unsmoked - 23 July 2009 08:42 PM
‘HOW WE KNOW WHAT ISN’T SO - Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life’ - by Thomas Gilovich
This book came out in 1991, but didn’t come to my attention until this morning when Chris Madden (forum member) mentioned it in the Science category, in the topic about spontaneous healing and placebos, etc. Sam Harris lists it in the bibliography of THE END OF FAITH.
You can read reviews at this site:
http://www.amazon.com/How-Know-What-Isnt-Fallibility/dp/0029117062
One should only buy a used copy of such a book. Apparently it is published by something called “The Free Press” but you have to pay for it. My skepticism (there’s that ugly word again!) is that, while nothing in Gilovich’s book is not useful to complete idiots, and there is mounting evidence for a large population of complete idiots, you have to be a complete idiot to be enlightened by such a book.
The way I know this is because we never know that for which no one provides any evidence, which is what Gilovich is talking about. Nobody seriously debates ideas that have actually been falsified, like phlogiston, or Piltdown Man - except faith-heads and conspiracy freaks. It’s a tautology. Accepting a statement when no one has produced evidence in favor of it is called “falling for the ex recto assertion”. Statement made by the clever, for the grifting of the gullible.
