Think: Why You Should Question Everything - Softcover

Harrison, Guy P.

 
9781616148072: Think: Why You Should Question Everything
Softcover
ISBN 10: 1616148071 ISBN 13: 9781616148072
Verlag: Prometheus Books, 2013

Inhaltsangabe

Think more critically, learn to question everything, and don't let your own brain trip you up.
  
This fresh and exciting approach to science, skepticism, and critical thinking will enlighten and inspire readers of all ages. With a mix of wit and wisdom, it challenges everyone to think like a scientist, embrace the skeptical life, and improve their critical thinking skills.

Think shows you how to better navigate through the maze of biases and traps that are standard features of every human brain. These innate pitfalls threaten to trick us into seeing, hearing, thinking, remembering, and believing things that are not real or true. Guy Harrison's straightforward text will help you trim away the nonsense, deflect bad ideas, and keep both feet firmly planted in reality. 

With an upbeat and friendly tone, Harrison shows how it's in everyone's best interest to question everything. He brands skepticism as a constructive and optimistic attitude--a way of life that anyone can embrace. An antidote to nonsense and delusion, this accessible guide to critical thinking is the perfect book for anyone seeking a jolt of inspiration.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

GUY P. HARRISON (San Diego, CA) is an award-winning journalist and the author of 50 Simple Questions for Every Christian, 50 Popular Beliefs That People Think Are True, 50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God, and Race and Reality: What Everyone Should Know about Our Biological Diversity. Find him on online at www.guypharrison.com, www.facebook.com/guypharrisonauthor, and on Twitter @Harrisonauthor.

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Think

Why You Should Question Everything

By Guy P. Harrison, Kevin Hand

Prometheus Books

Copyright © 2013 Guy P. Harrison
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-61614-807-2

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS............................................................15
INTRODUCTION...............................................................17
1. STANDING TALL ON A FANTASY-PRONE PLANET.................................21
2. PAY A VISIT TO THE STRANGE THING THAT LIVES INSIDE YOUR HEAD............55
3. A THINKER'S GUIDE TO UNUSUAL CLAIMS AND WEIRD BELIEFS...................87
4. THE PROPER CARE AND FEEDING OF A THINKING MACHINE.......................167
5. SO LITTLE TO LOSE AND A UNIVERSE TO GAIN................................185
RESOURCES TO KEEP LEARNING.................................................209
NOTES......................................................................217
BIBLIOGRAPHY...............................................................225
INDEX......................................................................235


CHAPTER 1

STANDING TALL ON A FANTASY-PRONE PLANET


Generally I like to assume that it's not smart to generalize andmake assumptions. Too many things fall somewhere into thatbroad abyss between black and white. Since you are reading this book,however, I'm going to go out on a limb and make two guesses. One, I'mwilling to bet that you are a human being and, two, you live on Earth.If I'm right, too bad for you. Whether or not you have realized it, youraddress and your membership to the human species have condemnedyou to a life sentence atop the crust of a spherical madhouse. Throughno fault of your own, you have been born into a world teeming withgood people who mean well but to one degree or another are deranged,deluded, and just plain wrong. And most of them are eager to lure youinto the fog with them. But wait, there's more.

There is also no shortage of bad people who don't mean well. Theytrade in lies. Their goals may include harming you, exploiting you,taking your money, or all three. Unfortunately, you can't hide from anyof these people. Some days it's the dishonest ones who come for you,and other days it's the sincere but mistaken ones. Sooner or later theywill find you; they always find you. In fact, many of them are in your liferight now, no doubt. They live in your neighborhood. You go to schoolwith them. You work with them. Sometimes they are close friends.Every family has at least a few. You could try to run, but to where? Noplace is safe because they are everywhere. No city, no society, is free ofthem. Again and again they will reach out to you. They have a millionmethods and a trillion techniques. Their ideas can be like microbialparasites, requiring only the smallest crack or opening to squirm inand take over your brain. Join us. Pay us. Give us your time. Buy this.Trust this cure. Pay us now, please. Think like us. Be one of us. Believeus. And don't forget to pay us.

When they come for you, the easiest thing to do in the short termmay be to hand over your brain or your wallet, and then march quietlyinto the swamp of muddy thinking like a good little drone. The long-termconsequences for you may be harsh, however. Perhaps somepeople are so weak and so passive that assimilation really is their onlyoption. Fortunately, this is not the case with you, I'm guessing. Youwould probably like to hold onto your brain, money, health, and dignity.Am I right?

I wish this book were absolutely universal in appeal, but it mightnot be the best fit for everyone. Therefore, let's address a few basicpoints early to make sure that this book is right for you:

• If you like the idea of spending a lifetime stumbling back andforth between a variety of unproven claims and strange beliefsthat are almost certainly not true, then stop reading this booknow.

• If you think it would be really cool to waste thousands of dollarsover your lifetime on bogus miracle cures and absurd productshawked on infomercials, then you need to immediately put thisbook down and step away from it.

• If worrying about things that don't exist and cannot harm yousounds smart, then run as far away from this book as you can.Hurry, it might attack you!

• If being intellectually smothered within a group or organizationthat discourages thinking and forbids asking meaningfulquestions sounds comforting and reasonable, then buy as manycopies of this book that you can afford and then burn them all.As they are burning, be sure to chant something. The words don'tmatter, anything will do.


I'm sorry if you now feel that this book is not for you. But at leastyour path in life is clear: Trust everything anyone tells you. Live by acreed that says any claim that feels good and sounds good must be true.Forget reason and always go with your heart. Who needs facts whenyour gut speaks to you? Never second-guess anything. Never doubt,never question, and never worry about things like evidence, proof,logic, or that obnoxious thing called science. That's it; you are ready tolive a dream life. Before you begin your journey, however, please closethis book and slam it against your forehead ten times. This will giveyou good luck. Trust me.

Still here? Then it can only mean one thing: You are ready to think!You must be the kind of person who likes the idea of standing tall onPlanet Crazy with eyes wide open and a revved-up thinking machine,just like a twenty-first-century human should. You want to be goodat spotting scams and recognizing worthless products for sale. Youwant the ability to see through hollow words and dishonest promisesvirtually every time. A safer and more efficient life sounds good to you.You are ready to put up a fight against all those barbarians at the gatewho are determined to invade your skull. Their mission is to use andabuse you with counterfeit claims and fake philosophies, but you aregoing to be ready for them.


THINK LIKE A SCIENTIST

The most effective antidote for bad thinking is good thinking. The bestway to make con artists vanish is to see them. The best way to silencecrazy claims is simply to listen to them with a sharp brain and thenask the right questions. It is important to look at wild claims and hearincredible sales pitches with deliberate effort. You can't be passive aboutthis. Crooks and kooks love finding a brain with a wide-open doorwayand nobody standing guard. Respond to extraordinary claims in a waythat is similar, in spirit at least, to how a scientist would investigate anew, exotic illness found in redwood trees or newly discovered microbialcolonies in the bellybuttons of Latvian fishermen: observe, research,hypothesize (think up ideas), ask questions, experiment, and share yourideas and conclusions about it with sensible people. Rinse and repeat.

Thinking like a scientist is not that difficult. Young children cando it. Old people can do it. High-school dropouts can do it. It doesn'trequire you to memorize the periodic table of elements or to understandquantum physics. Thinking like a scientist in this context onlymeans that you maintain a healthy level of curiosity and doubt. Youaren't afraid to ask questions and request evidence, and you don't drawconclusions about things until you have very good reasons to do so. Youalso must be willing to change your mind if your conclusions turn outto be wrong.

The bad news is that the people with weird, unproven claims outnumberyou. They may have popular opinion, tradition, and the always-attractivelure of lazy thinking on their side. You may think commonsense, the laws of nature, and logic would constrain these people, butthey rarely burden themselves with such concerns because theirs isthe domain of the make-believe where rules are invented or discardedas desired. They might also cheat by appealing to emotion and ticklingyour soft underbelly. They might tell you that their way is warm,comforting, exciting, and meaningful while the skeptic's world is cold,lonely, boring, and empty. Don't believe such lies.

Deciding to think like a scientist is the hard part; doing it is fairlyeasy. The mechanics are simple and straightforward: Proof comesbefore belief. Nothing is ever beyond question or revision. But don'tbe fooled, this is a lifelong war and every day is a battle. Irrationalthinkers and their crazy claims never go away. You can never declarevictory and let down your guard because there are always more nearbywho are looking for another mind to infect. Dismantle one of thesebrain-snatching beliefs with your skepticism, and ten more are readyand waiting to take its place. Annihilate one hollow claim with reason,and twenty more rise up. The best you can do is hold them off in a siegethat never ends. And through it all, you need to stay positive, to holdonto your humanity. You can't allow yourself to become frustrated andbitter and begin to pull away from your fellow humans. That's not goodfor you and not good for the world. Excluding the liars and con artists,people who believe in bad ideas are victims of bad thinking, that's all.Despising them or giving up on them is not constructive. I've been promotingand writing about skepticism for many years, and I have dealtwith some of the most idiotic and depraved lunacy imaginable, and yetI can still say without hesitation that I love people. They frustrate meand disappoint me to no end, but I still love them.


HALFWAY HOME

Now for some great news: You are already a skeptic and a criticalthinker. You're halfway there. Whether or not you recognize it, youapply skepticism and critical-thinking skills every day. We all dobecause everyone is a skeptic to some degree. Think about it—nobodybelieves everything. For example, if some guy tries to sell you a candybar that has already been opened and you don't recognize the logo onthe wrapper, you probably wouldn't just do the deal and start chewingwithout giving it some thought. Even if he promises you that it is oneof the best-tasting candy bars in the world by far and he's offering youa super-special, once-in-lifetime price, you aren't going to bite on thedeal or the candy bar without first doing some critical thinking, right?Even if he further tempts you by adding that it has special probiotic-homeopathicproperties guaranteed to detox and revitalize your spleen,you still would likely hesitate. You would assess the claim that it's agreat candy bar. Then why haven't I ever heard of it? You would tryyour best to analyze the condition of it. It's open. How do I know a usedcandy bar is safe to eat? The phrase, "too good to be true," might cometo mind. You would wonder about the claims he made. What in theheck does 'probiotic-homeopathic' mean? And why does my spleen needrevitalizing, anyway? You probably also would consider anything youknow about the seller's character and reputation. What do I know aboutthis guy? Is he honest and reliable? Is he an expert on spleens? Did anyof his former customers die of food poisoning? Regardless of who youare and how desperate for candy you may be at that moment, you arelikely to ask a few direct questions about the candy bar's appearance,mysterious brand, low price, and medicinal properties before buyingit. Even if you were desperately hungry, you probably would requesta small sample of the candy bar for a quick sniff or taste experiment.See? You're a skeptic. You think like a scientist. But it's not enoughto reserve your skeptical powers for encounters with suspicious candybars only.

None of us automatically believe, accept, or buy every story, claim,and product that comes along. We think. We ask questions. We routinelyuse our brains to protect us from making bad decisions and allowingourselves to be misled by incorrect information and outright lies. This isskepticism in action. But while virtually everyone may become a world-classskeptic when faced with a stranger who wants to sell some funkycandy, what happens when a trusted friend tells you that she saw aghost, says she had a horoscope hit right on the mark, or asks you tobuy memberships in a group that promises personal peace and financialwealth? How would you react when an authority figure, someoneyou may have looked up to for years, insists that they have just themedicine you need to feel better? It's only $99.99 and it's "natural," soit can't possibly hurt you, he says. Are you a world-class skeptic duringmoments like these, too? Or does something cause you to dial it down?This is what happens for most people. They wouldn't buy a used bikewithout inspecting every inch of it and test-riding it. But they mightbuy into a hundred different outrageous claims without blinking, basedon little more than feeling or a friend's word. It happens every day. Butwhy? Why wouldn't you want to be skeptical about everything, not justfrom candy bars to bikes, but from healthcare products to horoscopesand beyond? Skepticism is too reliable and too valuable to leave on theshelf. Use it everywhere and every day.


WAIT, WHAT IS SKEPTICISM?

Before we get too far down this road, let's make sure we know whatskepticism is. Skepticism and science are really the same thing andwork pretty much the same way. Skepticism is just about having ahealthy dose of doubt and using reason to figure out what is probablyreal from what is probably not real. It means not believing you knowsomething before you can prove it or at least make a very good case forit. Skepticism is nothing more than thinking and withholding beliefuntil enough evidence has been presented. It also means keeping anopen mind and being ready and able to change your mind when newand better evidence demands it. Proven doesn't mean forever. A goodskeptic thinks about the source of a claim and how well it ties in withwhat we already know about nature and people; and, most important,a good skeptic resists the temptation to make up answers to importantquestions. Saying "I don't know" is not uncomfortable for a good skeptic.It's routine.

I think of skepticism as science in action. It's the scientific processmodified and personalized for everyone to use in everyday life. Whyshould professional scientists be the only people who get to thinkstraight? We civilians have just as much a right to use rational thinkingas they do! I imagine my own skepticism to be something like a personalforce field that protects me from invaders. It's like a balled-up fistthat punches out bad ideas aiming to do me harm. Who wouldn't wantthat? If your skepticism force field is powered up and calibrated correctly,then the crooks, time wasters, crackpots, and creeps who wantyou to join their crazy clubs or buy their junk tend to bounce right off.Sometimes it's dramatic and they get torched like a fly nose-diving intoone of those electrified bug-whackers. Most of the time, however, youbarely even notice their failed attempts because they are so weak andsilly. But if your skeptical force field happens to be weak or turnedoff from time to time, it can be a very different story. The infiltratorswill slip right in and proceed to infect you with their nonsense. Don'tmiss the seriousness of this. The quality, strength, and consistency ofyour skeptical thinking will likely have a direct impact on your safety,success, and quality of life. Doing your best to stay free and clear frombad ideas and bad people who would take advantage of you should bea top priority. We may not have to worry about giant prehistoric catseating us anymore, but that doesn't mean there aren't plenty of otherpredators looking for you.

Your skepticism can also be either purely selfish or strictly humanitarianin nature. It's up to you. But either way, skepticism is the wisechoice. If one wants to make the world better, safer, and smarter, skepticalthinking is the way to go. Why should me-first divas waste onesecond of their days on nonsense beliefs when it would mean less timeto be selfish and self-centered? Become a good skeptic for the bettermentof our species, or do it for yourself and to hell with the world. Justmake sure you do it. If you aren't sure which camp you belong in, don'tworry. Most good skeptics probably have a bit of both in them. I knowI do.


NO OFF DAYS

Being a consistent skeptic can be the difference between life anddeath. The moment we let down our guard is when bad things comerushing in. Ceasing to think independently, analyze relentlessly, andask the relevant questions is a big, fat green light for bogus beliefsto raid your inner sanctum. Don't underestimate the importance ofthis. It's tempting to dismiss the threat of bad beliefs as nothing morethan fringe silliness about silly people, nothing much to do with you.But this is deadly serious and none of us are ever in the clear, thanksto the brains we are blessed/cursed with. For lack of skepticism andignorance about how the human brain misleads its host, many millionsof people suffer needlessly every day. Millions throw away money ongarbage ideas and rip-off products. Millions sacrifice irretrievablehours, days, and years of their lives on hollow claims. As we will seelater in this book, many people die prematurely as a result of theirweak or inconsistent skepticism.

Sadly, most people turn off their skepticism at the very times theyneed it most. Everyone may be skeptical to some degree, but the unfortunatereality is that most people are just not on their toes when itcounts. All they probably need is a minimal amount of knowledge aboutcritical thinking and a little encouragement to live more reason-basedlives. This is why I write books like this. It's why I do all I can to promotescience and reason. For me it's a moral issue, and a big one at that. Ican't look at all the madness and suffering that comes from weak skepticismand do nothing about it. This is a gigantic problem that doesn'tget the attention it should. For example, you aren't likely to see many,if any, big media news reports on the global cost of gullibility or howmuch violence, poverty, and death is tied to the failure of the world'sfamilies and schools to produce critical thinkers. Nonetheless, whetheror not we acknowledge it, the kind of weak and inconsistent skepticismthat is typical of people today is a massive drain on humanity and aconstant source of suffering. It hurts countless individuals while simultaneouslyslowing progress and undermining prosperity for all, yet it isunrecognized and unspoken of by virtually everyone everywhere.


(Continues...)
Excerpted from Think by Guy P. Harrison, Kevin Hand. Copyright © 2013 Guy P. Harrison. Excerpted by permission of Prometheus Books.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Verlag
Prometheus Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2013
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1616148071
ISBN 13 
9781616148072
Einband
Tapa blanda
Anzahl der Seiten
300
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
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