{"id":4541,"date":"2017-03-02T18:20:29","date_gmt":"2017-03-03T02:20:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/?p=4541"},"modified":"2020-10-18T11:47:41","modified_gmt":"2020-10-18T18:47:41","slug":"elizabeth-kolbert-on-books-about-the-limitations-of-human-reason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2017\/03\/02\/elizabeth-kolbert-on-books-about-the-limitations-of-human-reason\/","title":{"rendered":"Elizabeth Kolbert on books about the limitations of human reason"},"content":{"rendered":"

In last week’s New Yorker<\/i>, Elizabeth Kolbert (author of foundational, Pulitzer Prize-winning nonfiction The Sixth Extinction<\/b><\/a>; my review<\/a>) reviews three books about the limitations of human reason.<\/p>\n

Why Facts Don\u2019t Change Our Minds<\/a><\/p>\n

The review\/essay describes various psychological experiments — which are never actually about what the psychologists tell you they are about, that’s the point — and then addresses the books, which attempt to explore why human psychology is like it is, including the now commonly-known “confirmation bias”.<\/p>\n

\nMercier and Sperber prefer the term \u201cmyside bias.\u201d Humans, they point out, aren\u2019t randomly credulous. Presented with someone else\u2019s argument, we\u2019re quite adept at spotting the weaknesses. Almost invariably, the positions we\u2019re blind about are our own.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(This, of course, explains very much about the current US political climate.)<\/p>\n

Another issue is how we all rely on the understanding of everyday devices through our culture; we assume others understand how things work, so we’re comfortable without not knowing, exactly, ourselves:<\/p>\n

\nSloman and Fernbach see this effect, which they call the \u201cillusion of explanatory depth,\u201d just about everywhere. People believe that they know way more than they actually do. What allows us to persist in this belief is other people. In the case of my toilet, someone else designed it so that I can operate it easily. This is something humans are very good at. We\u2019ve been relying on one another\u2019s expertise ever since we figured out how to hunt together, which was probably a key development in our evolutionary history. So well do we collaborate, Sloman and Fernbach argue, that we can hardly tell where our own understanding ends and others\u2019 begins.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Fascinating essay. Kolbert concludes, citing the three book titles:<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe Enigma of Reason,\u201d \u201cThe Knowledge Illusion,\u201d and \u201cDenying to the Grave\u201d were all written before the November election. And yet they anticipate Kellyanne Conway and the rise of \u201calternative facts.\u201d These days, it can feel as if the entire country has been given over to a vast psychological experiment being run either by no one or by Steve Bannon. Rational agents would be able to think their way to a solution. But, on this matter, the literature is not reassuring.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In last week’s New Yorker, Elizabeth Kolbert (author of foundational, Pulitzer Prize-winning nonfiction The Sixth Extinction; my review) reviews three books about the limitations of human reason. Why Facts Don\u2019t Change Our Minds The review\/essay describes various psychological experiments — … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mind"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4541"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4544,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4541\/revisions\/4544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}