Audiobook9 hours
Good Thinking: What You Need to Know to Be Smarter, Safer, Wealthier, And Wiser
Written by Guy P. Harrison
Narrated by Walter Dixon
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
3/5
()
About this audiobook
Critical-thinking skills are essential for life in the 21st century. In this follow-up to his introductory guide Think, and continuing his trademark of hopeful skepticism, Guy Harrison demonstrates in a detailed fashion how to sort through bad ideas, unfounded claims, and bogus information to drill down to the most salient facts. By explaining how the human brain works, and outing its most irrational processes, this book provides the thinking tools that will help you make better decisions, ask the right questions (at the right time), know what to look for when evaluating information, and understand how your own brain subconsciously clouds your judgment.
Think you're too smart to be easily misled? Harrison summarizes scientific research showing how easily even intelligent and well-educated people can be fooled. We all suffer from cognitive biases, embellished memories, and the tendency to kowtow to authority figures or be duped by dubious 'truths' packaged in appealing stories. And as primates we are naturally status seekers, so we are prone to irrational beliefs that seem to enhance our sense of belonging and ranking. Emotional impulses and stress also all too often lead us into traps of misperception and bad judgment.
Understanding what science has discovered about the brain makes you better equipped to cope with its built-in pitfalls. Good Thinking--the book and the practice-- makes clear that with knowledge and the right thinking skills, anyone can lead a safer, wiser, more efficient, and productive life.
Think you're too smart to be easily misled? Harrison summarizes scientific research showing how easily even intelligent and well-educated people can be fooled. We all suffer from cognitive biases, embellished memories, and the tendency to kowtow to authority figures or be duped by dubious 'truths' packaged in appealing stories. And as primates we are naturally status seekers, so we are prone to irrational beliefs that seem to enhance our sense of belonging and ranking. Emotional impulses and stress also all too often lead us into traps of misperception and bad judgment.
Understanding what science has discovered about the brain makes you better equipped to cope with its built-in pitfalls. Good Thinking--the book and the practice-- makes clear that with knowledge and the right thinking skills, anyone can lead a safer, wiser, more efficient, and productive life.
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Reviews for Good Thinking
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
3/5
3 ratings1 review
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Interesting read. Harrison is obviously passionate about science and he does provide a good overview of the human brain and its processes. I really liked the chapters that focus on how our unconscious brain – what Harrison calls our “shadow brain” – has more control over or thoughts and decision making processes than one would expect. At least I now have a clearer understanding of how our brain takes shortcuts when making decisions and how it tricks use into making common errors in thinking. On the downside, I almost “Pearl Ruled” this book early on because of how strongly Harrison believes that one cannot and should not believe in anything that is unproved by science, such as belief systems that may humans incorporate into their daily lives. I did notice that his “science is God” approach to debunking everything from religion, astronomy and alternative medicines was toned down in the subsequent chapters compared to his rather “in your face’ approach in the early chapters. The good, common sense take-away from this book is that a clear thinker will ask questions and seek the source of new information to determine its validity and is open to changing their opinion/perspective should new evidence come to light. A good approach to enable us to not be swayed by conspiracy theories/extreme points of view that seem to abound these days.