This Will Make You Smarter: New Scientific Concepts to Improve Your Thinking

by John Brockman

As someone who just spent a term teaching freshman introductory biology and will be doing it again in the coming months, I have to say that the first thing that leaped to my mind as an essential skill everyone should have was algebra. And elementary probability and statistics. That sure would make my life easier, anyway; there’s something terribly depressing about seeing bright students tripped up by a basic math skill they should have mastered in grade school.

Too often, we assume that willpower is about having strong moral fiber. But that’s wrong. Willpower is really about properly directing the spotlight of attention,

When we think of what it is like to be a paraplegic, or blind, or a lottery winner, or a resident of California, we focus on the distinctive aspects of each of these conditions. The mismatch in the allocation of attention between thinking about a life condition and actually living it is the cause of the focusing illusion.

Failure to appreciate the value of uncertainty is at the origin of much silliness in our society.

The most common misunderstanding about science is that scientists seek and find truth. They don’t—they make and test models.

economics. No other field of study contains so many ideas ignored by so many people at such great cost to themselves and the world.