Thursday 17 December 2015

The Heretics: Adventures with the Enemies of Science

"Intelligence is no inoculation against bias." 

Perhaps to some, the above quote is blindingly obvious, but I suspect that most of us, myself included, like to think that with acquired knowledge comes freedom from all forms of ignorance - biases included. Alas, that's only true up until a point. Intelligent people are far from perfect, and we all have our own biases in life - some more damaging than others. 

I think that we all, more or less, over-estimate our own intelligence, too, and that probably contributes to our idea of intelligence as precluding us from the trap of bias. We assume that bias and ignorance go hand in hand because we see these in the people around us, and yet that's not very likely, is it? We're all biased in some way, regardless of intelligence. 

This a key theme of Will Storr's book, The Heretics: Adventures with the Enemies of Science, which I bought after reading a few Jon Ronson books and being promised by the algorithms at Amazon that Storr was popular among Ronson fans. And I was not disappointed. 

I admit that I bought the book because I like books about science and psychology. The title made me think that Storr would simply berate religious types throughout the book. So there's my bias: I'm an atheist, and whilst I believe in a live-and-let-live world, I enjoy reading books that tell me I'm right about the world, and then educate me with lots of stuff I didn't know, too. 

The book begins with Storr out in the Aussie outback, talking with a famous creationist. I was excited. This was the beginning of some creationist-bashing. I love evolution and books about the history of our world. 

Indeed, Storr is also an atheist and a man of science (well, an interest in science). He makes no secret of the fact that the creationist is undeniably wrong in his beliefs, and yet he makes another interesting point: the creationist is a highly intelligent man. 

In our modern social media world we like to engage in tribalism just like the days of yore. Liberals and conservatives, religious and non-religious alike, we are evolved but nonetheless ruled by our tribal mentality, and we forget sometimes that people on the other side - the "them" that Ronson wrote about, are often just as intelligent, if not more, than "we" are. Yes, they can be wrong and still smart. So can we. 

That should be obvious but it's not. Or at least it's something that we need to remind ourselves of. As the quote I began this article with observes, our adversaries aren't necessarily stupid because they're wrong, and we aren't necessarily right because we're smart. 

Storr goes on from the anti-evolutionist to speak with holocaust deniers, past life regressionists, homeopaths, Illuminati-believers, and other people who are absolutely, 100% wrong in their beliefs. He doesn't mock them, but instead explains through science how they came to be this way. How could intelligent people believe such unintelligent things? 

I've not read a horror book in a long time but this one gave me the chills. Reading it, I realized just how unreliable the human mind is. We cannot trust our memories, nor can we rely upon our perceptions. Our brains make stories to justify gut feelings. No matter how scientific we try to be, we are only human and we make mistakes. 

Storr also takes on skeptics and the defenders of science to show that it is not just the religious people who are wrong, or the ones with non-mainstream beliefs. The title, in fact, is a tad misleading in that regard. At the end of this book I felt I couldn't trust my own mind. I worried I'd start seeing ghosts because maybe they were real and I'd deluded myself, or maybe they wouldn't be real but my brain would see them anyway.... 

The conclusion to this fantastic book is that humans are natural story-tellers and we don't even realize that we're telling stories. Liars don't usually know that they're lying. The heretics don't mean to be wrong and they're not idiots; they're just flawed humans like all of us. We all think of ourselves as the hero of a story, but:

"Heretics are often betrayed by the spotless coherence of their plots. They tell the clearest tales with the most perfect separation of good guy and bad. It is why they should be trusted." 

Read this book. It will change you. 

Sunday 6 December 2015

I Celebrate Myself: The Somewhat Private Life of Allen Ginsberg

Recently I have begun a new writing project. I won't say exactly what it is, for a number of reasons, but I will say that it's about Allen Ginsberg - the Beat Generation poet. In order to begin my research, I wanted to read a biography, and perhaps the best one available is I Celebrate Myself: The Somewhat Private Life of Allen Ginsberg, by Bill Morgan. There are a ton of books about Ginsberg, but this one is a good entry point.

For a start, the biography covers Ginsberg's whole life, and does so pretty thoroughly. Allen's was a long and interesting story, and during his time on this earth he covered every continent except Antarctica, so the story takes us many places. He meets many of the most important figures of the mid- and late-twentieth century, and experiences numerous incredible adventures.

All through the book Morgan's narrative makes the story informative but yet also quite entertaining. There are times when the narrative isn't quite so engaging but these are few and far between. Mostly we find ourselves following the flawed protagonist as though he were a character in a novel. We see him battling depression, constantly finding and losing loved ones, and always flitting between despair and ecstasy.

In terms of being scholarly, there is a lot of detail there to use... however, this is where my main (and perhaps only) criticism of the book comes in: The Kindle version is absolutely bloody useless. The publishers obviously didn't see the value in formatting the book properly for reading on a Kindle, nor did they take a cursory glance through to check that there are no glaring errors. As a result, in some places words are smashed together and it is impossible to follow citations or keep track of any kind of reference.

The result is then that one can read this book and enjoy it for the fascinating story that it is... but using it for reference is rather difficult. I would mind less if the book wasn't so damned expensive. As a person with writing, editing, and publishing experience myself I loathe seeing Kindle books priced at $20 or more, and I thoroughly believe that, if they are so expensive, the publisher should at least have a version specifically intended for Kindle readers.

My advice to my readers would then be: Buy the paperback or hardcover version! Don't waste your money on the Kindle one.