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A review by haagedoorn
You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You're Deluding Yourself by David McRaney
4.0
Originally published on my blog: stefanhaagedoorn.blogspot.com
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After having my logical reasoning abilities seriously questioned because of this book, I am unsure how to review it. Normally, I would just say what is good, what is bad and why. Now, after having finished this mind bender of a book, I am pretty sure any review would be full of fallacies and biases. Or would that become a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy? I might just focus on the quality of the writing itself, which would seem objective enough. But how much of my opinion would be coloured by his other work? Would that not result in an Argument from Authority Fallacy? Or when I would just say this book is good. Or bad. Just that, nothing more. How much would I bow down to the Conformity Fallacy, which we apparently all do, unwittingly. How much do I really want to bare my opinion, perhaps innately fearing the Spotlight Effect, thereby assuming everybody watches my every move and opinion, something that is also, very much untrue. Why did I read this book in the first place? Was it a coincidence, something the author deals with in the ''Apophenia'' chapter? Coincidences are seemingly routine, not destined, even though we would like to think otherwise, so I can't really say why I picked this book over any of the author on my ''to-read'' list. I could go on, so I will just end with the following: this book has thoroughly challenged the way I think and reason, which was probably for the better. Although maybe I have always thought like this. But then again, that might be Hindsight Bias.
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After having my logical reasoning abilities seriously questioned because of this book, I am unsure how to review it. Normally, I would just say what is good, what is bad and why. Now, after having finished this mind bender of a book, I am pretty sure any review would be full of fallacies and biases. Or would that become a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy? I might just focus on the quality of the writing itself, which would seem objective enough. But how much of my opinion would be coloured by his other work? Would that not result in an Argument from Authority Fallacy? Or when I would just say this book is good. Or bad. Just that, nothing more. How much would I bow down to the Conformity Fallacy, which we apparently all do, unwittingly. How much do I really want to bare my opinion, perhaps innately fearing the Spotlight Effect, thereby assuming everybody watches my every move and opinion, something that is also, very much untrue. Why did I read this book in the first place? Was it a coincidence, something the author deals with in the ''Apophenia'' chapter? Coincidences are seemingly routine, not destined, even though we would like to think otherwise, so I can't really say why I picked this book over any of the author on my ''to-read'' list. I could go on, so I will just end with the following: this book has thoroughly challenged the way I think and reason, which was probably for the better. Although maybe I have always thought like this. But then again, that might be Hindsight Bias.