This Will Make You Smarter: New Scientific Concepts to Improve Your Thinking (Edge Question Series)

Comments

1. Guest

   August 27, 2015 at 12:00 am

   excellent!

2. Guest

   August 7, 2015 at 12:00 am

   Sure gets you thinking and out of your box. Some topics difficult for the layman.

3. Guest

   July 28, 2015 at 12:00 am

   How naive for me to believe this would be a book loaded with facts that would make me SMARTER! True, there are some interesting and little known facts in this book, but they are sandwiched between the author’s opinions and conclusions, many of which I disagree. It can be a book to use for "table topics" to share ideas with friends, but it is not likely to increase your IQ!

4. Guest

   June 29, 2015 at 12:00 am

   Awesome and I truly loved this product!!!

5. Guest

   June 26, 2015 at 12:00 am

   Thank you

6. Guest

   June 25, 2015 at 12:00 am

   Arrived as promised.

7. Guest

   June 14, 2015 at 12:00 am

   Excellent book. For an overview of one article in particular please visit http://www.1n0v8.com.

8. Guest

   May 26, 2015 at 12:00 am

   I love this book. I stumbled upon it in a bookshop some time ago and bought it, not really knowing anything about it. I was surprised and delighted, and I think I’ve become just a little smarter from reading it. I keep going back to it, rereading well written essays. I’ve fallen in love with the Edge question series.

9. Guest

   May 16, 2015 at 12:00 am

   Great collection of essays. Easy to read.

10. Guest

    April 2, 2015 at 12:00 am

    Bought it. Seemed like a neat idea at the time. Never read it.

11. Guest

    February 12, 2015 at 12:00 am

    EXCELLENT !!

12. Guest

    February 8, 2015 at 12:00 am

    Not what I expected. I couldn’t get through the first 20 essays without my brain completely fuzzing out. Read this book if you are a hard core behavioral scientist.

13. Guest

    December 14, 2014 at 12:00 am

    GREAT gift idea. Short, insightful chapters by a wide variety of brilliant and articulate thinkers from a wide variety of backgrounds. Want some help discovering ways to illuminate some of your own blindspots (or others’)? This book is a fun and fascinating read.

14. Guest

    October 2, 2014 at 12:00 am

    I’m not into a book of piety and overzealous proselytizers trying to sway my thinking. I’m open, but not a converter.

15. Guest

    August 24, 2014 at 12:00 am

    Great book for those who have an interest in the development of and the general philosophy of science from noted leaders.

16. Guest

    August 6, 2014 at 12:00 am

    I fully recommended for digital marketers

17. Guest

    July 10, 2014 at 12:00 am

    Some of the short essays are thought provoking, others are just so-so. I doubt this will make you smarter.

18. Guest

    June 16, 2014 at 12:00 am

    Buzz words are useful because they let you express a complex idea briefly, but it is easy to use them without thinking about what they actually mean. Also, just having heard the name of a term doesn’t mean that you understand it.

    This would be a good book to keep in your bathroom. Most of the essays are two or three pages, and you would gain more from this book by reading one essay and chewing the cud for a while than you would from reading the book cover to cover in a short time. If a physician or dentist wanted to have something to read in their waiting room more elevating than old magazines, this is exactly the type of book that would work.

    The purpose of the essays is described by Dawkins in his contribution: "Not all concepts wielded by professional scientists would improve everybody’s cognitive toolkit. We are here not looking for tools with which research scientists might benefit their science. We are looking for tools to help nonscientists understand science better and equip them to make better judgments throughout their lives."

    A representative example of the essays is Tooby’s "Nexus causality, moral warfare, and misattribution arbitrage". Nexus causality means that events have a collection of causes and that it is usually silly to ask what "the" cause of something is, as much as asking what "the" ingredient of a cake is, but that we instinctively tend to assume that an event has one cause. Moral warfare means instinctively attributing an event to one or more people rather than admitting that something might be too complicated to trace its cause to anyone or anything. Misattribution arbitrage: pre-20th century physicians were paid and present day portfolio managers are paid money and prestige for results that are worse than no treatment or index investing respectively. "If the patient recovers, it was due to my heroic efforts; if not, the underlying disease was too severe."

19. Guest

    June 16, 2014 at 12:00 am

    These days most of what we find around seems packaged to make life easier, less demanding and intellectually pleasing but not challenging. This book definitely breaks with all that. Brilliant! It challenges your wits!

20. Guest

    March 17, 2014 at 12:00 am

    Loaded with brief, mind blowing short paragraph to page long ideas in quick essay format. The contributors are from to remarkable
    EDGE.org comprising the best minds in our Western world, with several Nobel Prize winners, leading scientists from top tear university settings, and intellectual activists from all disciplines.

21. Guest

    January 24, 2014 at 12:00 am

    Read and find out why.
    As we all should know most of us have benefitted from the works of others. It’s that simple folks.
    It’s about time we appreciate that fact.

22. Guest

    January 9, 2014 at 12:00 am

    I made a bad selection when I ordered this book. I am a retired physician, who is very interested in brain plasticity as it occurs in both children and adults. This book did make me smarter. If any other reader has not yet been introduced to the concept of brain plasticity, it plays a seminal role in development of the brain and in its recovery from illnesses like encephalitis, meningitis, and stroke. For such a person, I would give this book a very good reccomendation.

23. Guest

    January 2, 2014 at 12:00 am

    \\”If the doors of perception were cleansed,\\” William Blake said, \\”every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite.\\” Editor John Brockman asked 151 people the same question: what scientific concept would improve everybody’s cognitive toolkit? Each replied with short, thoughtful advice ranging from less than a page to four pages. The authors are leading, accomplished or alternative thinkers from a wide range of disciplines, whether academics, business people or independents. Each reply offers a different angle and a different style, be it sincere, provocative, humorous, elegant, leading-edge, back-to-basics, artistic or formally scientific. Some authors are simple and up-beat. Some authors express frustration: \\”if only people would realize this\\” and \\”if only people would check the numbers\\”.

    Brockman thanks Steven Pinker for suggesting the question addressed in this book. The book is one of a series from the same editor following the same concept, where each book deals with a unique universal question. They are listed on the last page. Some of these look fascinating, such as \\”what have you changed your mind about\\”.

    So what advice do these great minds give us? The advice is too varied to give representative examples. A summary of the best pieces is appended to the end of this review. One can only strongly recommend a book with so much wisdom. As David Brooks points out in the foreword, the book is utilitarian but offers insights to the intimate world of emotions and spirit. What at times appears coldly scientific is often advice for transcendence, opening and self-actualization. An implicit result of the book, as Brooks writes, is that we observe a frequent desire of the authors to move beyond deductive reasoning and come up with more rigorous modes of holistic or emergent thinking. At the same time we see how subtle and yet uncomplicated things can be, how modest we should be about where we have brought ourselves and yet how daring for the future.

    For me the book has no substantial drawbacks. One quibble is that the concept offers the authors a platform for self-display. This is unavoidable and is rarely distracting. In answering the cognitive tool-kit question, many authors go for a general, multipurpose meta-tool, some go for a more specific but useful tool, and fortunately only a few come up with something hopelessly specific to their own field and attitude. I liked the fact that several authors call for better statistical skills; I wished that one piece would have been devoted to the problem that most \\”clinical studies\\” cited in the media or elsewhere are based on an insufficient sample and are therefore meaningless. No piece mentions of the increasing resistance of microbes to antibiotics and why we should be aware of this.

    I found more than half of the 151 contributions to be great ideas that I hope to remember and apply. I also enjoyed the one line summary about who the author is, often referring to a book from that author. Some are tantalizing. Brockman groups pieces as well as possible according to theme. A substantial number of the pieces, perhaps a quarter or a third, refer to or directly address the singular peril we face by causing the extinction of our own ecological niche, as D. Goleman put it, especially climate change but also other anthropocene problems. It is encouraging to see that intelligent people point this out when considering that which is essentially advisable for every human. Some or all of the contributions are on edge.org.

    This concludes my review. The following are summaries of some authors’ advice on what we should keep in mind when we cognize.
    ———————————————————————————————-
    Applied Science: R. Dawkins: we should confront superstition, subjectivity and untruths with double-blind, randomized, controlled experiments. This sorts things out quickly. T. Hannay: controlled experimentation would improve decision making in business and government policy. Governments spend fortunes but without systematic learning. M. Henderson: People often think of science as a body of knowledge and technologies that is to be confined to certain disciplines such as the study of nature, but we would benefit from applying scientific methods and the scientific way of thinking to much of life. We would govern ourselves better by applying randomized controlled trials to education, criminal justice and government projects. A. Gefter: In our extremely polarized cultural and political climate, we should use dualism in physics, such as light’s wave-particle duality, as a brilliant example of pluralism and the subtlety of truth.

    K. Kelley: We can learn nearly as much from an experiment that doesn’t work as from one that does. Failure is not something to be avoided but to be cultivated in order to exploit negative results. We can all learn by deliberately pressing our investigations or accomplishments to the point that they fail. S. Fiske: A scientific assertion is often an empirical question settled by rigorously collected, peer-reviewed evidence. The plural of anecdote is not data and the plural of opinion is not fact. R. Sapolsky: We derive cognitive satisfaction from anecdotes (e.g., we like stories, we like to recognize individual cases) but we learn more from unappealing, unintuitive patterns of statistics and variations.

    C. Rovelli: Lack of absolute certainty is precisely what makes scientific conclusions more reliable than the conclusions of those who are certain, because the good scientist will be ready to adapt to new evidence or arguments. L. Krauss: Lack of understanding of quantitative certainty and reliability results in poor public policy. Einstein said, \\”If we knew what we are doing, it wouldn’t be called research.\\” N. Gershenfeld: The most common misunderstanding about science is that scientists seek to find truth. They don’t – they make and test models. Making sense of anything means making models that can predict outcomes and accommodate observations. [Carl Sagan: Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.] A. Aguirre: Because of our flawed understanding, nature and life appear to have paradoxes. The discovery of a paradox is an opportunity to challenge our assumptions and refine our models. It shows that our models are insufficient. B. Knutson: When asked how one should deal with different teachings from different teachers, the Buddha said \\”When you know for yourselves … these things, when performed and undertaken, are conducive to well-being and happiness, then live and act accordingly.\\” Applied empiricism.

    Change: K. Schulz: scientific theories have always been replaced by improved ones, so better scientific ideas will replace our current models. Believing in the stability of scientific \\”truths\\” is misplaced. J. O’Donnell: We tend to forget it, but Heraclitus is still right today: You can’t step in the same river twice. Everything changes inevitably. Accept that and go with the flow.

    Applied math: T. Sejnowski: get a feeling for thinking in orders of magnitude and logarithmic scales (such as decibels or the Richter scale) to understand everything more broadly and deeply. G. Boccaletti: Most of the Universe – be it physical systems, economics or business – is non-linear. To understand such systems, focus on what parameters matter most for a problem and how those parameters relate to each other in by magnitude or scale (i.e., their non-linearity). This \\”scale analysis\\” allows powerful induction, the reason why we apply non-linear math. This should be obvious but people don’t do it, even when numerically literate. This was how a scientist G. I. Taylor inferred the power of the atom bomb based on few parameters such as radius and timing, even though it was a military secret. C. Shirky: We tend to expect Gaussian distribution (bell curves) too much, forgetting that Pareto distribution is often the better model to understand nature and especially human behaviour. S. Kosslyn: Applying a constraint-satisfaction model to problem solving improves reasoning and decision making. K. Devlin: People often misunderstand the relationship between the basic probability (base rate) and the failure rate of tests. This is the base rate fallacy.

    Focus and problem solving: A. Anderson: We have evolved to focus on immediate threats, so we ignore or habituate to threats that come slowly and steadily, even if they threaten humanity with extinction. J. Rosen: Wicked problems – such as climate change and health care costs – are those that are hard to describe, where there is no consensus on how to describe them, whose description may change with time, or that are both a problem and the symptom of other problems. Wicked problems demand people who are creative, pragmatic, flexible and collaborative. Such people never invest too much in their ideas because they know they will have to alter them. J. Lehrer: Self-control, when we benefit from delayed gratification, is not about moral character but about strategic focusing of attention. Successful people put on mental blinkers and learn to focus when confronted with much information. J. Zweig: sudden bursts of insight come when the brain abruptly shifts its focus outside familiar environments. In order to pick up new ideas and combine old ones, he recommends reading a new scientific paper in a different field each week, one ostensibly unrelated to our day job, and each time read in a different place. E. Pöppel: Using Short-Hand Abstractions (SHAs) of concepts can limit our understanding and creativity. The meaning of an SHA can be vague because people misuse it.

    Bias: G. Smallberg, who aptly provided the quote from Blake at the start of this book review, points out that bias is an intuitive skill for survival. Our brains evolved to work quickly with limited information. Bias can be countered by science but cannot be eliminated. We can use bias critically for deduction and induction. Darwin didn’t collect his data randomly to formulate the theory of evolution. \\”Bias is the nose for the story.\\” D. Myers, G. Marcus: we should be mindful of self-serving bias and confirmation bias. A. Clark: We imagine that we perceive by using sensory information to build a model of the world, but we really perceive by using experience to predict our sensory states and then adapt to mismatches. D. Rushkoff: technology bias makes us see the world through our tools, such as guns, cars, tablets, or social networks. C. Seife: we have evolved to be pattern-finders so our instincts are biased against perceiving randomness. J. Tooby: we prefer to assign causation to one factor when it should be assigned to an intersection of factors – and so we punish a single culprit unfairly.

    Memory: N. Carr: working memory is the short-term store of information where we hold the contents of our consciousness at any given moment. We can hold about seven ideas simultaneously. Cognitive load is the amount of information entering our consciousness at any instant. When it is too high, we remember less and our ability to think critically and conceptually weakens. Information overload is not just a metaphor, it’s a physical state. When you are engaged in an important or complex task, or when you want to savour an experience, it’s best to turn the information faucet down to a trickle. D. Tapscott: The well-known study of London cab drivers shows that we can change the structure of our hippocampus. We truly use or lose our brains. We can design our brains to meet functional objectives by practicing earnestly, such as to improve our absorption of information (e.g., speed reading), concentration (e.g., daily reading), speed (e.g., rehearsing difficult music), creativity, communication or collaboration.

    The Unconscious: T. Kenrick: We believe that there is a single \\”me\\” inside our heads, but research suggests this is an illusion. We may have several selves, as is indicated by selective attention, lateral inhibition, state-dependent memory and cognitive dissociation. Thinking of the mind as composed of several functionally independent adaptive selves helps us to understand apparent inconsistencies in human behaviour. S. Harris: Our thought flows are multiple and constant. We struggle to focus on what is real. Instead all we constantly speak to ourselves in hope and fear about what just happened, could have happened, and might happen. Multiple religions offer techniques to achieve temporary awareness, proving that the basis of these techniques is fundamentally psychological and that their sectarian claims have no basis. A. Gopnik: Freud’s concept of the unconscious, made popular by themes of sex and violence in evolutionary psychology, is deeply established in people’s imagination: an irrational unconscious barely held in check by our rational conscious. \\”Freud has been largely discredited scientifically\\” and we underestimate the rationality our unconscious. In some ways we can compare it to a Turing machine quietly processing for us. It enables vision. It is wired to deal with probabilities. It allows babies and young children to learn quickly before consciously understanding. We are smarter than only our conscious self. W. Tecumseh Fitch: Our capacity to learn sounds and languages is instinctive (an inborn cognitive process), but learning each word is not.

    F. Cushman: We are shockingly unaware of the causes of our behaviour. We mostly combine deliberate thinking with automatic action. We confabulate: we guess at the plausible explanations of our behaviour and then regard the guesses as introspective certainties. People named Denise or Dennis are more likely to become dentists. People make harsher moral judgments in foul smelling rooms. People holding a warm coffee are more open to strangers. Judges are harsher before lunch. Women are less likely to call their fathers during the fertile phase of their cycle, reflecting a means of incest avoidance. People tend toward political conservatism during flu epidemics. People tend to cheat only as much as they can without realizing it. A. Alter: People tend to be more creative when exposed to the Apple logo. Self-identified Christians tend to be more honest when exposed to an image of the crucifix, even if they do not remember seeing it.

    Learning: R. Nisbett: Even for concepts that are simple to understand, we have a strong tendency to be good at learning, adopting and applying some concepts but to forget or do not apply others. To improve student thinking, teachers should know which concepts are learned quickly and which tend to be forgotten. Simply explaining concepts without giving weight to learnability leads to poor results.

    Personality: G. Miller: Personalities have dimensions of variability: openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and emotional stability. The psychiatry industry draws an arbitrary line where there is in fact no clear line between normal and abnormal variation in human personality. By our own definition of insanity as deviation from the norm, we are all insane; some are simply more extreme than society accepts or feels comfortable with. We must recognize the substantial fallibility of our intuitions in psychiatry in order to identify real mental illnesses and to be more modest about our own mental health. H. Fisher: Personality is composed of temperament traits (biological) and character traits (learned). 40 to 60 percent of observed variance in personality is due to temperament traits. [This seems to contradict Existentialist beliefs about how free people really are.] They are heritable and linked to neurotransmitter systems associated with dopamine (e.g., enthusiasm), serotonin (e.g., sociability), testosterone (e.g., aggressiveness) and estrogen (e.g., empathy).

    Perception: D. Eagleman: We see only ten trillionths of the electro-magnetic spectrum. We smell a tiny fraction of what other species smell. Our brains are tuned to detect a shockingly small fraction of reality. Our knowledge of what goes unperceived should keep us humble. B. Smith: We have two senses of smell. Orthonasal olfaction is produced by inhaling and used to perceive the environment. Retronasal olfaction is produced by exhaling and used to detect the quality of what we just ate. It is the largest part of what we call taste. Thanks to its smell, vanilla makes us believe something is sweet, but pure vanilla is not sweet at all.

    M. Shermer: Because individual agents (humans, organic molecules, prokaryotic cells) have freedom or some freedom, the systems that they are part of (cells, economies, democracies, societies) tend to evolve (\\”emerge\\”) towards a \\”bottom-up\\” organization, i.e. they are self-organizing. Our brains instinctively look for \\”top-down\\” designs. Thinking bottom-up is counter-intuitive. That is why believe that life was designed top-town, that economies and governments are run top down, that all events have distinct individual causes. B. Eno: Traditionally we tend to seek hierarchical patters (pyramids). We thought the Earth was the centre of the universe. We perceived Great Men with Great Ideas. Today we think more ecologically, i.e., in terms of fertile circumstances wherein uncountable minds contribute to a river of innovation. We continue to admire the most conspicuous minds, but know that they are as much an effect as a cause.

    Games of life: S. Pinker: Trading of surpluses is a positive-sum game making all parties richer. Competition for biological mates is a zero-sum game. Divorcing spouses can agree to split their wealth or go to lawyers and lose their wealth (negative-sum game). G. Origgi: we pretend to aim for high quality in our daily dealings but sometimes agree implicitly to reciprocal mediocrity. What we offer and demand (work/pay) is often both of lower quality than what we pretend. E. Weinstein: \\”Kayfabe\\” is the name given to the systematic deception followed by professional wrestlers, where individual matches are agreed and choreographed in advance. We should learn to recognize Kayfabe systems elsewhere, such as in secret price agreements among competitors, in the consensus of narratives and topics among news media and scientific peer-reviewing (you publish me and I’ll publish you). Such systems typically involve (a) avoiding the risk of one player being excluded from the game and (b) seeking mutually beneficial stability. As in wrestling, the audience is sometimes aware of and accepts the deception.

    Homo Sapiens: J. Enriquez: We are homo evolutis, a species that directly and deliberately designs and shapes its own evolution and that of others. Using the genetic code will allow some companies to become very successful. E. Salcedo-Albaran: We are homo sensus sapiens. Sensus because our innermost reptilian brain controls movement, reproduction and preservation of the species. We call these instinct or feelings. Sapien because the more evolved parts of the brain allow thinking and creativity.
    Life on Earth: M. Gleiser: Although pre-Copernican religious sentiments of humanities centrality in the universe were misplaced, science shows how unique we and our planet are. Taken all together, the earth’s atmosphere, axial tilt, ozone layer, magnetic field, plate tectonics, and orbital position provide a statistically rare environment. The genesis and evolution of life towards self-aware intelligence capable of advanced technologies is all the more statistically rare. \\”We matter because we are rare and we know it.\\” Even if there were to be some intelligence somewhere, \\”it will be so remote that for all practical purposes we are alone.\\” There can be no meaningful collaboration. (I would add that it is pointless to talk about travelling to another solar systemwhen the closest star is four light years away. Even travelling to Mars would be fatally carcinogenic. And yet these ideas are rehashed yearly by all popular media reporting on science.) C. Zimmer: Evolution results from an unintended, failed replication of genes, which means that the evolution of wings did not start so that birds could fly but by chance. In the same way, humans did not evolve thanks to an agent but by chance. P.Z. Myers and Sean Carroll emphasize that we are not divinely special. In no way does being rare imply metaphysics – we exist as a consequence of universal laws of nature. Our existence is not the product of directed, intentional fate. The ultimate answer to the question \\”Why?\\” is because of the state of the universe and the laws of nature. In this sense, the universe is pointless. This does not mean that life is devoid of purpose and meaning, as Carroll writes. It only means that all purpose and meaning come from what we create and not from what we discover in cosmology. D. Dennett: to understand life on earth, look for the cycles: seasonal, hydraulic, chemical, geological, evolutionary. S. Brand: life on earth is profoundly determined by microbes.

    Incompetence: R. Anderson: When forced to act on problems, governments or companies prefer dramatic ineffective gestures to expensive or risky solutions. This behaviour depends on voters being scientifically illiterate or uncritical. G. Paul: The experts for evaluating social problems are sociologists, not scientists. Unfortunately, the pet theories of sociologically clueless scientists often distort or dominate \\”national conversations\\”, such as why creationism is so popular in America.

    Cultural continuity: D. Sperber: Our toolkit should include Richard Dawkin’s idea of a meme, a unit of cultural transmission capable of replicating itself and undergoing Darwinian selection. Cultures have \\”items\\”–like ideas, norms, tales, recipes, dances, rituals, tools, and practices–that are produced again and again. Each retransmission of a cultural item is influenced by the bias of the individuals sending and receiving. Sperber suggests that cultural items that stay stable over time do so not because of exact replication that avoids cumulative change, but because variants tend to cancel each other out.

    We can’t change some old luggage: J. McWhorter: We try to explain phenomena rationally with contemporary reasons but many phenomena, such as the qwerty keyboard layout, can only be explained for reasons that no longer apply. Once a path has been taken (e.g., qwerty), it is often impossible to change. Many ascribe the simplicity of English compared to other languages to the \\”Anglo-Saxon spirit of efficiency\\”, but old English lost its complexity because Vikings could not master it. People believe cats cover their faeces out of fastidiousness but this is an instinct to avoid predators. People ascribe the simplification of modern written English to television, email and texting, but we moved from pompous phraseology to terse, spontaneous, spoken-style of writing in the sixties as part of counter-culture. It’s too late to change. Anyone attempting to write grandiloquently today is perceived as absurd and denied exposure or influence. Religious traditionalists despise the vulgarity of demotic writing but exclusive, hieratic communication will never come back.e\\” inside our heads, but research suggests this is an illusion. We may have several selves, as is indicated by selective attention, lateral inhibition, state-dependent memory and cognitive dissociation. Thinking of the mind as composed of several functionally independent adaptive selves helps us to understand apparent inconsistencies in human behaviour. S. Harris: Our thought flows are multiple and constant. We struggle to focus on what is real. Instead all we constantly speak to ourselves in hope and fear about what just happened, could have happened, and might happen. Multiple religions offer techniques to achieve temporary awareness, proving that the basis of these techniques is fundamentally psychological and that their sectarian claims have no basis. A. Gopnik: Freud’s concept of the unconscious, made popular by themes of sex and violence in evolutionary psychology, is deeply established in people’s imagination: an irrational unconscious barely held in check by our rational conscious. \\”Freud has been largely discredited scientifically\\” and we underestimate the rationality our unconscious. In some ways we can compare it to a Turing machine quietly processing for us. It enables vision. It is wired to deal with probabilities. It allows babies and young children to learn quickly before consciously understanding. We are smarter than only our conscious self. W. Tecumseh Fitch: Our capacity to learn sounds and languages is instinctive (an inborn cognitive process), but learning each word is not.

    F. Cushman: We are shockingly unaware of the causes of our behaviour. We mostly combine deliberate thinking with automatic action. We confabulate: we guess at the plausible explanations of our behaviour and then regard the guesses as introspective certainties. People named Denise or Dennis are more likely to become dentists. People make harsher moral judgments in foul smelling rooms. People holding a warm coffee are more open to strangers. Judges are harsher beforelunch. Women are less likely to call their fathers during the fertile phase of their cycle, reflecting a means of incest avoidance. People tend toward political conservatism during flu epidemics. People tend to cheat only as much as they can without realizing it. A. Alter: People tend to be more creative when exposed to the Apple logo. Self-identified Christians tend to be more honest when exposed to an image of the crucifix, even if they do not remember seeing it.

    Learning: R. Nisbett: Even for concepts that are simple to understand, we have a strong tendency to be good at learning, adopting and applying some concepts but to forget or do not apply others. To improve student thinking, teachers should know which concepts are learned quickly and which tend to be forgotten. Simply explaining concepts without giving weight to learnability leads to poor results.

    Personality: G. Miller: Personalities have dimensions of variability: openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and emotional stability. The psychiatry industry draws an arbitrary line where there is in fact no clear line between normal and abnormal variation in human personality. By our own definition of insanity as deviation from the norm, we are all insane; some are simply more extreme than society accepts or feels comfortable with. We must recognize the substantial fallibility of our intuitions in psychiatry in order to identify real mental illnesses and to be more modest about our own mental health. H. Fisher: Personality is composed of temperament traits (biological) and character traits (learned). 40 to 60 percent of observed variance in personality is due to temperament traits. [This seems to contradict Existentialist beliefs about how free people really are.] They are heritable and linked to neurotransmitter systems associated with dopamine (e.g., enthusiasm), serotonin (e.g., sociability), testosterone (e.g., aggressiveness) and estrogen (e.g., empathy).

    Perception: D. Eagleman: We see only ten trillionths of the electro-magnetic spectrum. We smell a tiny fraction of what other species smell. Our brains are tuned to detect a shockingly small fraction of reality. Our knowledge of what goes unperceived should keep us humble. B. Smith: We have two senses of smell. Orthonasal olfaction is produced by inhaling and used to perceive the environment. Retronasal olfaction is produced by exhaling and used to detect the quality of what we just ate. It is the largest part of what we call taste. Thanks to its smell, vanilla makes us believe something is sweet, but pure vanilla is not sweet at all.

    M. Shermer: Because individual agents (humans, organic molecules, prokaryotic cells) have freedom or some freedom, the systems that they are part of (cells, economies, democracies, societies) tend to evolve (\\”emerge\\”) towards a \\”bottom-up\\” organization, i.e. they are self-organizing. Our brains instinctively look for \\”top-down\\” designs. Thinking bottom-up is counter-intuitive. That is why believe that life was designed top-town, that economies and governments are run top down, that all events have distinct individual causes. B. Eno: Traditionally we tend to seek hierarchical patters (pyramids). We thought the Earth was the centre of the universe. We perceived Great Men with Great Ideas. Today we think more ecologically, i.e., in terms of fertile circumstances wherein uncountable minds contribute to a river of innovation. We continue to admire the most conspicuous minds, but know that they are as much an effect as a cause.

    Games of life: S. Pinker: Trading of surpluses is a positive-sum game making all parties richer. Competition for biological mates is a zero-sum game. Divorcing spouses can agree to split their wealth or go to lawyers and lose their wealth (negative-sum game). G. Origgi: we pretend to aim for high quality in our daily dealings but sometimes agree implicitly to reciprocal mediocrity. What we offerand demand (work/pay) is often both of lower quality than what we pretend. E. Weinstein: \\”Kayfabe\\” is the name given to the systematic deception followed by professional wrestlers, where individual matches are agreed and choreographed in advance. We should learn to recognize Kayfabe systems elsewhere, such as in secret price agreements among competitors, in the consensus of narratives and topics among news media and scientific peer-reviewing (you publish me and I’ll publish you). Such systems typically involve (a) avoiding the risk of one player being excluded from the game and (b) seeking mutually beneficial stability. As in wrestling, the audience is sometimes aware of and accepts the deception.

    Homo Sapiens: J. Enriquez: We are homo evolutis, a species that directly and deliberately designs and shapes its own evolution and that of others. Using the genetic code will allow some companies to become very successful. E. Salcedo-Albaran: We are homo sensus sapiens. Sensus because our innermost reptilian brain controls movement, reproduction and preservation of the species. We call these instinct or feelings. Sapien because the more evolved parts of the brain allow thinking and creativity.
    Life on Earth: M. Gleiser: Although pre-Copernican religious sentiments of humanities centrality in the universe were misplaced, science shows how unique we and our planet are. Taken all together, the earth’s atmosphere, axial tilt, ozone layer, magnetic field, plate tectonics, and orbital position provide a statistically rare environment. The genesis and evolution of life towards self-aware intelligence capable of advanced technologies is all the more statistically rare. \\”We matter because we are rare and we know it.\\” Even if there were to be some intelligence somewhere, \\”it will be so remote that for all practical purposes we are alone.\\” There can be no meaningful collaboration. (I would add that it is pointless to talk about travelling to another solar system when the closest star is four light years away. Even travelling to Mars would be fatally carcinogenic. And yet these ideas are rehashed yearly by all popular media reporting on science.) C. Zimmer: Evolution results from an unintended, failed replication of genes, which means that the evolution of wings did not start so that birds could fly but by chance. In the same way, humans did not evolve thanks to an agent but by chance. P.Z. Myers and Sean Carroll emphasize that we are not divinely special. In no way does being rare imply metaphysics – we exist as a consequence of universal laws of nature. Our existence is not the product of directed, intentional fate. The ultimate answer to the question \\”Why?\\” is because of the state of the universe and the laws of nature. In this sense, the universe is pointless. This does not mean that life is devoid of purpose and meaning, as Carroll writes. It only means that all purpose and meaning come from what we create and not from what we discover in cosmology. D. Dennett: to understand life on earth, look for the cycles: seasonal, hydraulic, chemical, geological, evolutionary. S. Brand: life on earth is profoundly determined by microbes.

    Incompetence: R. Anderson: When forced to act on problems, governments or companies prefer dramatic ineffective gestures to expensive or risky solutions. This behaviour depends on voters being scientifically illiterate or uncritical. G. Paul: The experts for evaluating social problems are sociologists, not scientists. Unfortunately, the pet theories of sociologically clueless scientists often distort or dominate \\”national conversations\\”, such as why creationism is so popular in America.

    Cultural continuity: D. Sperber: Our toolkit should include Richard Dawkin’s idea of a meme, a unit of cultural transmission capable of replicating itself and undergoing Darwinian selection. Cultures have \\”items\\”–like ideas, norms, tales, recipes, dances, rituals, tools, and practices–that areproduced again and again. Each retransmission of a cultural item is influenced by the bias of the individuals sending and receiving. Sperber suggests that cultural items that stay stable over time do so not because of exact replication that avoids cumulative change, but because variants tend to cancel each other out.

    We can’t change some old luggage: J. McWhorter: We try to explain phenomena rationally with contemporary reasons but many phenomena, such as the qwerty keyboard layout, can only be explained for reasons that no longer apply. Once a path has been taken (e.g., qwerty), it is often impossible to change. Many ascribe the simplicity of English compared to other languages to the \\”Anglo-Saxon spirit of efficiency\\”, but old English lost its complexity because Vikings could not master it. People believe cats cover their faeces out of fastidiousness but this is an instinct to avoid predators. People ascribe the simplification of modern written English to television, email and texting, but we moved from pompous phraseology to terse, spontaneous, spoken-style of writing in the sixties as part of counter-culture. It’s too late to change. Anyone attempting to write grandiloquently today is perceived as absurd and denied exposure or influence. Religious traditionalists despise the vulgarity of demotic writing but exclusive, hieratic communication will never come back.

24. Guest

    December 22, 2013 at 12:00 am

    This book is unique, and awesome. Really. If you like science of any sort, maybe you listen to RadioLab on NPR, or read Science Tuesday in the NYT, maybe you even like more pop science stuff like Psychology Today: you will enjoy this book. It’s not that it makes you smarter, that’s kind of a funny title for it, BUT, I can see how the authors came up with that. The idea is that you learn about concepts in an entertaining way, which then shifts your thinking. This will improve critical thinking skills, if you need help with that, but it will just plain entertain you if you like to learn the unexpected. I keep it by my bedside, and read any one of the stand alone articles before going to bed. It’s a compilation of articles, so it’s not like you have to wade through some dense book. You might be smarter after reading it. You definitely will enjoy the book.

25. Guest

    December 17, 2013 at 12:00 am

    Interesting book, it contains many many ideas that can actually be helpful in our everyday life. Most of the essays are written in plain text, but some require a bit more specific knowledge so as to fully understand the subject.
    Overall, you’ll definitely be satisfied!

26. Guest

    December 9, 2013 at 12:00 am

    This book formed the basis of a discussion group consisting of eight two-hour sessions. Before each class, members had to read 50 pages (i.e., about 20 essays). During the class, we’d discuss each essay as well as the professional career of the person who wrote the essay. The members of our discussion group were mostly very bright seniors retired from professions that required doctorate or masters degrees (e.g., aerospace engineers, doctors, physicists, mathematicians, high-tech professors, academic librarians, high school science teachers, etc.).

    The book provided a good framework for social and intellectual interaction among people who are used to finding pleasure through improving their minds. Most of the ideas in this book were not new to this group, but each was presented in a manner that caused us to think differently about the idea, especially as we explored them in a group context with a variety of different types of people from widely different science-related backgrounds.

    Everyone in the class agreed that the editor had “frontloaded” the best essays at the beginning. As we got toward the end of the class, the essays got significantly duller and less inspiring. For the most part, we enjoyed the book. In general, as a springboard for discussion, it was good–not stellar, just good. Many people in the class said that had they not taken the class, they’d still have enjoyed buying this book and having it around the house to read an essay now and then as a form of cerebral pleasure.

    Buying the book contributes to the online Edge organization (a private nonprofit foundation) dedicated to an important human endeavor, namely: to arrive at the edge of the world’s knowledge, by seeking out the most complex and sophisticated minds, putting them in a room together, and having them ask each other the questions they are asking themselves. Reading the book is akin to participating in the conversation…albeit at a less lofty level. I enjoyed the book and most of all, our classroom discussions about the book.I enjoyed the book and most of all, our classroom discussions about the book.

27. Guest

    December 9, 2013 at 12:00 am

    I don’t see how one can be made smarter from just being told whatever is the current scientific fad. I didn’t read all of the essays, but the only one that I found interesting was Douglas Rushkoff’s Technologies Have Biases. The rest of the articles were very heavy handed in their beleif in the infallibility of currently popular scientific theories and the backwardness of any belief in God.

28. Guest

    November 13, 2013 at 12:00 am

    Everything about this book worked for me. The concept of having the world’s greatest thinkers share their thoughts on what to add to the cognitive toolkit. The more-or-less two pages allocated to each. The varied insights. The depth of the thinking. The quality of the writing.

    I read this pen in hand and it has so many underlinings, notations, questions and dog ears from the re-readings that it’s in tatters. I return to it often if I am stuck or need to add to the creative or cognitive pot, it just gets me thinking and rethinking, including myself.

    I have just ordered his latest Thinking and copies of the earlier books in this series. I can’t wait for them to arrive.

29. Guest

    November 2, 2013 at 12:00 am

    Ideas presented in ways that provide those individuals who read them the impetus for more in-depth thought. The book won’t make you smarter but it has the potential to make you much brighter.

30. Guest

    October 19, 2013 at 12:00 am

    This is one of the annual Edge Question books, where the Edge website asks several prominent thinkers an interesting question. The result is a collection of short essays answering that question. Past questions have included “What do you believe but cannot prove?”, “ What have you changed your mind about?”, and my favorite so far, “What are you optimistic about?” The question that spawned this book was “What scientific concept would improve everybody’s cognitive toolkit?”

    Like most of these Edge books there were a few answers that were thinly veiled screeds against religion, but for the most part, the answers were pretty good. They included things like the Pareto Principle (aka the 80-20 rule), the idea of positive-sum games, that you can demonstrate danger but cannot demonstrate safety, that correlation is not causation, and black swan technologies. There are about 150 in all, and they give good food for thought.

    My recommendation is to read this a little bit at a time, perhaps an answer or two each day. It takes a while, but it keeps the brain from getting numb.

31. Guest

    September 1, 2013 at 12:00 am

    not sure of this one yet. I read reviews on this writer and thought I would try it.
    not read completely.

32. Guest

    August 25, 2013 at 12:00 am

    An eclectic collection of theories and writers which gives sketches of ideas. Dates and author backgrounds would have helped to round out each offering.

33. Guest

    August 24, 2013 at 12:00 am

    Modern views on older and breaking topics. This book provides an excellent overview on many scientific concepts that everyone should know about.

34. Guest

    August 19, 2013 at 12:00 am

    Bought & read this, and the more recent, \\”This Explains Everything\\”, each for about 10 bucks. Both were interesting, and well worth the price although, in my view, each could have used editing that \\”axed\\” about half of the entries, leaving what was left no doubt 5 star. I even bought em after reading them on loan from the library, to let my family and friends read them….

    I take it from their reviews that some of the whiners who rated 1 or 2 stars expect quite a lot, for next to nothing( 10 bucks to read and think about what you’ve read for hours is too much??), or really just aren’t bright enough to \\”get\\” what contributors are offering…..

    For everybody else, go splurge! Both were well worth the price; less than you’d pay to see a crappy movie. Didn’t make me that much smarter, and for sure didn’t explain everything; but then again didn’t really think a ten buck paperback could…..a good read was enough.

35. Guest

    August 8, 2013 at 12:00 am

    Very thought-provoking and interesting. Each entry is only 1-3 pages, on average, so they can be read one-per-day if one chooses to really absorb the message.

36. Guest

    July 20, 2013 at 12:00 am

    Brockman’s books extracted from Edge.org are really hubs, that through their spokes (the essays they group together under one question) consent the reader to reach out and grab, experience, explore the often difficult to follow contemporary thought in many scientific disciplines. Otherwise we could define them as toolkits from which to extract the necessary tool that helps us out to better understand our ever changing world. The 2012 \\”This will make you smarter\\” are 153 essays that answer the question \\”What scientific concept would improve everybody’s cognitive toolkit?\\”
    The message very concise, that can be extracted from this book, is that a big part of modern scientific though is about metacognition. About the way we think. Naturally also this may be one of the many biases, because the question that was posed was thought up by Pinker and Kahneman, who themselves are the ideologist of cognitive biases.
    Personal suggestion: this book is what was once the Reader’s Digest: an instrument to know things, or what was going on, without having to really dig through all the books one was supposed to have read. Very useful in our fast paced world. However, insufficient to really explore modern scientific thought. So read it, let it sparkle your curiosity, but then go out and get the texts, explore the profiles of the authors, look up the words and concepts you like most. This is the best way to get the best out of this opus magnum and probably what Brockman wants you to do.
    If the interest in these topics is sincere I believe Daniel Kahnemans \\”Thinking fast, thinking slow\\” must be the first read.

37. Guest

    July 17, 2013 at 12:00 am

    This book is a joke can’t you see by my writing I am not smarter. The title should be changed to this will make the write richer, and other foolish for buying it.

38. Guest

    July 9, 2013 at 12:00 am

    This book presents many interesting points of view about science and how certain ideas from science can be helpful and useful. That having been indicated, and the fact that the book was, on the whole enjoyable to read, even if I was familiar with many of the ideas presented (since it was also the authors’ viewpoints that were appealing), the book is less well-organized than I, personally, would have liked. Although each short contribution was obviously arranged in some order, some further editorial grouping would have been appreciated, since there are very many short essays that constitute this book.

39. Guest

    July 1, 2013 at 12:00 am

    This Will Make You Smarter: 150 New Scientific Concepts to Improve Your Thinking by John Brockman

    \\”This Will Make You Smarter\\” is a thought-provoking book of scientific essays brought to you by The Edge that provides readers with better tools to think about the world. The Edge is an organization that presents original ideas by today’s leading thinkers from a wide spectrum of scientific fields. The 2011 Edge question is, \\”What Scientific Concept Would Improve Everybody’s Cognitive Toolkit?\\” This worthwhile 448-page book contains 151 short essays that address the question. The quality of these essays range from the obvious to the truly profound.

    For my sake, I created a spreadsheet of all the essays and graded them from zero to five stars based on quality. Five star essays are those that provide a great description of the author’s favorite scientific concept. On the other hand, those receiving a one or even a zero represent essays that were not worthy of this book. Of course, this is just one reviewer’s personal opinion. I basically reprised the same formula I used to review, \\”This Explains Everything\\”.

    Positives:
    1. This series by \\”The Edge\\” always deliver a high-quality product.
    2. A great premise, \\”What Scientific Concept Would Improve Everybody’s Cognitive Toolkit?\\”
    3. A great range of scientific topics: biology, genetics, computer science, neurophysiology, psychology, and physics.
    4. There were a number of outstanding essays deserving of five stars for me. I will list my favorites as positives in this review. In order of appearance, the first by P.Z. Myers’ \\”The Mediocrity Principle\\”. It discusses the importance of having basic math skills and accepting the notion that we aren’t special. Sounds harsh on the surface but P.Z. won me over with his persuasive argument.
    5. Sean Carroll’s \\”Pointless Universe\\”. His contention is that the universe is not advancing toward a goal but is caught up in an unbreakable pattern.
    6. Max Tegmarr’s \\”Promoting a Scientific Lifestyle\\”. The need to educate the public on science. Hit on all the pertinent points with mastery.
    7. Kathryn Schulz’s \\”The Pessimistic Meta-Induction from the History of Science\\”. Makes the compelling case that there are no absolutes in science. Understanding that science is about constructing models rather than revealing reality.
    8. Jonah Lehrer’s \\”Control Your Spotlight.\\” Learning how to control short list of thoughts in working memory.
    9. Kevin Kelly’s \\”Failure Liberates Success.\\” Failures in science can lead to success.
    10. Steven Pinker’s \\”Positive-Sum Games.\\” A great explanation on the value of understanding positive-sum games.
    11. Rebecca Newberger Goldstein’s \\”Inference to the Best Explanation.\\” One of the best essays of the book. Explains what is behind the power of science.
    12. Donald Hoffman’s \\”Our Sensory Desktop.\\” The importance of refining our attitude toward our own perceptions.
    13. Michael Shermer’s \\”Think Bottom Up, Not Top Down.\\” Great explanation on emerging properties.
    14. Terrence Sejnowski’s \\”Powers of 10.\\” How to think about things in the world over a wide range of magnitudes and time scales.
    15. Guilio Boccaletti’s \\”Scale Analysis.\\” Understanding this concept can help us on many complex problems.
    16. Sam Harris’s \\”We are Lost in Thought.\\” The distorted views of the self.
    17. Sue Blackmore’s \\”Correlation is not a Cause.\\” The need to spread this concept to the public.
    18. Lee Smolin’s \\”Thinking in Time Versus Thinking Outside of Time.\\” Important and very little discussed topic, it’s about time.
    19. Geoffrey Miller’s \\”The Personality/Insanity Continuum.\\” Very interesting topic.
    20. Mathew Ritchie’s \\”Systematic Equilibrium.\\” The second of thermodynamics applied.
    21. Mark Henderson’s \\”Science Methods Aren’t Just for Science.\\” Solid defense of science.
    22. Scott D. Sampson’s \\”Interbeing.\\”Another one of my favorites.
    23. Satyajit Das’s \\”Parallelism in Art and Commerce.\\” A unique contribution.
    24. Vinod Khosla’s \\”Black Swan Technologies.\\” Low probability events with extreme impact.
    25. Fiery Cushman’s \\”Understanding Confabulation.\\” Understanding our own behavior.

    Negatives:
    1. Some essays were not worthy of this book. It’s not my intent to denigrate any of these great minds so I’m not going to mention them by name. Thankfully just a few received zero or one stars.
    2. Some of my favorite authors let me down while others flourished.
    3. It requires an investment of time.

    In summary, I enjoy these kinds of books. The Edge does a wonderful job of selecting a thought-provoking question and an even better job of bringing in intellectuals from a wide range of fields to answer it. The search for knowledge is a fun and satisfying pursuit. Pick up this book and enjoy the ride.

    Further suggestions: \\”[[ASIN:0062230174 This Explains Everything: Deep, Beautiful, and Elegant Theories of How the World Works]]\\” by John Brockman, \\”[[ASIN:1451624468 A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing]]\\” by Lawrence Krauss, \\”[[ASIN:B004AYCWY4 The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution]]\\” by Richard Dawkins, \\”[[ASIN:0316051632 The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements]]\\” by Sam Kean, \\”[[ASIN:0393340627 The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Quest for What Makes Us Human]]\\” by V.S. Ramachandran, \\”[[ASIN:B00D9TAAB8 The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies]]\\” by Michael Shermer, \\”[[ASIN:0670025291 How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed]]\\” by Ray Kurzwell, \\”[[ASIN:0142003344 The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature]]\\” by Steven Pinker, \\”[[ASIN:0393061310 Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies]]\\” by Jared Diamond, \\”[[ASIN:0143116649 Why Evolution Is True]]\\” by Jerry A. Coyne, and \\”Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior\\” by Leonard Mlodinow.Another one of my favorites.
    23. Satyajit Das’s \\”Parallelism in Art and Commerce.\\” A unique contribution.
    24. Vinod Khosla’s \\”Black Swan Technologies.\\” Low probability events with extreme impact.
    25. Fiery Cushman’s \\”Understanding Confabulation.\\” Understanding our own behavior.

    Negatives:
    1. Some essays were not worthy of this book. It’s not my intent to denigrate any of these great minds so I’m not going to mention them by name. Thankfully just a few received zero or one stars.
    2. Some of my favorite authors let me down while others flourished.
    3. It requires an investment of time.

    In summary, I enjoy these kinds of books. The Edge does a wonderful job of selecting a thought-provoking question and an even better job of bringing in intellectuals from a wide range of fields to answer it. The search for knowledge is a fun and satisfying pursuit. Pick up this book and enjoy the ride.

    Further suggestions: \\”[[ASIN:0062230174 This Explains Everything: Deep, Beautiful, and Elegant Theories of How the World Works]]\\” by John Brockman, \\”[[ASIN:1451624468 A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing]]\\” by Lawrence Krauss, \\”[[ASIN:B004AYCWY4 The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution]]\\” by Richard Dawkins, \\”[[ASIN:0316051632 The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements]]\\” by Sam Kean, \\”[[ASIN:0393340627 The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Quest for What Makes Us Human]]\\” by V.S. Ramachandran, \\”[[ASIN:B00D9TAAB8 The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies]]\\” by Michael Shermer, \\”[[ASIN:0670025291 How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed]]\\” by Ray Kurzwell, \\”[[ASIN:0142003344 The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature]]\\” by Steven Pinker, \\”[[ASIN:0393061310 Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies]]\\” by Jared Diamond, \\”[[ASIN:0143116649 Why Evolution Is True]]\\” by Jerry A. Coyne, and \\”Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior\\” by Leonard Mlodinow.

40. Guest

    May 20, 2013 at 12:00 am

    The goal of this book is to simply add important ideas to your "conitive toolkit." This is a machine gun loaded with one to three page explanations by different authors. Much of the ideas I knew, some I needed to be reminded of and still some others I didn’t understand until reading. I had no idea that this book or the Edge.com existed. THis book is fantastic.

41. Guest

    May 9, 2013 at 12:00 am

    This is a book that offers ideas to help you create ideas of your own. You need to read this in short settings so you can digest what is being said. Then figure out what you can do with this new wisdon. After reading this I bought another copy for a friend (because I want to keep mine to read again). And I bought another called \\”This Explains Everything\\”.

42. Guest

    April 15, 2013 at 12:00 am

    Compilation of many short essays by very smart people. Most are very interesting and entertaining. Fun read. I feel smarter already!
    I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to expand their minds and horizons on life, technology, and philosophy today.

43. Guest

    April 11, 2013 at 12:00 am

    This book is cool, because it contains many many 3-to-4 pages of thoughts by great thinkers.
    However, it doesn’t really translate the quality of the companion website edge.org

44. Guest

    April 1, 2013 at 12:00 am

    This book talks about the more important aspects of the actual world. Here we read the traditional arguments of the science written in a new language.
    We can observe as the society changes, mantaining some things from the past, but also utilizing many innovations.

45. Guest

    March 29, 2013 at 12:00 am

    This book is a series of brief essays by leading scientists and thinkers answering the question (paraphrased) \\”What scientific concept do you wish ordinary people understood?\\” The result is unsurprisingly condescending. Some of the articles betray a fundamental lack of faith in the basic knowledge of the \\”ordinary person\\” who is presumably the target audience for this book; some fail to make their case for why their concept is at all relevant; others make plainly specious cases because, hey, we’re just ordinary! We don’t know the difference. Some contradict each other. \\”Humans are special!\\” \\”Ehhhh, humans are not so special!\\” WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME. WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE. GO AWAY, SCIENTISTS. I HAVE THINGS TO DO.

46. Guest

    March 26, 2013 at 12:00 am

    there is some great knowledge in here but its too disjointed for book form. Some essays flower while others make you stop reading mid sentence. You have to pick and choose what you want to read, or just skip it, sense if you want to read this you are likely smart already.

47. Guest

    March 21, 2013 at 12:00 am

    This turns out to be one of those rather shallow surveys of moderately interesting ideas treated very lightly. Not worth your time.

48. Guest

    February 22, 2013 at 12:00 am

    The title and subtitle of this book are misleading. Unfortunately, the book is not about scientific concepts that will improve your thinking. If it were, I could use it. Then maybe I’d be smart enough to understand what this book is about.

    In reality, the book is a collection of brief essays written by so-called really smart people who are answering the cryptic question, \\”What scientific concept will improve everybody’s cognitive toolkit?\\” The question is copied verbatim. Apparently there is one and only one scientific concept that will improve everybody’s cognitive toolkit! Ironically, the book presents something like 150 essays in response to the question, and surprisingly each of them is different. So, at best one person got the answer correct.

    Also, I don’t even know what a cognitive ‘toolkit’ is supposed to be. Like I said, I’m just not smart enough to figure this book out. I really do need the book that this one pretended to be–the one that will make me smarter.

49. Guest

    February 12, 2013 at 12:00 am

    \\”This Will Make You Smarter: New Scientific Concepts to Improve Your Thinking\\” is a collection of micro-essays by over 150 authors, primarily scientists. The book’s title stresses two ideas: that the essays contain scientific concepts that can make you smarter and that those concepts are relatively new. Unfortunately neither is true for the majority of the essays.

    The scientific concepts discussed in the various essays can be clumped into a few categories. For example, the first six essays are all variations on the theme that we are small and unimportant in the cosmos. Later essays discuss how we are unique and important in the universe, how people work against each other, how people work together, the importance of powers of ten, double-blind experiments, and more topics going off into the sunset. So are these topics that will make you smarter? Perhaps, but for most readers of this book, you will already know most of the ideas mentioned in this book and will find the repetition annoying.

    Most people interested in reading books of this kind are science enthusiasts. Unfortunately, these same people who would be most interested in this book are also the people who have the least to learn from it. Is it really valuable to know the importance of powers of ten? Did you realize that the universe is unimaginably huge? Do you know what a sunk-cost fallacy is? Reading about these topics was boring. I don’t need to read an essay by Richard Dawkins to know that double-blind experiments are crucial for scientific inquiry; as someone who finds science interesting, I already know the basics of double-blind experiments (and the same is true for most of the essays).

    That these essays are just the basics is an important point. The essays range from 1/2 a page to a maximum of 4 pages. In that kind of space it is impossible to explain general concepts of science in detail. So what is good about this book?

    Some of the micro-essays are interesting and I even learned from a few of them. The people who wrote these essays are big names in both popular and academic science and it is great to be able to read little pieces by each of them. Unfortunately the new and interesting ideas make up only a small proportion of the essays and therefore I cannot recommend this book to anyone besides maybe an absolute beginner in science and scientific thought.esting and I even learned from a few of them. The people who wrote these essays are big names in both popular and academic science and it is great to be able to read little pieces by each of them. Unfortunately the new and interesting ideas make up only a small proportion of the essays and therefore I cannot recommend this book to anyone besides maybe an absolute beginner in science and scientific thought.

50. Guest

    February 10, 2013 at 12:00 am

    This book does not fulfill the promises of the title. The contributors ate surely smarter than their text shows. Too bad!