Customer Reviews

The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies---How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths

5 star:		(34)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

In The Believing Brain, Michael Shermer has succeeded in making a serious analysis of the human brain both highly entertaining and informative.

If you are a baseball fan you will never view the curious antics of a hitter entering the batter's box in quite the same way again after reading Michael's book. You will likely be reminded of the pigeon in a Skinner's Box learning pigeon patternicity: the learning of a superstition.

If you are a Liberal and you cannot understand how those crazy Conservatives can actually believe the things they do, it will be explained to you in Michael's book. The same goes for Conservatives who think that Liberalism is some kind of mental disorder....they will understand why Liberals believe what they believe. Michael also explains why neither Liberal nor Conservative is likely to change: it's all based on the way the human brain works.

The first two sections of the book, comprising 135 pages, pretty much lay the scientific foundation for the remainder of the book. Reading it requires some attention to detail, but you will learn quite a bit, and the writing is accessible to the non-scientist, and the author is mindful of his audience and avoids scientific jargon, explaining such jargon when it is impossible to avoid, and reinforcing the explanations when jargon must be used again after the reader may have forgotten the meaning a few pages later. I found this very helpful.

Part 3 of the book is devoted to examining Belief in the Afterlife, Belief in God, Belief in Aliens, and Belief in Conspiracies, using the scientific facts from Parts I & 2 of the book. I was tempted to skip one or two of these Beliefs, but I got sucked in. They are handled quite interestingly. I learned, for instance, that Albert Einstein carried on a correspondence with a lowly ensign named Guy H. Raner aboard the USS Bougainville in the Pacific during World War II regarding the existence of God. I thought I knew a good deal about Einstein, but I hadn't known this! It blew my mind. And the correspondence is included for your reading pleasure.
Even the Alien stuff and the Conspiracy stuff sucked me in. I couldn't put it down.

The final parts of the book bring us back once more to the science behind it all, but more to the history of the science. It is all quite fascinating. There were issues I wish that Michael had examined further: for instance, on p. 274 Michael mentions "The Consistency Bias"...the tendency to recall one's past beliefs as resembling present beliefs, more than they actually do. There is the implication here that we DO change our beliefs over time despite the primary idea behind the book being that we first construct beliefs and then reinforce them as time goes by. I would have liked an explanation of how this sometimes changes. I can see that as children we may have believed in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy etc., and have learned to discard these beliefs along the way, but I would have appreciated an examination of the mechanisms involved. If Michael happens to read my review I would like him to know that I too missed the gorilla. (this won't make sense to anyone who hasn't read the book...sorry.)

I want to thank Michael Shermer for his work. I shall be returning to his book again when I've finished reading some other books on my must read list. Five Stars...Easy.

There's just something about reading Shermer that is unique, classy, inviting, and very educational. He's been plugging away against superstition for decades in his books, sharing top notch research that informs us all about the value of science and how we should use it to think about things. This is the value Shermer exemplifies and is greatly needed in our era. He doesn't berate believers. He wants to understand them better, having been one himself. He doesn't attack the Bible either, just the paranormal basis for it.

He simply talks science. We need to understand science and Shermer is our guide. Science is the antidote to superstition, agency detection, and the flimsy anecdotal evidence for beliefs that modern scientifically literate people do not accept. "70 percent of Americans still do not understand the scientific process defined in the National Science foundation study as grasping probability, the experimental method, and hypothesis testing." (p. 4) So his goal is to share how science works and what it can accomplish. He writes: "What I want to believe based on emotions and what I should believe based on evidence do not always coincide. I'm a skeptic not because I want to believe, but because I want to know. How can we tell the difference between what we would like to be true and what is actually the case? The answer is science." (p. 2)

"Belief systems are powerful, pervasive and enduring," he rightly says. (p. 5) "The brain is a belief engine." "Once beliefs are formed, the brain begins to look for and find confirmatory evidence in support of those beliefs, which adds an emotional boost of further confidence in the beliefs and thereby accelerates the process of reinforcing them, and round and round the process goes in a positive feedback loop of belief confirmation." (p. 5) Full stop. Think about the implications of this. Again: "Once beliefs are formed, the brain begins to look for and find confirmatory evidence in support of those beliefs...."

He's not just interested in why people believe weird things, but why people believe anything at all. His answer:

"We form our beliefs for a wide variety of subjective, personal, emotional, and psychological reasons in the context of environments created by family, friends, colleagues, culture, and society at large; after forming our beliefs we then defend, justify, and rationalize them with a host of intellectual reasons, cogent arguments, and rational explanations. Beliefs come first, explanations for beliefs follow. I call this process belief dependent realism, where our perceptions about reality are dependent on the beliefs that we hold about it. Reality exists independent of human minds, but our understanding of it depends upon the beliefs we hold at any given moment." (p. 5)

Shermer simply talks science to the non-scientific mind and does this very well. You cannot be an informed believer if you have not read this book. This book is the culmination of 30 years of his research and we are all in his debt. It is timely and well written. He makes his points well. I just don't see how anyone can disagree. Shermer is clearly one of the best voices for reason in our world today.

This is Shermer at his best.

I'm a high school psychology teacher, so I'm always looking for books that will expand my knowledge base but not be so technical as to be over my head. This book was really disappointing in almost every respect. It was probably my fault for assuming that a book titled "The Believing Brain" would actually go in some depth discussing the neuroscience behind our brain's construction of beliefs. The actual neuroscience in the book could be summarized in about five pages. In fact, the neuroscience covered in this book is covered in the survey text used in my high school class. Very simplistic, not very original science. The rest of the book is more information about the author's personal beliefs, pet peeves, etc. Interestingly, when discussing theories he is critical of, the author holds studies to a very high standard, but when discussing his own theory, he references studies and concepts that often do not reach the same level of rigor. In fact, some of his discussions about certain regions of the brain being responsible for highly complex thought patterns is the exact type of modern phrenology that makes most modern neuroscientists cringe.

I actually agree with the author's general premise about beliefs. I am equally skeptical of the existence of god, likelihood of discovering extraterrestrial life, and the various pop conspiracy theories that are out there. I just think the book could have been written in 50 pages. Or better yet, it could have been shortened to a magazine article and not lost any of its basic premise.

The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies by Michael Shermer

"The Believing Brain" is a fantastic and ambitious book that explains the nature of beliefs. Mr. Shermer provides his theory of belief and with great expertise and skill provides compelling arguments and practical examples in explaining how the process of belief works. He applies his theory to a wide range of types of beliefs and does so with mastery. This excellent 400 page-book is composed of the following four parts: Part I. Journeys of Belief, Part II. The Biology of Belief, Part III. Belief in Things Unseen, and Part IV. Belief in Things Seen.

Positives:
1. A fascinating topic in the hands of a master of his craft.
2. Well-written, well-researched, engaging and accessible book. Bravo!
3. Great, logical format. Good use of illustrations.
4. Great use of popular culture to convey sophisticated concepts in an accessible manner.
5. Establishes his theory early on and then proceeds like a great architect building his masterpiece.
6. Great quotes from many great minds, including some of his own, "What I want to believe based on emotions and what I should believe based on evidence do not always coincide. I'm a skeptic not because I do not want to believe but because I want to know".
7. Answers the question of "Why we believe" to complete satisfaction.
8. A thorough explanation on what the brain is.
9. The first of four parts of this book starts off with three distinctly different routes to belief, including his own revealing journey to beliefs.
10. The concept of patternicity defined. A great take at why our brains evolved to assume that all patterns are real.
11. Insightful and thought-provoking, consider the following "The problem we face is that superstition and belief in magic are millions of years old, whereas science, with its methods of controlling for intervening variables to circumvent false positives, is only a few hundred years old".
12. Where would we be without evolution? Great use of science from the best scientific minds.
13. The concept of agenticity defined and how patternicity and agenticity form the cognitive basis for various "spiritualisms".
14. The evidence that brain and mind are one is now overwhelming. Great examples in support of the aforementioned assertion.
15. Great tidbits of knowledge throughout, "what people remember happening rarely corresponds to what actually happened".
16. Provides four great explanations for the sensed-presence effect found in the brain. With plenty of fascinating examples.
17. The mind in its proper context.
18. In order to understand beliefs you must understand neurons.
19. Dopamine...the belief drug. A lot of interesting facts.
20. Great explanation on why dualism is intuitive and monism counterintuitive.
21. The theory of mind and agenticity.
22. Enlightening look at why belief comes quickly and naturally while skepticism is slow and unnatural.
23. The afterlife chapter is one of my favorite chapters of this book...worth the price of admission.
24. Six solid reasons why people believe there is life after death.
25. The case for the existence of the afterlife around four lines of evidence and the thorough debunking that follows.
26. Compelling explanations for Near-Death Experiences (NDEs).
27. Ditto for Out-of-Body Experiences (OBEs).
28. A compelling explanation of, why do so many people believe in God?
29. Three lines of evidence that supernatural beliefs are hardwired into our brains. Great stuff.
30. The compelling evidence that humans created gods and not vice versa.
31. Great explanation on the difference between agnosticism versus atheism.
32. Mr. Shermer's last law, an interesting take. I will not spoil it here.
33. Interesting tidbits on Einstein who is always fascinating.
34. The supernatural in proper context.
35. Science as the best tool ever in devising how the world works.
36. Interesting chapter on aliens.
37. Conspiracy theories and what characteristics indicate they are likely untrue.
38. Fascinating look at the 9/11 "conspiracy".
39. How conspiracies actually work.
40. Mr. Shermer even delves in the world of politics. Liberals versus conservatives.
41. A realistic visions of human nature and why it would help understand one another.
42. A dozen essentials to liberty and freedom. Democracy a different perspective.
43. Interesting look at how our brains convince us that we are always right.
44. Explanation of a series of biases: confirmation bias, hindsight bias, self-justification bias, attribution bias, sunk-coast bias, status-quo bias, anchoring bias, representative bias, inattentional blindness bias, and more...
45. Why science is the ultimate bias-detection machine.
46. Awesome belief history on exploration: Columbus, Galileo, Bacon...
47. Astronomy...beliefs and historical debates.
48. Good use of previous knowledge of biases to help understand data.
49. Red shifts and other astronomical hypotheses explained, and the photograph that changed the universe.
50. The greatest unsolved mystery.
51. Links worked great!
52. An intellectual treat from cover to cover!

Negatives:
1. Having to buy extra copies to share with close friends.
2. Having to wait for Mr. Shermer's next book.

In summary, this may be Michael Shermer's greatest book. This book feels like a labor of love in which Mr. Shermer is able to match his accumulation of prodigious knowledge and his lucid thoughts in total harmony. This book not only met my high expectations it exceeded it, I couldn't put it down. Thought-provoking, enlightening and a joy to read. I can't recommend this book enough, kudos to Mr. Shermer for a great accomplishment.

Further suggestions: "Physics of the Future" by Michio Kaku, "SuperSense" by Bruce M. Hood, "Human" by Michael Gazzaniga, "Hardwired Behavior" by Laurence Tancredi, "Braintrust: What Neuroscience Tells Us about Morality" by Patricia S. Churchland, "The Blank Slate" by Steven Pinker and "The Brain and the Meaning of Life" by Paul Thagard.

Michael Shermer's new book is an inside look on why people believe what they do and how they reinforce that belief. Whether talking about ghosts, gods, conspiracies or politics, this book will not disappoint.

The author explains that we look for patterns in world events or beliefs. People then associate these patterns with "agents", or unseen beings or powers that seem to control the world. Once we form beliefs and make commitments to them, we maintain and reinforce them through what the author calls "a number of cognitive heuristics that guarantee they are correct". For example, conspiricies. Some people believe that our govenment was behind the 9/11 attack. They point to issues such as melting steel melts at 2,777 degrees when jet fuel burns only at 1,517. This is debunked by an engineering professor who states that steel loses 50 percent of its strength at 1,200 degrees, along with other combustable items which in turns caused the horizontal trusses to sag, which caused the angle clips that hold the vertical columns. This causes one truss then another to fail, until you have a pancake effect that caused the 500,00 ton building to collapse. Pure simple facts, not a controlled demolition carried out by a hidden agent---our government.

In general, conspirices are likely to be false if: 1)The agents behind the pattern of conspiracy are elevated to near superhuman power to pull it off. Human behavior is flawed and have a tendency to have flaws. 2) The more complex the conspiricy and the more people involved, the less likely people would keep silent and to have the event unfold successfully. 3) Extreme hostility about and strong suspicions of any and all government agencies or private organizations in an indiscriminate manner indicates that the conspiracy theorist is unable to differentiate between true and false conspiracies.

Another area covered is God. God is considered the ultimate pattern that explains everything that happens, from the beginning of the universe to the end of time and everything in between. God is the ultimate intentional agent who gives the universe meaning and our lives purpose. In reality, such beliefs are hardwired into our brains and behaviorally expressed in consistent patterns throughout history and culture. This evidentiary lines come from evolutionary theory,behavior genetics, and comparative world religions, all of which support the larger thesis of the book that the belief comes first and the reasons for the belief follow.

The book covers other areas of interest, but what it really boils down to is this. If we truly want to seek out the truth, not what we would like to be true but what actually is true, science is the answer. It is the best guide we have and the most reliable. The rest is just wishful thinking.

Shermer says this is the culmination of 30 years of work - but almost none of it is his work. Most of what is written here has been published elsewhere with better coverage. Better books on the topic are "Braintrust: What Neuroscience Tells Us about Morality" By Patricia S. Churchland, "Brain Cuttings" By Carl Zimmer, "The Religion Virus: Why we believe in God: An Evolutionist Explains Religion's Incredible Hold on Humanity" By Craig A. James, and even some parts of "Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain" By David Eagleman, but the recent best is "The Tell-Tale brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human" By V. S. Ramachandran.

The original part of this book is where Shermer talks about his political views, which are misclassified and, to me, nauseating.

This is the fifth book written by Shermer that I have read and every one has had its disappointments.

Where do I even start? I guess with the brain, since that is my speciality. The book is called "The Believing Brain", so one might expect the book to be about how the brain constructs beliefs. There is actually very little of that, and when Shermer does invoke neuroscience it is maddeningly simplistic - of the 'activity in area X, which is involved in Y' variety. There are many examples of bad pop neuroscience in this book, so I will just pick a couple: the anterior cingulate cortex as a 'Where's Waldo detection device'?? "Dopamine - the belief drug?" While Shermer does cite a couple studies on the effect of dopamine on belief, to suggest that dopamine is somehow the key player, worse yet 'the belief drug', is absurdly simplistic and misleading. If we are going to pinpoint a neuromodulator, what of the serotonergic system, the common target of most hallucinogenic drugs? Schizophrenia, which Shermer mentions, affects far more than the dopaminergic system, e.g. cortical NMDA receptors. Anyone interested in a serious discussion on how the schizophrenic brain forms beliefs should seek out the Bayesian perspective of Fletcher and Frith. I won't get into the anterior cingulate, for the simple reason that I don't think anyone has a coherent view of it yet, but it most certainly is not a 'Where's Waldo detection device.' That's an uncritical and bad pop adaptation of a poor theory. With such simplistic and superficial treatments, Shermer misses an opportunity to discuss how the brain actually forms beliefs - that is by probabilistic and hierarchical neocortical inference of sensory and subcortical inputs.

Of course, it doesn't really matter, since this is not a book about the brain. It is really a book about Michael Shermer - e.g. what he believes and doesn't, what television shows he's been on, how much hate mail he has received, how many times he has biked across the country. He evidently has a very high opinion of himself, constantly referring to common hypotheses as 'my theory', 'my thesis' and citing his prior books as though they were major scientific treatises. A trivial corollary of Clark's Law is even referred to as "Shermer's last law" (any sufficiently advanced extra-terrestrial intelligence is indistinguishable from God). For what does he hold himself in such esteem? For simple smackdowns of alien abductees and 9/11 truthers? For his "realistic vision" of human society that "acknowledges that people vary widely both physically and intellectually... Therefore governmental redistribution programs are not only unfair to those from whom the wealth is confiscated and redistributed, but the allocation of the wealth to those who did not earn it cannot and will not work to equalize these natural inequalities." But don't worry, Shermer assures you that he is fair and balanced - after all, he "doesn't even listen to Rush Limbaugh anymore." Shermer cites Stephen Pinker's 'The Blank Slate' as brilliant, but given his simplistic links between human nature and politics one has to wonder if he even read the book. Since his thesis concerns how humans believe irrationally, it would be nice if Shermer held his own naive libertarianism up to some scrutiny.

Neuroscience, self-promotion, and politics aside, this book misses a fundamental point. Many people continue to believe in God and the afterlife because of the unexplained mystery of inner existence. The term 'hard problem of consciousness' may be unfamiliar to most, but many are intimately familiar with it intuitively. Why do "I" exist as a conscious experiential entity apart from my neurons? People are wired to search for explanations of their observations, and here we have the most intimate of all observations completely unexplained by modern science. It is no wonder that people confabulate non-scientific answers to this most important of questions.

In essence, this book is an argument in favor of the scientific method as a means for discovering truths about the world. Whereas religion, spirituality, and countless other "beliefs" held by human beings are subject to human biases, science attempts to approach problems in a manner which accounts for biases that could lead to faulty conclusions. Shermer, though a bit abrasive at times (especially when commenting on Deepak Chopra), drives home his message that humans construct beliefs and subsequently reinforce them through a myriad of biases (confirmation, hindsight, etc.). Even within scientific circles, ph.D's are susceptible to biases which limit their ability to accept evidence contrary to their lifelong developed theories. In this regard, it is not just the religious, bigots, and UFOlogists who are affected by what Shermer calls "belief-dependent realism".

I read this book at a perfect time because as I have gotten older, never having been religious and always being focused on sciences in my education, I have started contemplating spirituality and questioning deeper things about existence here on earth. The rational side of me can't justify believing in things that lack any evidentiary proof of existence. This book (though possibly in accordance to my own confirmation bias) made me more comfortable with science as a mode of exploring the world and gaining understanding of this life.

After reading this book, I expect most people to become more aware of their own beliefs, which as Shermer explains, can become more like delusions if one seeks only evidence to confirm their beliefs.

If you care about why and how people (including you, not just those fools who disagree with you) think about the world, then I very much want you to read this book! I thought I was familiar enough with Shermer's work not to be surprised, but this book is compelling and challenging no matter what beliefs you hold. Don't let his uber-skepticism threaten you away; just like learning about optics doesn't make a rainbow less beautiful but more so, understanding how and why you believe in an idea can only make it work better for you.

What I love most about Shermer's tone is that he is not only respectful of people who hold beliefs he finds "weird" or uncompelling, but he turns his analysis on himself to show that despite his commitment to reason he has beliefs that are as emotional and value-laden as the rest of us. (Read: so do you, no matter how rational you think you are!)

The truly threatening part of the book is not that it picks at any particular philosophy or faith you have, but rather that it provokes anxiety about epidemiological nihilism. How can I be sure anything is true? Luckily we have a toolbox to get us out of this trap, and Shermer describes it wonderfully in the concluding chapters.

Michael Shermer is a very pleasant and intelligent scientist who writes extremely well, and expresses himself very clearly. He is an atheist, but he is not a shrill fanatic, who scream at the top of his lungs and condemn Christianity and all other religions as the source of all our misery and problems. Professor Shermers shows respect for religious faith, even as he present a lucid case for his materialistic belief system. Christians must be aware that there are some excellent arguments that can be used to attack Christian theism, but Christian apologetics are perfectly capable of defending the faith against any arguments.

Professor Shermer starts from a position that there is only a material and naturalistic world. There is no spiritual world, or unseen transcendent world. He denies that there is a God because God is a spiritual being, and because there are only material beings, God cannot exist. Professor Shermer explains and reduces mental phenomena to physical events, using a naturalistic methodology. But if there are no nonmaterial entities what are scientific theories, or mathematical truths, or other ideas that don't exist in the real world? All we can see in the physical world are the physical events supporting or disproving scientific theories. We can't sense the theory of gravity. All we have are millions of observations that sustain the theory, but not the actual theory in any kind of physical sense. Karl Popper called this realm, where unseen concepts exist, the third world of ideas, and this third world certainly has existence outside the physical world. This is the world of consciousness and human thought which scientists cannot explain.

Professor Shermer depends on evolutionary theory and evolutionary psychology to support his ideas. The problem with evolutionary reconstructions are they are theoretical scenarios which don't have sufficient proof to support their claims. They are interesting and plausible stories that may or may not be true. They are reasoning to the best explanation of the data, a form of reasoning called abduction. These scenarios or models are plausible within the materialist world view, but because a theory appears plausible within the framework of a worldview doesn't mean the theory is true. If the world view is not accurate or complete or consistent, the plausability of the story collapses. Abduction is a perfectly valid method of arriving at the best possible explanation, when we don't have all the necessary facts. But it is even less certain than induction. It is the kind of reasoning used in courtroom trials and in writing history. We are unable to know with certainty what really happened in the past, but we use the evidence we have to reconstruct the best possible explanation of the facts, and to create a plausible scenario The prosecution in a criminal case presents one plausible scenario of the crime and the defense presents another scenario of the crime and the jury must decide which scenario is the most reasonable and plausible. No one can know for certain what really happened. Perhaps one scenario is correct and perhaps neither is correct, but the jury has to decide on the explanation that makes the most sense to them, based on the incomplete evidence they have

The historian also uses abduction. He gathers as much of the evidence as he can and then he attempts to reconstruct what happened in the past, based on that evidence. There are always pieces of information missing, sometimes key pieces. But the historian must make the best possible educated guess to fill in the areas that lack reliable data. That is what the evolutionary scientist often does. Sometimes he has very little evidence and much of what he reconstructs is pure conjecture. He takes a few surviving bones and attempts to construct a whole animal, based on his, educated guess. He starts with present human behavior patterns and attempts to explain how these thought patterns and behaviors are the result of the evolutionary forces of chance and natural law. Much of these constructions and explanations involve a great deal of fiction.

Everyone is aware that evolution takes place within species. The evidence of evolution within species is obvious, using the example of dogs, who in a few thousand years have evolved into the numerous breeds starting with the common wolf. How the various species evolved over millions of years is a much more difficult question to answer. There is no fossil record to substantiate the evolution of one species into another. The process is too slow to be recorded in written history. The numerous breeds of dogs are the result of intelligent direction and human management, not chance and natural law.

Professor Shermer presents a reductionist account of a very complicated process. We don't know how the human brain evolved, if it did evolve. We don't know why it evolved. It may yet prove to be a very maladaptive development that could eliminate the human species, as well as all the animal species on the face of the planet.

Professor Shermer's version of the formation of human belief is a part of the tradition of hermeneutic of suspicion that includes: Marx's explanation of human conduct and culture caused by the means of material production: Freud's explanation of man as a victim of an unconscious mind, driven by primal sexual instincts; Darwin's view that man is the result of natural evolutionary forces; materialistic philosophies that view man's conduct as totally determined by physical causes that leave no room for the human will; and other material forces that leave human beings at the mercy of blind forces beyond human control.

Professor Shermer believes that are decisions are based on emotional responses, cultural accidents, biases, and other irrational impulses and motives. Only after we have made our decisions do we apply rational thought to prove and support our decisions. This is very close to the philosophy of David Hume, who believed our reason only served our emotions. This is somewhat self-defeating because I assume it also applies to Professor Shermer's ideas about belief that he expresses in his excellent book. If all beliefs are the result of irrational causes so is the idea that all beliefs are caused by irrational choices. No idea seems to have much validity until we defend it with logic and empirical proof. We can defend and cling to any idea, no matter how irrational and ridiculous. Once again we are left with the suspicion that what we thought we were doing is not really what we were doing. We thought we were using our rational faculties to address problems and make decisions, but we were simply using rational arguments to support our irrational beliefs and decisions.

This supposed irrationality also applies to the various psychological experiments that Professor Shermer uses to substantiate his ideas. Isn't it quite possible that scientists design their experiments to obtain results that will confirm their own biases? They may very well do this unconsciously, with no intent to deceive. But most scientist operate within a world view that automatically precludes any spiritual or religious explanations. Can they be sure they have not somehow loaded the experimental dice in order to achieve the kinds of results that will confirm their own beliefs?

Psychological experiments often have very small groups of subjects to work with. There may be a bias among researchers to extrapolate from their limited findings to results that apply to much larger groups and evento all human beings, in order to support their own ideas and beliefs, which may have formedin the unconscious mind. Perhaps Shermer is selecting studies that will confirm his own beliefs. Are their experiments that Professor Shermer has omitted which tend to cast doubt on his theories? I'm not familiar enough with the area of psychology to judge, but it would be interesting to know.

Experiments with animals can be very misleading for the simple reason animals are not human beings. It is tempting to use animal research to cast light on human behavior, but is it valid to make such a leap across species, especially since there is such an obvious difference in mental ability? Is the difference in mental ability qualitative or quantitative, and how can we tell?

So if Professor Shermer is correct, his thesis can be used to prove that his thesis is subject to the very same problems that beset other people's beliefs. One of the problems with the hermeneutic of suspicion is that those thinkers who maintain the hermeneutic claim to be, somehow, exempt from the forces they claim to unmask. These forces determine other people's thoughts and beliefs but the discoverer of the forces is somehow exempt from the very influences he claims are pervasive. How, if the economic forces, or the unconscious mind, or the forces of history, or irrationality are so powerful and pervasive, have the perceptive reductionists escaped from the very forces they identify?Have they really escaped?

Please don't misunderstand my criticisms. This is an excellent book, that stimulates thought and encourages discussion. It is well written and interesting, and it motivated me to read some of Professor Shermer's other books. I have shied away from some of his work because he seemed to me to be extremely atheistic. A true skeptic is an agnostic, and this comes across much more clearly in this book. I don't agree with a great deal of what the author says, but I was stimulated and excited by some of the findings. No matter what your opinions may be you should find this book an enjoyable addition to your reading list.