The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life Free

FREE THE FOLLY OF FOOLS: THE LOGIC OF DECEIT AND SELF-DECEPTION IN HUMAN LIFE PDF

Uh-oh, it looks like your Internet Explorer is out of date. For a better shopping experience, please upgrade now. Javascript is not enabled in your browser. Enabling JavaScript in your browser will allow you to experience all the features of our site. Learn how to enable JavaScript on your browser. NOOK Book. Home 1 Books 2. Add to Wishlist. Sign in to Purchase Instantly. Members save with free shipping everyday! See details. So why does deception play such a prominent role in our everyday lives? In short, why do we deceive? From viruses mimicking host behavior to humans misremembering sometimes intentionally the details of a quarrel, science has proven that the deceptive one can always outwit the masses. But we undertake this deception at our own peril. Trivers has written an ambitious investigation into the evolutionary logic of lying and the costs of leaving it unchecked. About the Author Robert L. He won the Crafoord Prize in Biosciences in for his fundamental analysis of social evolution, conflict, and cooperation. He lives in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Show More. Related Searches. A The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life, Washington Post, and NPR Best Book of the YearThe stunning story of how Julia Child transformed herself into the cult figure who touched off a food revolution that has gripped the country for more than fifty years. View Product. Empires On The Pacific. Robert Smith Thompson offers a long overdue explanation of what America's war Max paints the portrait of a man, Life in the Ocean: The Story of Oceanographer. Sylvia Earle first lost her heart to the ocean as a young girl when she Sylvia Earle first lost her heart to the ocean as a young girl when she discovered the wonders of the Gulf of Mexico in her backyard. As an adult, she dives even deeper. Whether she's designing submersibles, swimming with the Life On The Edge. Can life exist in the Antarctic ice, in the deep subsurface, in dilute sulfuric acid, Can life exist in the Antarctic ice, in the deep subsurface, in dilute sulfuric acid, in hot springs-even on Mars? What degree of high or low temperature, pressure, or salt concentration can living cells tolerate? In recent years, scientists have Life Sentences: Literary Judgments and Accounts. It begins with the personal, both past and present. With The Mother Trip, Gore extends her encouragement, inspiration, and moral support to unconventional moms. In a collection of essays, she bashes the stereotype of a good mother The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life encourages readers to follow their instincts and redefine motherhood in their Musil Diaries. Robert Musil is ranked alongside Marcel Proust and James Joyce for his monumental, unfinished novel, His Diaries, a distillation of forty-three years of material, are valuable in a number of ways: as a first-hand historical document Basic Books. The Folly of Fools - Wikipedia

Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. Want to Read saving…. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Other editions. Enlarge cover. Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. So why does deception play such a prominent role in our everyday lives? In short, why do we deceive? In his bold new work, The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life biological theorist Robert Trivers unflinchingly argues that self-deception evolved in the service of deceit—the better to fool others. We do it for biological reasons—in order to help us survive and procreate. From viruses mimicking host behavior to humans misremembering sometimes intentionally the details of a quarrel, science has proven that the deceptive one can always outwit the masses. But we undertake this deception at our own peril. Trivers has written an ambitious investigation into the evolutionary logic of lying and the costs of leaving it unchecked. Get A Copy. Hardcoverpages. Published October by Basic Books first published More Details Other Editions Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about The Folly of Foolsplease sign up. See 1 question about The Folly of Fools…. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. May 27, Jim rated it it was ok. View 1 comment. Feb 17, Ed rated it it was amazing. A very personal, sometimes a little crazed exploration of the whole issue of self-deception from a leading and interesting evolutionary biologist. There are times when you can sense his out thereness. Indeed someone just told me he at 70 or so had been suspended from teaching because he started a course modestly saying he knew nothing much about the subject and was going to learn along with his students. One of them complained. This fits the person who emerges from the book. But I just enjoyed A very personal, sometimes a little crazed exploration of the whole issue of self-deception from a leading and interesting evolutionary biologist. But I just enjoyed this whole exploration of why we find it so hard to be honest with ourselves and how there are evolutionary advantages to our convincing others of our righteousness and the best way to do this is by self deception as we are not that damn righteous in reality I read it by Pacific Ocean waves in Northern California and that helped Jun 10, Long Nguyen rated it it was amazing. I have been trying to convince myself to write reviews for all the books read, and this is a good time as ever to get started. Trivers summarized his main thesis more or less within the first two chapters of the book, and the rest are a series of commentary based on life examples, ranging from personal to political. He readily admits that his account of why self-deception is selective will need more experimentation to validate, making this book a beginning of inquiry much like some of his past pr I have been trying to convince myself to write reviews for all the books read, and this is a good time as ever to get started. He readily admits that his account of why self-deception is selective will need more experimentation to validate, making this book a beginning of inquiry much like some of his past projects e. I would peg this book at a sophomore college level understanding. The more general knowledge of biology, psychology, and science in general, as well as politics and history you know, the better off you'll be able to follow along with Trivers on what feels like tangents at The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life. Below the threshold of prior knowledge though, this book WILL frustrate. Trivers also leaves no ambiguity concerning his political affiliations; that being said, any reader must separate the facts he's trying to present from his own opinions of said facts. At the end, Trivers calls for an integrative if that's the right word approach for the social sciences to proceed, namely by adopting the fruits of research from biology. He presents the typical science hierarchy that starts with physics to chemistry to biology, and in The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self- Deception in Human Life hopes, to psychology and beyond as well. Failure to do so, Trivers contends, leads to serious blunders of various fields such as psychoanalysis, classical economics, and cultural anthropology. Overall, I assigned the book 5 stars on this scale because of the apparent depth of familiarity Trivers has with various fields of inquiry, and the amount of stuff he throws at you while weaving an underlying concept i. Where someone stands on the various issues he mentioned will of course affect the level of interest throughout the reading assuming one finishes at all. Sep 09, Joshua Buhs rated it did not like it Shelves: sciencesocial-issuesnon-fiction. A celebrated evolutionary biologist, Trivers uses the tools of his trade to answer a basic question: Why are deception and self-deception so prevalent? Our eyes, noses, tongues, ears and The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life tell us so much about the world, why is it that our brains then deny some of this information, hide it from ourselves and others? Natural selection should have rooted out such tendencies — unless they offer some evolutionary advantage. Select one or more criteria to search Kid-friendly Free admission Get ideas Trivers thinks they do. We deceive ourselves The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life better deceive others. Lying can obviously be helpful, keeping us out of trouble, making us seem better than we are. But our bodies are not so good at fibbing. Much better, then, to first deceive ourselves, to believe the lie, so that when we present it to the world all those giveaways are gone. And thus Trivers ranges across biology, anthropology, history and politics to find examples of deception and self-deception in action. Viruses and bacteria camouflage themselves from immune systems. Placebos deceive us into becoming healthy. Bettors on the stock market over- rate their aptitude. Trivers supplements these examples with incidents from his own life — we learn about his drug use and his penchant for petty thievery, among other things — as well as eureka moments when he realized that some everyday interaction could be reduced to an effect of self- deception. Two problems arise from this arrangement. First, it is unclear for whom this book is meant. Scientists are unlikely to find the argument rigorous enough to be persuasive. But the book may not appeal to lay readers, either. In a little over two pages, he touches on food-caching by ravens and squirrels, toddlers keeping secrets, his difficulty in listening to some women in his life talk to each other, molting by mantis shrimp, fighting among fiddler crabs, and chimpanzees hiding things behind their backs. Fewer examples, more fully developed, could have better drawn in the interested non-scientist. The second problem with his method is its breadth. The examples never gel into a coherent argument. Take his discussion of the events leading up to the Iraq War. Fair enough. It may be that the deception and self-deception driving the rush to war resulted from an evolutionary process, or was something else — say, the side-effect of having such a clever brain. Whatever the case, to fully understand this fiasco — and much of human life — one must turn to history, sociology, psychology and political science. Yet Trivers derides these disciplines. They are rife with self-deception, he argues in one chapter, their theories not based on the robust methods of physics — where self-deception is minimized, he insists — but on a preference for poorly defined variables and a tendency to cherry-pick examples. Apr 06, Andy rated it did not like it. Do not be fooled by the summary, this book has no true topic. It reads as if Trivers posited an initial question and then decided to write a series of tangentially related chapters to fill the book. The introduction identifies an interesting question and then the remainder of the book fails to address that question. It almost felt like Trivers wanted to write about deception in nature and fell on the "self-deception" angle as a way to bring in readers. He posits that self-deception may be evoluti Do not be fooled by the summary, this book has no true topic. He posits that self-deception may be evolutionarily useful because it reduces the likelihood that our attempts to deceive others will be identified. He brings up a few studies that demonstrate the connections between cognitive load and the likelihood that deception will be uncovered; however, these studies are handled in a cursory way and stem entirely from the field of psychology. While I generally find psychology to be a useful social science, Trivers spends pages lambasting psychology as unscientific and prone to self- deception. It is curious that the only evidence he uses to support his theory of self-deception comes solely from a field he seems to hold so much disdain for. The first few chapters focus solely on deception in nature. Not self-deception, and often not even intentional deception.

Trivers focuses primarily on humans but he includes examples from many other organisms as well. Trivers' starting point is to illustrate that self- deception is something of an evolutionary puzzle. While the evolutionary benefits to deceiving other organisms are obvious at first glance it seems highly counter intuitive to think that it could ever be in the evolutionary interest of an organism to deceive itself. In the book Trivers discusses the evolutionary reasons for animals engaging in self-deception. He provides numerous examples of this both at the individual level and The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life the societal level, eventually discussing examples The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life self-deception in the history of the United States and Israel. The essence of his analysis is that "the primary reason we fool ourselves is to fool others". Humans are exceptionally good at picking up various verbal and physical cues e. There are many situations such as playing "chicken" and seeing who will back down first, where it can actually benefit an organism to deceive itself, by so doing the organism can better deceive others. Richard Dawkins greeted the book with great praise, saying:. This is a remarkable book, by a uniquely brilliant scientist. Robert Trivers has a track record of producing highly original ideas, which have gone on to stimulate much research. His Darwinian theory of self-deception is arguably his most provocative and interesting idea so far. Strongly recommended. Other reviewers were more moderate. John Horgan in the New York Times was mostly positive in his evaluation of the ideas and evidence that Trivers put forward but said of Trivers' writing style:. Trivers is not an elegant stylist like Dawkins, Wilson or Pinker. His technical explanations can be murky, his political rants cartoonishly crude. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. John Horgan in the New York Times was mostly positive in his evaluation of the ideas and evidence that Trivers put forward but said of Trivers' writing style: Trivers is not an elegant stylist like Dawkins, Wilson or Pinker. Basic Books. TEDX Talk on deceit and self deception. Retrieved 17 February New York Times. Categories : non-fiction books Human evolution books Psychology book stubs. Hidden categories: CS1 errors: external links All stub articles. Namespaces Article Talk. Views Read Edit View history. Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file. Download as PDF Printable version. Add links. This article about a psychology book is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.