On the other hand, he continues, shouldn't humans have evolved to be more rational? How could such persistent, widespread irrationality be so common in humans, if our survival impinges on our ability to reason? He starts by asking a simple question: how come it seems like everyone is so irrational? Pointing to religion, conspiracy theorists, ghost-believers, anti-vaxxers, alternative medicine adherents, and postmodernists, Pinker makes a good case that there's a lot of irrationality in the world. Consequently, I'm tempted to recommend this book to people who might otherwise be turned away by Rationality: From A to Z. An upside is that Pinker's treatment is more concise, and his style more closely resembles mainstream thought. Unfortunately, long-time readers of LessWrong are unlikely to learn much from Pinker's new book his content is too similar to the content in the sequences. Instead, he mirrors the sequences by building a science of rationality and then tries to convince the reader that rationality is important, both personally and socially. Unlike Pinker's prior books, such as The Blank Slate and The Better Angels of Our Nature, this book lacks a straightforward empirical thesis. I figured someone on LessWrong would write a review for it, so I might as well be the one to do it.
Steven Pinker's new book on rationality came out today.
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