Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions in Science and Inquiry

May 31, 2015 Petra X rated it liked it

Shelves: popculture-anthropology, 2015-reviews, psycho-neurology-crime, reviewed, 2015-read

“I asked them why when they persecute men, for religion or colour it was seen by the world as oppression and when they persecute women, it was dismissed as tradition.” Emer Martin

This book is generally brilliant if you ignore the misogyny. It is a book written by a man about a man's world for men. The "Our' in the title does not include half the world.

The misogny, the putting down of fat women, ugly ones, old ones in this often otherwise insightful and percipient book is making me groan. The a “I asked them why when they persecute men, for religion or colour it was seen by the world as oppression and when they persecute women, it was dismissed as tradition.” Emer Martin

This book is generally brilliant if you ignore the misogyny. It is a book written by a man about a man's world for men. The "Our' in the title does not include half the world.

The misogny, the putting down of fat women, ugly ones, old ones in this often otherwise insightful and percipient book is making me groan. The author is trying to prove something we all know, that we (he uses 'we' and 'our' to sound inclusive, but he only means men really) do not make good decisions when sexually aroused. To that end he sets up an experiment where the men, MIT students, will have to answer a set of questions 'sober' and while they are wanking to pictures of buxom young women flashed on their computers.

The questions include, Would you want to have sex with a really fat woman? An ugly one? A woman over 50? All the undesirable women.

All these women are put down as sexual objects these really clever guys wouldn't want to have sex with unless they were so aroused by any stimuli they didn't care. That their general powers of discernment and decision-making ie. we don't screw fat,ugly or old women, would go by the board because at that stage they'd screw anything. Also, that in such an aroused state, those clever MIT men, future leaders of technology and business, perhaps even footballers) those men might deliberately get a woman drunk and/or persist in pushy or downright aggressive sexual advances even after she had said 'no' and they wouldn't give a monkeys about using a condom either.

(Part of me wonders how those men felt who had girlfriends who didn't look like supermodels).

Personally I think he wrote up the experiment so as he could begin with describing the visual of a cling-film (saran wrap to Americans) wrapped computer (to protect it from splashes of semen) flashing porn and questions and a man 'furiously wanking with his left hand' while propped up on the bed.

Ok, so I'm predictably irrational about books that slag off my half the human race. You know that I will pick up the misogyny and be compelled to write about it. ...more

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Dec 15, 2009 Angela Randall marked it as to-read

Shelves: 21st-century, non-fiction, business-entrepreneur-career, friends-recommend, social-science-psych, young-adult-educational-material, money, gtd-lifehack-self-help, 2000-2009, marc-angel-40-nonfiction

This book features in Marc & Angel's 40 modern non-fiction books everyone should read, which is a good list. I made the list in Goodreads here: Marc & Angel 40 NonFiction. ...more

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Jan 06, 2011 Preeti rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: human-behavior

This book took me way too long to read, which was absolutely through no fault of the book itself. It was my own fault, as I haven't been doing enough reading, and too much of web surfing and TV watching.

This was on my to read list for a while and then I saw that Trevor had reviewed and loved it so of course I had to check it out. I ordered it for my trip to India but never got a chance to read it then.

I finally got through it this year and I just loved it. I think everyone should read this book ...more

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