Category: Books

Experts Are Paid “to Sound Cocksure” Even When They Do Not Know

(p. B1) I think Philip Tetlock’s “Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction,” co-written with the journalist Dan Gardner, is the most important book on decision making since Daniel Kahneman’s “Thinking, Fast and Slow.” (I helped write and edit the Kahneman book but receive no royalties from it.) Prof. Kahneman agrees. “It’s a manual to systematic thinking in the real world,” he told me. “This book shows that under the right conditions regular people are capable of improving their judgment enough to beat the professionals at their own game.”
The book is so powerful because Prof. Tetlock, a psychologist and professor of management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, has a remarkable trove of data. He has just concluded the first stage of what he calls the Good Judgment Project, which pitted some 20,000 amateur forecasters against some of the most knowledgeable experts in the world.
The amateurs won–hands down.
. . .
(p. B7) The most careful, curious, open-minded, persistent and self-critical–as measured by a battery of psychological tests–did the best.
. . .
Most experts–like most people–“are too quick to make up their minds and too slow to change them,” he says. And experts are paid not just to be right, but to sound right: cocksure even when the evidence is sparse or ambiguous.

For the full review, see:
JASON ZWEIG. “The Trick to Making Better Forecasts.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., Sept. 26, 2015): B1 & B7.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date Sept. 25, 2015.)

The book under review, is:
Tetlock, Philip E., and Dan Gardner. Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction. New York: Crown, 2015.

Autism Is “Inseparably Tied to Innovation”

(p. 11) “NeuroTribes” is beautifully told, humanizing, important. It has earned its enthusiastic foreword from Oliver Sacks; it has found its place on the shelf next to “Far From the Tree,” Andrew Solomon’s landmark appreciation of neurological differences. At its heart is a plea for the world to make accommodations for those with autism, not the other way around, and for researchers and the public alike to focus on getting them the services they need. They are, to use Temple Grandin’s words, “different, not less.” Better yet, indispensable: inseparably tied to innovation, showing us there are other ways to think and work and live.

For the full review, see:
JENNIFER SENIOR. “‘Skewed Diagnosis; A Science Journalist’s Reading of Medical History Suggests that the ‘Autism Pandemic’ Is an Optical Illusion.” The New York Time Book Review (Sun., AUG. 23, 2015): 11.
(Note: the online version of the review has the date AUG. 17, 2015, and has the title “‘NeuroTribes,’ by Steve Silberman.”)

The book under review, is:
Silberman, Steve. Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity. New York: Avery/Penguin Random House, 2015.

Antiquated Education Needs Reform to Encourage Entrepreneurship

(p. 22) . . . “Most Likely to Succeed: Preparing Our Kids for the Innovation Era,” by Tony Wagner and Ted Dintersmith — argues that the only way to ensure any kind of future security for our children is to totally upend the education system and rethink what school is for.
“Disrupt” is a buzz word these tech-world gurus use sparingly, but that’s what they mean. Wagner works at Harvard’s Innovation Lab, Dintersmith in venture capital, funding education and tech start-ups. . . . Their argument is this: Public education in America is based on antiquated late-19th-century priorities, on the need “to educate large numbers of immigrants and refugees from farms for basic citizenship and for jobs in a growing industrial economy.” Most of the stuff children are forced to know, and on which our culture’s sense of achievement is based, is unnecessary in the age of Google. But tests and test-makers still run the show, and kids are required to “jump through hoops” and drill and drill to assimilate reams of facts (“content”) instead of learning the skills that will keep them employed and employable for years to come — which is to say, the skills to be entrepreneurs.
. . . .
. . . the assumption that undergirds this whole tract: that every person can — or should — be molded into an entrepreneur.

For the full review, see:
LISA MILLER. “Raise Them Up; A Vision of Education for an Entrepreneurial America.” The New York Time Book Review (Sun., AUG. 23, 2015): 22.
(Note: ellipses in original.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date AUG. 18, 2015, and has the title “‘Most Likely to Succeed,’ by Tony Wagner and Ted Dintersmith.”)

The book under review, is:
Wagner, Tony, and Ted Dintersmith. Most Likely to Succeed: Preparing Our Kids for the Innovation Era. New York: Scribner, 2015.

“A Collective Thumbing of the Nose at” Burma’s Dictatorship

(p. A9) For a young man born in a premodern dictatorship, Nway appeared to have it all. The son of a physician, he grew up in the town of Twantay, Burma, with the comforts typically reserved for the country’s military elite. He dreamed of becoming a doctor and raising a family of his own.
That all changed one night after the abortive elections of 1990, when Nway’s father, a supporter of the democracy movement, was arrested on unnamed charges and sentenced to 20 years in prison. There, he was kept in solitary confinement and endured routine beatings, interrogations and mock suffocations until he died of “complications of the liver” in October 1996.
Nway’s father was gone but not forgotten: His awza, or influence, lives on. Inspired by his father’s legacy, Nway dropped out of medical school and devoted his life to bringing liberal democracy to Burma.
. . .
At one point in the book, Nway is pursued by the “dogs” of Burma’s security forces and happens upon some old acquaintances at a beer den. The friends swallow their fear and summon passersby to help protect him. They sit down, building “a fort around Nway” in “a collective thumbing of the nose at the Special Branch police” until he is able to slip away on a motorbike.
For Ms. Schrank, this anecdote embodies the philosophy that ultimately makes the dissidents’ appeal to the people of Burma successful. In her final chapter she notes that it has now become “cool” to tie across your forehead a strip of cloth with the sign of the NLD and support the party “that only months before had belonged to the underground students and come most often with a one-way ticket to prison.”

For the full review, see:
NICHOLAS DESATNICK. “BOOKSHELF; Freedom Fighters; To understand how Burma’s military junta began coming apart at the seams, you need to meet this band of ‘oddballs and dreamers.'” The Wall Street Journal (Fri., July 31, 2015): A9.
(Note: ellipsis added, italics in original.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date July 30, 2015.)

The book under review, is:
Schrank, Delphine. The Rebel of Rangoon: A Tale of Defiance and Deliverance in Burma. New York: Nation Books, 2015.

Should We Have a Right to the Silence that “Contributes to Creativity and Innovation”?

(p. D5) The benefits of silence are off the books. They are not measured in the gross domestic product, yet the availability of silence surely contributes to creativity and innovation. They do not show up explicitly in social statistics such as level of educational achievement, yet one consumes a great deal of silence in the course of becoming educated.
. . .
Or do we? Silence is now offered as a luxury good. In the business-class lounge at Charles de Gaulle Airport, I heard only the occasional tinkling of a spoon against china. I saw no advertisements on the walls. This silence, more than any other feature, is what makes it feel genuinely luxurious. When you step inside and the automatic doors whoosh shut behind you, the difference is nearly tactile, like slipping out of haircloth into satin. Your brow unfurrows, your neck muscles relax; after 20 minutes you no longer feel exhausted.
Outside, in the peon section, is the usual airport cacophony. . . .
. . .
To engage in inventive thinking during those idle hours spent at an airport requires silence.
. . .
I think we need to sharpen the conceptually murky right to privacy by supplementing it with a right not to be addressed. This would apply not, of course, to those who address me face to face as individuals, but to those who never show their faces, and treat my mind as a resource to be harvested.

For the full commentary, see:
MATTHEW B. CRAWFORD. “OPINION; The Cost of Paying Attention.” The New York Times, SundayReview Section (Sun., MARCH 8, 2015): 5.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date MARCH 7, 2015.)

The commentary quoted above is related to the author’s book:
Crawford, Matthew B. The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015.

Too Much Positive Thinking Creates Relaxed Complacency

(p. D5) In her smart, lucid book, “Rethinking Positive Thinking: Inside the New Science of Motivation,” Dr. Oettingen critically re-examines positive thinking and give readers a more nuanced — and useful — understanding of motivation based on solid empirical evidence.
Conventional wisdom has it that dreams are supposed to excite us and inspire us to act. Putting this to the test, Dr. Oettingen recruits a group of undergraduate college students and randomly assigns them to two groups. She instructs the first group to fantasize that the coming week will be a knockout: good grades, great parties and the like; students in the second group are asked to record all their thoughts and daydreams about the coming week, good and bad.
Strikingly, the students who were told to think positively felt far less energized and accomplished than those who were instructed to have a neutral fantasy. Blind optimism, it turns out, does not motivate people; instead, as Dr. Oettingen shows in a series of clever experiments, it creates a sense of relaxation complacency. It is as if in dreaming or fantasizing about something we want, our minds are tricked into believing we have attained the desired goal.
There appears to be a physiological basis for this effect: Studies show that just fantasizing about a wish lowers blood pressure, while thinking of that same wish — and considering not getting it — raises blood pressure. It may feel better to daydream, but it leaves you less energized and less prepared for action.
. . .
In one study, she taught a group of third graders a mental-contrast exercise: They were told to imagine a candy prize they would receive if they finished a language assignment, and then to imagine several of their own behaviors that could prevent them from winning. A second group of students was instructed only to fantasize about winning the prize. The students who did the mental contrast outperformed those who just dreamed.

For the full review, see:
RICHARD A. FRIEDMAN, M.D. “Books; Dare to Dream of Falling Short.” The New York Times (Tues., DEC. 23, 2014): D5.
(Note: italics in original; ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date DEC. 22, 2014.)

The book under review, is:
Oettingen, Gabriele. Rethinking Positive Thinking: Inside the New Science of Motivation. New York: Current, 2014.

“The Countryside Was Romantic Only to People Who Didn’t Have to Live There”

(p. C4) Mr. Meyer’s motivation for writing his book is simple and straightforward. “Since 2000, a quarter of China’s villages had died out, victims of migration or the redrawing of municipal borders,” as the country urbanizes, he notes early on, adding: “Before it vanished I wanted to experience a life that tourists, foreign students, and journalists (I had been, in order, all three) only viewed in passing.”
“In Manchuria” shifts back and forth among various genres. It is part travelogue, part sociological study, part reportage and part memoir, but it is also a love offering to Mr. Meyer’s wife, Frances, who grew up in the unfortunately named Wasteland, the village that Mr. Meyer chooses as his base near the start of this decade, and to the unborn son she is carrying by the time “In Manchuria” ends.
. . .
After a year in Wasteland, Mr. Meyer was ready to move on, and he now divides his time between Singapore and Pittsburgh, where he teaches nonfiction writing. But his interlude in Manchuria clearly taught him many lessons, perhaps the most fundamental being this: “The countryside was romantic only to people who didn’t have to live there.”

For the full review, see:
LARRY ROHTER. “A Vanishing Way of Life for Peasants in China.” The New York Times Book Review (Mon., MARCH 8, 2015): C4.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date MARCH 8, 2015, and has the title “Review: Michael Meyer’s ‘In Manchuria’ Documents a Changing Rural China.”)

The book under review, is:
Meyer, Michael. In Manchuria: A Village Called Wasteland and the Transformation of Rural China. New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2015.

Most Early Christians Blended in as Ordinary Romans

(p. C9)The earliest Christian building excavated anywhere in the Roman Empire, the famous house-church of Dura-Europos (now under the enlightened protection of Islamic State), dates to the mid-third century. Literary sources, both Christian and non-Christian, make it abundantly clear that Christian communities grew up everywhere in the Mediterranean in the 150 years after Jesus’ death: Think of the famous congregations of Corinth, Colossae and Ephesus, vividly evoked in Paul’s letters. But to the archaeologist these communities are completely invisible. Where are they?
In his lively new book, “Coming Out Christian in the Roman World,” Douglas Boin offers an answer. Early Christian writers like St. John of Patmos or Tertullian of Carthage rejected any hint of compromise with the Roman imperial state or with their non-Christian neighbors: “No man,” warned Tertullian grimly, “can serve two masters.” But there is no particular reason to think that Tertullian’s views were widely accepted at the time. Fundamentalist zealots often have the loudest voices. In fact, it seems, most early Christians were quite happy to rub along quietly with the Roman world as they found it. They served in the Roman army, honored the emperor and even participated in pagan sacrificial ritual. Their archaeological invisibility is easy to explain: Aside from their personal convictions (revealed every now and then in their choice of graffiti), most early Christians were just ordinary Romans.

For the full review, see:
EVAN HEPLER-SMITH. “Rome at the Crossroads; Apart from their convictions, most early Christians were just ordinary Romans. They served in the army, honored the emperor and even participated in pagan sacrificial ritual.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., March 21, 2015): C9.
(Note: the online version of the review has the date March 20, 2015.)

The book under review, is:
Boin, Douglas Ryan. Coming out Christian in the Roman World: How the Followers of Jesus Made a Place in Caesar’s Empire. New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2015.

Marie Curie Opposed Patents Because Women Could Not Own Property in France

(p. C6) Ms. Wirtén, a professor at Linköping University in Sweden, pays special attention to the decision not to patent and how it was treated in the founding texts of the Curie legend: Curie’s 1923 biography of her husband, “Pierre Curie,” and their daughter Eve’s 1937 biography of her mother, “Madame Curie.” The books each recount a conversation in which husband and wife agree that patenting their radium method would be contrary to the spirit of science.
It is not quite that simple. As Ms. Wirtén points out, the Curies derived a significant portion of their income from Pierre’s patents on instruments. Various factors besides beneficence could have affected their decision not to extend this approach to their radium process. Intriguingly, the author suggests that the ineligibility of women to own property under French law might have shaped Curie’s perspective. “Because the law excluded her from the status of person upon which these intellectual property rights depend,” Ms. Wirtén writes, “the ‘property’ road was closed to Marie Curie. The persona road was not.”

For the full review, see:
EVAN HEPLER-SMITH. “Scientific Saint; After scandals in France, Curie was embraced by American women as an intellectual icon.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., March 21, 2015): C6.
(Note: the online version of the review has the date March 20, 2015.)

The book under review, is:
Wirtén, Eva Hemmungs. Making Marie Curie: Intellectual Property and Celebrity Culture in an Age of Information. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015.

Homo Sapiens Made Eye Contact with Dogs to Dominate Neanderthals

(p. C6) In the space of just a few thousand years, as we spread through the region, we killed off the apex predators: first the Neanderthals and then, over time, cave bears, cave hyenas, lesser scimitar cats, dholes, mammoths and woolly rhinos, among other animals. How did we manage this? According to Ms. Shipman, we enlisted the help of dogs.
. . .
Ms. Shipman devotes the final third of her book to exploring a fascinating range of evidence–genetic, archaeological, anthropological–that provides substantial support for this theory. She never proposes that the alliance of humans and dogs alone led to the extinction of the Neanderthals. In all likelihood, she writes, the mere presence of humans, a competitive new predator in the Eurasian ecosystem, was an important stressor, as were climate change and perhaps even infectious diseases brought by humans from Africa. But the domestication of dogs, she suggests, significantly tipped the balance: “The unprecedented alliance of humans with another top predator (wolf-dogs or a kind of wolf) may have been the final stress that pushed Neanderthals and many other species down the slippery slope toward extinction.”
So how did humans manage to domesticate wolves while their Neanderthal cousins, so similar in so many ways, did not? Here Ms. Shipman gets imaginative. Modern humans, she writes, have recently been shown to be the only extant primates whose irises are surrounded by white scleras–the whites of our eyes. We’re also the only primate to have eyelids that expose much of our scleras. What evolutionary advantage could this have possibly given us? “The white scleras and open eyelids,” she proposes, “make the direction of a person’s gaze highly visible from a distance.” Having white scleras allowed us to communicate subtly at a distance among ourselves and with our new best friend, dogs, a biological advantage that may have made all the difference as we competed for prey with Neanderthals–who, if they were like every other primate we know of today, had dark scleras.
Most animals, including apes and wolves, don’t make eye contact with humans; nor do they gaze at faces for long. Dogs, on the contrary, are excellent gaze-followers, a trait that scientists believe we selectively bred into them during their domestication. Once we had teamed up with dogs, we were unstoppable.

For the full review, see:
TOBY LESTER. “The Slippery Slope to Extinction.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., March 21, 2015): C5-C6.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date March 20, 2015.)

The book under review, is:
Shipman, Pat. The Invaders: How Humans and Their Dogs Drove Neanderthals to Extinction. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2015.