Steven Pinker. (2021). Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters. Unabridged Books on Tape.

Steven Pinker. 2021. Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters. Books on Tape.

Steven Pinker, Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters. Books on Tape, 2021.

Steven Pinker. Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters. Unabridged Books on Tape, 2021.

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   • bioText: Steven Pinker is the Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. A two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and the winner of many awards for his research, teaching, and books, he has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences and named one of Time‘s 100 Most Influential People and one of Foreign Policy‘s 100 Leading Global Thinkers. His books include The Blank Slate, The Stuff of Thought, The Better Angels of Our Nature, The Sense of Style, and Enlightenment Now.
      
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Rationality

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Can reading a book make you more rational? Can it help us understand why there is so much irrationality in the world? Steven Pinker, author of  Enlightenment Now (Bill Gates’s "new favorite book of all time”) answers all the questions here
 
Today humanity is reaching new heights of scientific understanding—and also appears to be losing its mind. How can a species that developed vaccines for Covid-19 in less than a year produce so much fake news, medical quackery, and conspiracy theorizing?
 
Pinker rejects the cynical cliché that humans are simply irrational—cavemen out of time saddled with biases, fallacies, and illusions. After all, we discovered the laws of nature, lengthened and enriched our lives, and set out the benchmarks for rationality itself.  We actually think in ways that are sensible in the low-tech contexts in which we spend most of our lives, but fail to take advantage of the powerful tools of reasoning we’ve discovered over the millennia: logic, critical thinking, probability, correlation and causation, and optimal ways to update beliefs and commit to choices individually and with others. These tools are not a standard part of our education, and have never been presented clearly and entertainingly in a single book—until now.
  
Rationality also explores its opposite: how the rational pursuit of self-interest, sectarian solidarity, and uplifting mythology can add up to crippling irrationality in a society. Collective rationality depends on norms that are explicitly designed to promote objectivity and truth.
  
Rationality matters. It leads to better choices in our lives and in the public sphere, and is the ultimate driver of social justice and moral progress. Brimming with Pinker’s customary insight and humor, Rationality will enlighten, inspire, and empower.
* This audiobook includes a PDF of charts and graphs.

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   • content: Narrator Arthur Morey employs an authoritative tone and a pleasing rhythm as he performs this essential study of the evolution of rational thought. Pinker examines current society in the age of "truthiness." That's Stephen Colbert's word for something seeming to be accurate, even if it's not necessarily true. In a period of rampant conspiracy theories, the inability to ascertain truth puts all of society at risk, making this work essential for discerning listeners. As Morey weaves the facts into a listenable and informative narrative, the solid ideas tell us exactly where society is now and, for people interested in arriving at actual truth, give us a road map for the future. R.O. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award � AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
2. • premium: True
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   • content:

     Starred review from June 28, 2021
     In this revealing pop take on the mind and society, Harvard psychologist Pinker (The Better Angels of Our Nature) investigates the nature of straight-thinking and the many ways it goes crooked. He lays out the basics of formal logic, probability, and statistics, and dissects common fallacies that violate them. The “argument from authority,” for example, takes pronouncements by “experts” as unquestionable gospel, while “availability bias” makes people falsely believe that nuclear accidents that garner huge news coverage are more dangerous than less-covered coal-fired power plants, and the Texas sharpshooter fallacy—drawing a bulls-eye around a bullet hole after one shoots at a barn—is widespread as a way of passing off random data points as accurate predictions. Pinker skewers all manner of misguided thinking, myths, and “cockamamie conspiracy theories” across the ideological spectrum, from the Stop-the-Steal right to the “left-wing monoculture” that makes universities “laughingstocks for their assaults on common sense.” He manages to be scrupulously rigorous yet steadily accessible and entertaining whether probing the rationality of Andrew Yang’s presidential platform, Dilbert cartoons, or Yiddish proverbs. The result is both a celebration of humans’ ability to make things better with careful thinking and a penetrating rebuke to muddleheadedness.

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shortDescription

Can reading a book make you more rational? Can it help us understand why there is so much irrationality in the world? Steven Pinker, author of  Enlightenment Now (Bill Gates’s "new favorite book of all time”) answers all the questions here
 
Today humanity is reaching new heights of scientific understanding—and also appears to be losing its mind. How can a species that developed vaccines for Covid-19 in less than a year produce so much fake news, medical quackery, and conspiracy theorizing?
 
Pinker rejects the cynical cliché that humans are simply irrational—cavemen out of time saddled with biases, fallacies, and illusions. After all, we discovered the laws of nature, lengthened and enriched our lives, and set out the benchmarks for rationality itself.  We actually think in ways that are sensible in the low-tech contexts in which we spend most of our lives, but fail to take advantage of the powerful...

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What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters

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