own prose is overly verbose, so we all have room to improve.
It was interesting to read, and I didn't have any problems following his conclusions.
January 26, 2019
Very interesting first half discussing deceit in nature and how evolutionary processes likely drive both deceit and self-deceit. Second half of the book applies the same thinking to a wide range of social issues. This turns into a rambling and eclectic critique of politicians and scientists in other fields.
Triers actually completely misses the evolutionary process of ideas (memes) and is only concerned with genes, thus widely missing the mark in analysis of cultural phenomena. It’s simply wrong to assume that utility for humans is to maximise number of offspring, considering we are self-aware and influenced by ideas (memes) as well as genes.
Triers actually completely misses the evolutionary process of ideas (memes) and is only concerned with genes, thus widely missing the mark in analysis of cultural phenomena. It’s simply wrong to assume that utility for humans is to maximise number of offspring, considering we are self-aware and influenced by ideas (memes) as well as genes.
May 29, 2017
"We deceive ourselves the better to deceive others" (p3). Why do we lack self-knowledge and how does that affect us and other animals? Biologist Trivers treats this subject from many different sides; the biological and the personal-takes are the best. And his bashing of social sciences that don't incorporate biology, or stories of the author cursing at himself are amusing.
The title is based on Proverb (14:8): "The wisdom of the prudent is to know their own way but the folly of fools is deceit" (p298)
p16 On self-inflation, Epley & Whitchurch (2008):
p33 Interesting paper on frequency dependent selction in arms race between cuckoos and hosts; Rapid decline of host defences in response to reduced cuckoo parasitism: Behavioural flexibility of reed warblers in a changing world
p68 "scientists have created false memories in mice experimentally"- Ramirez et al (2013, Science): Creating a false memory in the hippocampus. Write up in The Guardian.
p90-91 "Natural variation in intelligence, corrected for age, is positively correlated with deception (...) Until shown otherwise, we should assume that the intellectually gifted are often especially prone to deceit and self-deception".
p100 "There appears to be no difference between the sexes in ability to recognize whether children are the offspring of a given parent" From Daly & Wilson (1982) Whom Are Newborn Babies Said to Resemble?
p132 Musak produced an increase in output of an important immune chemical by 14%, while jazz did so by only 7%. No sound had no effect, and simple noise had a 20% negative effect. Charnetski & Brennan (1998)
p205 "as has been noted, the space program shares with gothic cathedrals the fact that each is designed to defy gravity for no useful purpose except to aggrandize humans."
p281 Like in The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion (see my review), Richard Sosis' work is refered to; "In each year, the religious sect is four times as likely to survive into the next year as the secular."
p314 Good quote by John Kenneth Galbraith: "Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gest busy on the proof.". Trivers adds: "This is perhaps especially true in academia"
The title is based on Proverb (14:8): "The wisdom of the prudent is to know their own way but the folly of fools is deceit" (p298)
p16 On self-inflation, Epley & Whitchurch (2008):
Participants were more likely to recognize an attractively enhanced version of their own face out of a lineup as their own, and they identified an attractively enhanced version of their face more quickly in a lineup of distracter faces
p33 Interesting paper on frequency dependent selction in arms race between cuckoos and hosts; Rapid decline of host defences in response to reduced cuckoo parasitism: Behavioural flexibility of reed warblers in a changing world
p68 "scientists have created false memories in mice experimentally"- Ramirez et al (2013, Science): Creating a false memory in the hippocampus. Write up in The Guardian.
p90-91 "Natural variation in intelligence, corrected for age, is positively correlated with deception (...) Until shown otherwise, we should assume that the intellectually gifted are often especially prone to deceit and self-deception".
p100 "There appears to be no difference between the sexes in ability to recognize whether children are the offspring of a given parent" From Daly & Wilson (1982) Whom Are Newborn Babies Said to Resemble?
p132 Musak produced an increase in output of an important immune chemical by 14%, while jazz did so by only 7%. No sound had no effect, and simple noise had a 20% negative effect. Charnetski & Brennan (1998)
p205 "as has been noted, the space program shares with gothic cathedrals the fact that each is designed to defy gravity for no useful purpose except to aggrandize humans."
p281 Like in The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion (see my review), Richard Sosis' work is refered to; "In each year, the religious sect is four times as likely to survive into the next year as the secular."
p314 Good quote by John Kenneth Galbraith: "Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gest busy on the proof.". Trivers adds: "This is perhaps especially true in academia"
June 20, 2017
This is a really interesting book, full of fascinating and thought-provoking ideas and arguments. I liked everything except the material on religion.
As a student of human foibles, Robert Trivers should be especially aware of the self deception involved in religious belief. And at first he seems to be, but then he turns around and becomes an apologist for religion, not because it's a valid belief system, but because of its alleged benefits to the immune system. How does anyone know what it is about being religious that might be good for mental and physical health? What if it's the support of a community, which can be had without religious belief? Meditation and writing in a journal, he says, are also supposed to be good for the immune system. Those don't require religious belief, either.
I was surprised by all of this because early on in the book he separates religious belief from religious ritual. He even references the 2006 scientific study of the efficacy of prayer in which not only is prayer proven not to work, it has a deleterious effect on subjects who know they're being prayed for. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1... But then he reveals that he prays. He even describes someone telling him how to say the Lord's Prayer. He distinguishes it from intercessory prayer, but I don't see any difference. What matters is that he seems to believe in a magic sky daddy who created the universe and yet listens to the requests of individuals who apparently contact him via telepathy. This does not belong in a science book!
Prayer is one of the main reasons I abandoned my belief. I prayed fervently during many years of loneliness, depression, and anxiety, and all I got was silence. Various xians would advise me to pray harder, to ask god to help my unbelief. I was even told by a xian therapist that I suffered because wasn't obeying god's law, or because I hadn't fully accepted Christ's salvation. I was also told that secular therapy doesn't work because it tries to build self esteem, but original sin means I have no value; only belief in Jesus can save me. (So god is omnipotent, but somehow everything is my fault.) It doesn't take too much rational thought to come to the conclusion that only humans could have invented such a ridiculous god. It was actually a relief when I eventually realized I'd been talking to myself. Even if praying is good for my health, it doesn't matter -- I can't make myself believe in the supernatural.
The book's title seems ironic in light of all this. It's hard to trust a scientist who specializes in rational thinking but can't let go of a particularly insidious delusion of his own.
As a student of human foibles, Robert Trivers should be especially aware of the self deception involved in religious belief. And at first he seems to be, but then he turns around and becomes an apologist for religion, not because it's a valid belief system, but because of its alleged benefits to the immune system. How does anyone know what it is about being religious that might be good for mental and physical health? What if it's the support of a community, which can be had without religious belief? Meditation and writing in a journal, he says, are also supposed to be good for the immune system. Those don't require religious belief, either.
I was surprised by all of this because early on in the book he separates religious belief from religious ritual. He even references the 2006 scientific study of the efficacy of prayer in which not only is prayer proven not to work, it has a deleterious effect on subjects who know they're being prayed for. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1... But then he reveals that he prays. He even describes someone telling him how to say the Lord's Prayer. He distinguishes it from intercessory prayer, but I don't see any difference. What matters is that he seems to believe in a magic sky daddy who created the universe and yet listens to the requests of individuals who apparently contact him via telepathy. This does not belong in a science book!
Prayer is one of the main reasons I abandoned my belief. I prayed fervently during many years of loneliness, depression, and anxiety, and all I got was silence. Various xians would advise me to pray harder, to ask god to help my unbelief. I was even told by a xian therapist that I suffered because wasn't obeying god's law, or because I hadn't fully accepted Christ's salvation. I was also told that secular therapy doesn't work because it tries to build self esteem, but original sin means I have no value; only belief in Jesus can save me. (So god is omnipotent, but somehow everything is my fault.) It doesn't take too much rational thought to come to the conclusion that only humans could have invented such a ridiculous god. It was actually a relief when I eventually realized I'd been talking to myself. Even if praying is good for my health, it doesn't matter -- I can't make myself believe in the supernatural.
The book's title seems ironic in light of all this. It's hard to trust a scientist who specializes in rational thinking but can't let go of a particularly insidious delusion of his own.
August 25, 2017
I read this ebook in Chinese, it turned out to have so much information inside that i took more time to read it with joy.
Self-inflation, derogation of others, in-group feelings, a sense of power, the illusion of control, false social theories, false internal narratives, unconscious modules, self- adulation-> narcissists, differential rehearsal, and the bias of self-enhancement and self- justification.
The part of animals also self-deceive and cheat/ lie/trick to others was fun that i have read quite some from other evolution books, but the part of human's self-deception is really bloody, we usually dare not look at ourselves so straightly like what this book mentioned. Therefore i learned a lot.
The fun part about our 2 sides of brain as example he wrote, if we got stroke on left brain, which in charge of reason, language, would tend to refuse to admit the fact.(noted that the right side of body would got affected if left side of brain got stroke), same if we want to fool ourselves, that's say we steal something, we tend to hide it to the left side of our pocket (right brain in charge), and when we want to search it, our brain will fool us to search in the wrong place, like searching the right side of pocket.
An experiment about male homosexuality phobia, turned out those who showed the most hostile about homosexual behaviors got more penis reaction (you know that. they used device to measure) after they watched gay porn. (They rejected it and hated it but then their bodies can not lie)
The deception among many domains are also fun to read, i think it's a fun book for us to understand how our true faces are. Of course, if you are ready to face it!!
quotes:
“A very disturbing feature of overconfidence is that it often appears to be poorly associated with knowledge—that is, the more ignorant the individual, the more confident he or she maybe.”
“I know nothing about economics and—from evolutionary logic—could not have predicted a thing about the collapse of 2008, but I have disagreed for thirty years with an alleged science called economics that has resolutely failed to ground itself in underlying knowledge, at a cost to all of us”
Self-inflation, derogation of others, in-group feelings, a sense of power, the illusion of control, false social theories, false internal narratives, unconscious modules, self- adulation-> narcissists, differential rehearsal, and the bias of self-enhancement and self- justification.
The part of animals also self-deceive and cheat/ lie/trick to others was fun that i have read quite some from other evolution books, but the part of human's self-deception is really bloody, we usually dare not look at ourselves so straightly like what this book mentioned. Therefore i learned a lot.
The fun part about our 2 sides of brain as example he wrote, if we got stroke on left brain, which in charge of reason, language, would tend to refuse to admit the fact.(noted that the right side of body would got affected if left side of brain got stroke), same if we want to fool ourselves, that's say we steal something, we tend to hide it to the left side of our pocket (right brain in charge), and when we want to search it, our brain will fool us to search in the wrong place, like searching the right side of pocket.
An experiment about male homosexuality phobia, turned out those who showed the most hostile about homosexual behaviors got more penis reaction (you know that. they used device to measure) after they watched gay porn. (They rejected it and hated it but then their bodies can not lie)
The deception among many domains are also fun to read, i think it's a fun book for us to understand how our true faces are. Of course, if you are ready to face it!!
quotes:
“A very disturbing feature of overconfidence is that it often appears to be poorly associated with knowledge—that is, the more ignorant the individual, the more confident he or she maybe.”
“I know nothing about economics and—from evolutionary logic—could not have predicted a thing about the collapse of 2008, but I have disagreed for thirty years with an alleged science called economics that has resolutely failed to ground itself in underlying knowledge, at a cost to all of us”
July 19, 2014
This has all the makings of a great book.
It isn’t one. It’s OK, nothing more.
With exception of the first few chapters, this book is a disjointed mess of speculation, personal anecdotes, and political opinion. Mind you, much of that is entertaining and sometimes well-written. (Though some of it is annoying, laboured, and tentative.) But it’s a far cry from what the book ought to be, and in fact purports to be. There is no synthesis, no magisterial overview of scientific findings, no stylish elucidation of a theory. Only mildly amusing and sometimes opaque ramblings from a remarkably disagreeable authorial voice. Some passages are connected to the theme of self-deception only by the flimsiest of threads.
The evolutionary perspective on self-perception, which should have formed the core of this book, is of course highly interesting and worth the price of admission if you haven’t read it before. The excursions to aviation disasters and similar topics are interesting studies in human error, which would maybe also make a nice book, but the connection to self-deception in those chapter is strained. The final, ranting, chapters where Trivers heaps abuse on various topics from US foreign policies to cultural anthropology seem to be strangely myopic, in particular in a book that claims to advertise critical thinking skills.
In fact, I happen to share quite a few of Triver’s opinions, but reading his arguments made me trust myself less. Thus, unwittingly, the book does teach a valuable skill in distancing yourself from your own opinion, thereby avoiding self-deception: Just imagine how your argument would sound if Trivers made it.
It isn’t one. It’s OK, nothing more.
With exception of the first few chapters, this book is a disjointed mess of speculation, personal anecdotes, and political opinion. Mind you, much of that is entertaining and sometimes well-written. (Though some of it is annoying, laboured, and tentative.) But it’s a far cry from what the book ought to be, and in fact purports to be. There is no synthesis, no magisterial overview of scientific findings, no stylish elucidation of a theory. Only mildly amusing and sometimes opaque ramblings from a remarkably disagreeable authorial voice. Some passages are connected to the theme of self-deception only by the flimsiest of threads.
The evolutionary perspective on self-perception, which should have formed the core of this book, is of course highly interesting and worth the price of admission if you haven’t read it before. The excursions to aviation disasters and similar topics are interesting studies in human error, which would maybe also make a nice book, but the connection to self-deception in those chapter is strained. The final, ranting, chapters where Trivers heaps abuse on various topics from US foreign policies to cultural anthropology seem to be strangely myopic, in particular in a book that claims to advertise critical thinking skills.
In fact, I happen to share quite a few of Triver’s opinions, but reading his arguments made me trust myself less. Thus, unwittingly, the book does teach a valuable skill in distancing yourself from your own opinion, thereby avoiding self-deception: Just imagine how your argument would sound if Trivers made it.
January 23, 2015
'Folly' began well enough with a fair overview of the evolutionary rationale and selection pressure towards self-deception. Trivers was strongest when using ethological and biological examples to illustrate his point. The text quickly devolved into a rambling political tract that detracted strongly from the line of argument. This was only made worse as the book progressed until Trivers own line of argument - ironically - became a paragon example of the very self-deception he sought to describe. The peppering of jibes at Israel throughout the book coupled with an entire chapter long tirade against the state was the most egregious example of his own motivated reasoning as his argument was a pastiche of distortions, de-contextualized facts, and tired arguments from extremist kooks (Finkelstein, Chomsky, Pappe, Fisk). It is no stretch to call Trivers an anti-semite. It is too bad he couldn't separate his scientific expertise, which is well known and recognized in evolutionary biology, from his personal political opinions. Any curious reader is better off reading Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, which delves into many of the mechanisms that manifest the effect of self-deception. The evolutionary pressure for self-deception by way of cognitive bias can be summarized as: 'it is useful to decieve others and easier to decieve if one believes it oneself'. TL:DR: Skip Trivers, read Kahneman.
September 11, 2015
I bought this book thinking - because the title was so explicit and Penguin had published it under its psychology series - that I knew what it was about and how it would play along. I was positively surprised at being wrong, the book turned out to give much more than I expected. The main subject - namely deceit and self-deception - is analysed from very different and complementing angles, from evolutionary biology to neurophysiology, from psychology to aviation and space disasters. Perhaps one of my favourite chapters was the one entitled "False historical narratives", which explores the ways in which self-deception fuels the proliferation of deliberate rewrites in History. The key strength of this book is, in my opinion, its clear focus on the effects and workings of deceit and self-deception in humans, instead of stopping at the animal kingdom - as would be expected of an evolutionary biologist. The field of self-deception might be, as the author says, in its infancy, but he certainly has helped raise it to adolescence at least.
January 24, 2013
I struggled with this book for much of the time I was reading it. I was particularly dismayed by the hyperbole and often harsh criticism he used with regard to a number of subjects. A little more balance would have been better. There were also many errors of fact particularly in his analysis of false historical narratives. He seemed to be unaware that historians are aware of these such “false narratives” and that there is a significant literature in historiography about these. Many such false narratives in today’s textbooks are not the fault of historians but are politically driven and the work of publishers who edited the texts to suit the political biases. And yet there are many parts of this book I found fascinating. First the author’s honesty and confessional style was refreshing. He comes across as a man who is quick to anger. Also, his recognition and explanation of our self-deceptions as something that we can not change but can recognize them for what they are.
November 8, 2015
"Another problem that baffles me is whence the anti-pleasure bias? It is often said by opponents of medical marijuana that we already have legal drugs that promote appetite or suppress pain, so why should we give in to illegal ones? Yet the latter also give pleasure, so that you survive with good appetite and feel better, so why is the latter not a virtue but an impediment? In fact, I now believe the ideal medicine for a root canal is, in fact, cocaine, and not its chemical analogs (procaine) that numb the pain bud don't make you feel good."
Laudanum addicts were typically first introduced to their addictions by toothaches (or others). Addictive medicine should always be a last resort when treating pain. That and cocaine is enormously damaging to the heart.
Haven't finished the book yet but there appears to be a number of problems. He uses personal experiences that could be open to interpretation. This makes the text rather ironic considering the topic.
Laudanum addicts were typically first introduced to their addictions by toothaches (or others). Addictive medicine should always be a last resort when treating pain. That and cocaine is enormously damaging to the heart.
Haven't finished the book yet but there appears to be a number of problems. He uses personal experiences that could be open to interpretation. This makes the text rather ironic considering the topic.
January 23, 2017
La lógica del engaño y el autoengaño opera de la misma forma en distintos medios.
En este libro encontramos una teoría frente a cómo nos engañamos día a día en cualquier área en la que nos encontremos, profesional, biológica, económica, estatal, etc., sin embargo, en la introducción del libro se plantea de plano la tesis principal, por lo tanto, el resto del libro es leer lo mismo aplicado en distintas materias, lo cual hace que sea un libro bastante redundante aunque no menos interesante.
Ciertamente es un libro dinámico y cautivador, que nos hace entrar en el ejercicio de la verdad, y ver la verdad vs la falsa realidad, nos posiciona en el cambio. No obstante, si llegamos a él porque nos sentimos atraídos por su contenido, según mi perspectiva, no nos revelará nada muy nuevo, aunque si ahondará en detalle, y en unos cuantas verdad refrescantes.
Para mí, lo mejor fueron las primeras páginas, luego, son un montón de datos interesantes.
En este libro encontramos una teoría frente a cómo nos engañamos día a día en cualquier área en la que nos encontremos, profesional, biológica, económica, estatal, etc., sin embargo, en la introducción del libro se plantea de plano la tesis principal, por lo tanto, el resto del libro es leer lo mismo aplicado en distintas materias, lo cual hace que sea un libro bastante redundante aunque no menos interesante.
Ciertamente es un libro dinámico y cautivador, que nos hace entrar en el ejercicio de la verdad, y ver la verdad vs la falsa realidad, nos posiciona en el cambio. No obstante, si llegamos a él porque nos sentimos atraídos por su contenido, según mi perspectiva, no nos revelará nada muy nuevo, aunque si ahondará en detalle, y en unos cuantas verdad refrescantes.
Para mí, lo mejor fueron las primeras páginas, luego, son un montón de datos interesantes.
August 7, 2016
This is an outstanding work, by an author who looks at the foibles of humanity from the point of view of a biologist. It seems that lying and self deceit are just who we are since they are important factors in our survival as a species. Human beings are just so full of it both as a group and as individuals! We think we are just soooooo special when in fact it seems that we are not that much better (we produce art) than the monkeys from whom we descended. Archetypical behaviors paralleled directly by groups of chimpanzees. Our power of self reflection simply making our deceptions more complex and more necessary. All the so called ideals we hold up are no more than part of the same cesspool, seeking self advantage. We might ask, where is the truth, where is the justice? Well nowhere to be seen when humanity is about that's for sure!
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March 19, 2016This is one of the greatest books I have ever read!
As Winston Smith said in “1984" by George Orwell, we always love an author that says what we are thinking but says it better than I can say it myself.
I woke up at 3 am this morning my mind filled with ideas about how this book ties into Ayn Rand's Objectivist Epistemology (measurement as a means to avoid self-deception) and how it ties in with the Project Management Institute's "Project Management Body of Knowledge" (PMBOK) in that measurement is a project manager's job [because it makes the “unconscious” [or deceptive] conscious].
I won’t even mention the depth that it adds to the “Fourth Way” literature! Finally get some solid scientific support!
I encourage everyone to read this book as soon as you can, it can change your life at every level from idle moments to work, from politics, from sacred to secular!
As Winston Smith said in “1984" by George Orwell, we always love an author that says what we are thinking but says it better than I can say it myself.
I woke up at 3 am this morning my mind filled with ideas about how this book ties into Ayn Rand's Objectivist Epistemology (measurement as a means to avoid self-deception) and how it ties in with the Project Management Institute's "Project Management Body of Knowledge" (PMBOK) in that measurement is a project manager's job [because it makes the “unconscious” [or deceptive] conscious].
I won’t even mention the depth that it adds to the “Fourth Way” literature! Finally get some solid scientific support!
I encourage everyone to read this book as soon as you can, it can change your life at every level from idle moments to work, from politics, from sacred to secular!
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