The Believing Brain Book Review

A great book to add to your summer / fall reading list is called The Believing Brain:  From Ghost and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies, How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths by Michael Shermer.  I am always looking for books on Critical Thinking.  Especially over the last few years due to recent events.  So much misinformation out there and some of it from people that are considered educated and knowledgeable.  So, what better to read, than a book written by the executive director of The Skeptics Society and founding publisher of Skeptic magazine?  Lol.  I found it interesting that the publish date on the book is 2011, but the topics covered in the book are much more relevant today than it was back then. 

One of my favorite sections of the book is how humans became incredible pattern-recognition machines due to our evolutionary past.  While this helped to kept us safe from possible predators and enemies for hundreds of thousands of years, it can and has become a detriment in our modern society.  Another aspect that I found fascinating in the book was the idea of belief formation and why we stick to certain beliefs even when scientific fact does not support it.  Every wondered why someone that you considered really, really smart, intelligent, or successful has certain questionable views or beliefs?   Well one of the points the author argues is that the more intelligent you are, the better you are with coming up with supporting evidence for your belief.  To the point that you lose all objectivity.

The author also has a good section on logical argument fallacies.  Personally, I think that this should be taught as a class starting in grade school and then repeated in junior high and high school and a requirement to graduate for college!  Lol. 

 This is a great book if you want to learn why “we do what we do,” when it comes to beliefs, faith and superstitions in all aspects of society and life.  I got this book as an audio book but it might work better in traditional format so you can review certain sections to get a fuller understanding.   Much easier to do with a regular book than an audio book.  Of course, it can be found at your local bookstore or on Amazon. Here is the Amazon link: The Believing Brain