We like to think we hold the beliefs that we do because we have come to them as a result of careful process of deliberation, carefully weighing all the different sides of a question, before we reach a definitive conclusion, But it's not quite like that - we find reasons for beliefs we already hold prior to our justification of them. The brain is the seat of this - a belief engine that constructs beliefs about the world after the fact.
Shermer devises two neologisms - `patternicity' and `agenticity' to explain how this comes about. These rather ugly terms are simply shorthand for saying that our brains look for patterns where there is just randomness, and attribute conscious properties and deliberate intent to natural phenomena. We all do this to some extent - ever cursed your computer for running slowly, as if it would actually listen? Or tried to get a recalcitrant electronic or mechanical device to comply with your demands by thumping it? Those who hold strong religious or ultra-conspiratorial worldviews are likely to exaggerate patterns and agents operating in the world - excessive and unwarranted detection of `signal to noise.' He examines the psychological and neurobiological bases of our beliefs, how these apply to beliefs in the paranormal, religion, conspiracy theories and politics. He rounds off the discussion with an examination of the history of science as it is told in the story of progress in cosmology, to demonstrate how real knowledge advances.
Shermer does not of course push his argument too far. There is such a thing as legitimate belief. The truth is out there and it does not lie in between two extremes. Between the theory of gravity and the theory of levitation there is no middle ground, only the difference between truth and falsehood. We can pray over cholera victims, or we can give them 500 milligrams of tetracycline every 12 hours. One method works and the other one doesn't. And this truth exists independently, outside your head, regardless of what you perceive or what you believe. But not everything is so clear-cut. When it comes to politics and moral beliefs, the dividing line becomes harder to discern.
Shermer wears his own free-market, libertarian beliefs on his sleeve but devotes very little time to examining whether his own beliefs have been constructed with the same biases that he discerns entrap others in the construction of their political beliefs.
If this is your first foray into this sort of critical thinking/rationalist genre, then it's a good enough place to start. I personally enjoyed the book and mostly agreed with what he had to say.
He is widely read, vastly knowledgable, and capable of pithy phrases that sum up the rationalist case succintly - for example, religion cannot be a sound foundation for morality because there are no means of conflict resolution when members of competing sects hold absolute beliefs that are mutually exclusive (pp. 220-221).'
But I would not rate it highly for originality and there are better books out there on the subjects he covers. The biases inherent in our thinking have been well covered in Thomas Gilovich's
How We Know What isn't So: Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life
. His definition of `patterncity' and `agenticity' seems to owe much to Gilovich but he does not acknowledge this. I don't think this book adds anything to Gilovich. His discussion of pseudoscience echoes Carl Sagan's brilliant exposition in
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark [ THE DEMON-HAUNTED WORLD: SCIENCE AS A CANDLE IN THE DARK ] by Sagan, Carl (Author) Feb-25-1997 [ Paperback
] but Sagan has greater command of his sources and literary flair. The history of scientific discovery and advance in relation to cosmology is likewise much better treated in Simon Singh's book
Big Bang: The Most Important Scientific Discovery of All Time and Why You Need to Know About It
. The chapters on neuroscience were for me an exception - maybe because I know next to nothing about this subject.
I would rate this work four stars for readability and content. It's a solid, competent work but it only rates three stars for originality. I'll settle on four because it's a good, wide-ranging and mostly interesting survey, despite his political biases.
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