Mindware

June 8, 2015
Psychology professor Nisbett (Intelligence and How to Get It) again makes a challenging topic accessible in this witty exploration of common errors in thinking (e.g., mistaking correlation for causation). Nisbett challenges long-held assumptions and patterns of thought, having “compared people’s reasoning to scientific, statistical, and logical standards and found large classes of judgments to be systematically mistaken.” Most readers will emerge with a far better understanding of why they make the errors that they do, and perhaps how to avoid them. Nisbett capably presents dense material in digestible form; statistical analysis will never be child’s play, but it’s hard to imagine someone doing a better job in explaining the tools it has to offer everyone, and how to employ them. His frequent use of anecdotes from his own life, such as the friend who had to weigh the pros and cons of a job switch, aids comprehension, and he also offers ways of interpreting conflicting scientific (and pseudoscientific) findings. Agent: Katinka Matson and John Brockman, Brockman Inc.