Description
Book SynopsisThe Quicksands of Belief: The Need for Skepticism draws on history, anthropology, sociology, philosophy, and the cognitive sciences in an accessible, non-academic style in order to argue that humans don't question enough. Instead, uncritically accepting the often absurd beliefs swirling around them, too many lack the skepticism needed to avoid global disaster. The claim of this book is that humans need to question everything they think they know.
The way the human brain works is impressive and has taken
Homo sapiens a long way. However, it is also the source of our failure to doubt. Janet B. Winn explores consciousness first, then the sense of self and how it affects thought. Subsequent chapters deal with beliefs about reality, politics, religion, pseudo-science and attempts made to explain human behavior by the social sciences. This concept includes a consideration of the failure to grasp the meaning of evolution, the evolution of language, and how language distort
Table of ContentsContents: Imperfect Brains – The Sense of Self – The Animal That Believes – Irrationality and Religion – Pseudo Science: Witches, Astrology, and Ufos – Social Science: Efforts to Explain Ourselves – Evolving: The Human and His Chimp Cousins – Humans Have Words – Language, Reality and the Hopi Indian – Culture as a Lens – Creativity, for Better and Worse – Absolute Certainties – The Political Animal – The Warring Animal – Survival.
