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A review by greg_talbot
Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters by Steven Pinker
4.0
This may be the socially distant, 11 chapter read that we all need to read. Rationality itself is wrestled with. A cold-hearted dream killer? A laser of truth that eliminates the ridiculous? I am definitely not alone in wondering if the bar for humanity's good judgement is something that we an depend on. But all is not lost. Pinker explores logic puzzles, probability, game theory, Bayesian statistics, and answers the question in our hearts and minds - are we building a better world.
Some specifics I loved about the book, Pink goes hard to show how math can arrive at 'truths'. There is an excellent chapter on hypothesis testing, and I found myself re-reading a particular paragraph about what p-values represent multiple times, it was just so enjoyable. Pinker explores the general linear model as a possible solution to the causation without experimentation. Discusses ideas of main effect and interaction, which seem to effectively bypass the deflating experience of people who shut down causal thinking because of the whole 'corrleation is not causation' jingle.
I thought Pinker could have wrestled more with post-modern thought. In the last chapter 'what's wrong with people', he does explore the idea that it's not a post-truth society, as much as a tribal/myside society. Exploring the biases and cognitive heuristics we all have, we begin to have some self-skepticism toward even our most cherished beliefs.
Steven Pinker's work seems defiantly telling another type of story to the longer arc of the post-Enlightenment. As his other work bears out, the larger story of human achievement is praise-worthy. Rationality's defense and relationship to empirical truths are written brillitantly here. Echoing statements from John Locke, Mary Wollstonecraft, Frederick Douglas, Jeremy Bentham and Martin Luther King, self-evident truths were never so visible, until they were argued and theorized on rationality and natural law. Expect to be triggered, expect to uncertain, to learn, to question and maybe be a little easier with other people's beliefs and judgements, no matter how fanciful or medieval they are.
Some specifics I loved about the book, Pink goes hard to show how math can arrive at 'truths'. There is an excellent chapter on hypothesis testing, and I found myself re-reading a particular paragraph about what p-values represent multiple times, it was just so enjoyable. Pinker explores the general linear model as a possible solution to the causation without experimentation. Discusses ideas of main effect and interaction, which seem to effectively bypass the deflating experience of people who shut down causal thinking because of the whole 'corrleation is not causation' jingle.
I thought Pinker could have wrestled more with post-modern thought. In the last chapter 'what's wrong with people', he does explore the idea that it's not a post-truth society, as much as a tribal/myside society. Exploring the biases and cognitive heuristics we all have, we begin to have some self-skepticism toward even our most cherished beliefs.
Steven Pinker's work seems defiantly telling another type of story to the longer arc of the post-Enlightenment. As his other work bears out, the larger story of human achievement is praise-worthy. Rationality's defense and relationship to empirical truths are written brillitantly here. Echoing statements from John Locke, Mary Wollstonecraft, Frederick Douglas, Jeremy Bentham and Martin Luther King, self-evident truths were never so visible, until they were argued and theorized on rationality and natural law. Expect to be triggered, expect to uncertain, to learn, to question and maybe be a little easier with other people's beliefs and judgements, no matter how fanciful or medieval they are.