The Believing Brain

From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies - How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths

By: Michael Shermer

Narrated by: Michael Shermer

Length: 13 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's summary

In this, his magnum opus, the world’s best known skeptic and critical thinker, Dr. Michael Shermer—founding publisher of Skeptic magazine and perennial monthly columnist (“Skeptic”) for Scientific American—presents his comprehensive theory on how beliefs are born, formed, nourished, reinforced, challenged, changed, and extinguished. This book synthesizes Dr. Shermer’s 30 years of research to answer the question of how and why we believe what we do in all aspects of our lives, from our suspicions and superstitions to our politics, economics, and social beliefs.

In this book Dr. Shermer is interested in more than just why people believe weird things, or why people believe this or that claim, but in why people believe anything at all. His thesis is straightforward: We form our beliefs for a variety of subjective, personal, emotional, and psychological reasons in the context of environments created by family, friends, colleagues, culture, and society at large; after forming our beliefs, we then defend, justify, and rationalize them with a host of intellectual reasons, cogent arguments, and rational explanations. Beliefs come first, explanations for beliefs follow.

Dr. Shermer also explains the neuroscience behind our beliefs. The brain is a belief engine. From sensory data flowing in through the senses, the brain naturally begins to look for and find patterns, and then infuses those patterns with meaning. These meaningful patterns become beliefs. Once beliefs are formed, the brain begins to look for and find confirmatory evidence in support of those beliefs, which adds an emotional boost of further confidence in the beliefs and thereby accelerates the process of reinforcing them—and round and round the process goes in a positive feedback loop of belief confirmation. Dr. Shermer outlines the numerous cognitive tools our brains engage to reinforce our beliefs as truths and to insure that we are always right.

©2011 Michael Shermer (P)2011 Michael Shermer

Critic reviews

“The physicist Richard Feynman once said that the easiest person to fool is yourself, and as a result he argued that as a scientist one has to be especially careful to try and find out not only what is right about one's theories, but what might also be wrong with them. If we all followed this maxim of skepticism in everyday life, the world would probably be a better place. But we don't. In this book Michael Shermer lucidly describes why and how we are hard wired to 'want to believe'. With a narrative that gently flows from the personal to the profound, Shermer shares what he has learned after spending a lifetime pondering the relationship between beliefs and reality, and how to be prepared to tell the difference between the two.” (Lawrence M. Krauss, Foundation Professor and Director of the Origins Project at Arizona State University, author of Quantum Man: Richard Feynman's Life in Science)

“ The Believing Brain is a tour de force integrating neuroscience and the social sciences to explain how irrational beliefs are formed and reinforced, while leaving us confident our ideas are valid. This is a must read for everyone who wonders why religious and political beliefs are so rigid and polarized—or why the other side is always wrong, but somehow doesn't see it.” (Dr. Leonard Mlodinow, author of The Drunkard’s Walk and The Grand Design with Stephen Hawking)

Love this book!

In a world still filled with dogma and superstition it is refreshing to have a book like this that explains how we got there. We need to go from a world of superstition and dogma to one with reason and logic. I think this book helps us do just that.

Informative , Enjoyable , Thoughtful , Believing

Informative , Enjoyable , Thoughtful , Believing lol
Mr Shermer takes us on a journey .
enjoyably self narrated .

Credit well spent .

Though .... music between chapters would be distracted ,
I'd see if Audible would remove it .
sort of like the doorbell ringing in the final scene in a film ,
you ride it out but you know its distracted you ,
Otherwise it was great .

Nice, pointed, rather personally biased "old wine"

What did you like best about The Believing Brain? What did you like least?

Shermer's approach obviously is personal. While during the first half of the book he sums up current brain science/mind theory's point of view quite fascinatingly, in the second half he more or less concentrates on a "kind of vendetta" against personal critics towards his person or position.
So five stars for about 50-60 percent of the book, 2 stars for the rest. I would rate it four stars, but Shemer only repeats the same old experiments and studies that have been ridden to death by so many other books, articles and discussions before, without bringing anything new to the table, that - even though his performance, his to-the-point style are great to listen to and "do make you think" (if you didn't do so before) - in the end you ask yourself: What's new about it? That's all kind of all day knowledge for an educated grown up.

Who was your favorite character and why?

I guess this book has been wrongly categorized by Audible, since there is no "character" (except, maybe, for some "Gods" that ever now and then pop up and whom I find to be quite silly).

What about Michael Shermer’s performance did you like?

Shermer's performance is good, professional and convincing. If he had left out all those pokes towards his personal issues with readers or colleagues in the "scientific" community, it might have been great.

Did The Believing Brain inspire you to do anything?

I am not going to believe in that any scientist who calls himself a scientist knows ANYTHING for sure. Shermer wants me to believe he does, but this book is a good base for being a skeptic :-)

Any additional comments?

There are quite a lot of passages that make you go "huh?". It really isn't of much interest to an European reader/listener, what the American politics system looks like, but if the author insists in this (the US system) being the ONLY ONE in the world, it's quite funny to listen to. You even laugh out loud when the author explains that you just cannot take anything for granted that other people just tell you, and in the next sentence states "this and that, of course, is a fact that everyone knows".
In general you get the most out of this book by listen closely and finding all the moments in which the author directly contradicts himself.

eh, its alright

I found this book to be very informative. I personaly would consider myself a sceptic. I am an athiest and an anarchist, however, I find myself being open to what he calls "conspiracy theories". I personally disagree with the idea that belief in any unpopular opinion must always result from a blind faith or purely emotionally driven thought. Our history is full of "conspiracy theories" that eventually become recognized as conspiracy fact. Its a fact that the US government intentionally infected Native Americans with smallpox, experimented on African Americans without consent during the Tuskegee experiments, they gave LSD to unwilling participants during MKUltra, they imprissoned US citizens in consentration camps during WW2, they lied about the gulf of Tonken incident, and Watergate. We also know for a fact that Osama Bin Laden was a CIA operative, Norad was ordered to stand down during the 911 attacks, building 7 was never hit by a plane, and on, and on, and on. To reduce all of this factual evidence to some wierd human brain limitation is insulting. It isn't comparable to people who stubornly hold on to their "faith" despite evidence. Still, I think its important to understand that many beliefs are based on emotion and habit as opposed to actual facts and reason. I just think he over applys this realization to include people who's beliefs may be based on evidence.

1st Half Good...2nd Half Not So Much

Any additional comments?

This audiobook was engaging and interesting for the 1st half, but went downhill from there. The first half references brain research and neuropsychology to support Shermer's positions and it was an enjoyable listen. The second half left me yearning for it to come to an end. The second half is mostly an opinion piece on politics, in which Shermer is the best example of forming a belief then filtering the evidence to support it, and a LENGTHY exposition on the history of astronomy that went way beyond what was needed to prove his point. Astronomy is interesting, but I purchased this audiobook to hear about brain science. I rated this audiobook a 3 to average a 4 for the first half and a 2 for the second half.

Must read of anyone who wants to understand belief

This was a very enlightening book. It is a must read for anyone interested in sociobiology or evolutionary psychology. Shermer explains belief in great detail. It is a book that everyone should read as it covers many topics most people have never stopped to contemplate. Shermer does a good job narrating.

Just what I was looking for.

Any additional comments?

I just about missed listening to this book due to some of the other comments about the narration. Please don't let that dissuade you. Every book has a slightly different feel due to the narration. Once I started listening, Mr. Shermer's voice was candid and natural. The content is great and he does a great job of covering a skeptic's conclusions without resorting to bashing proponents of religion and the paranormal. He addresses many facets of the subject that I have always been curious about.

Great book, sometimes goes into unnecessary detail

The book is very detailed and sometimes reads like an academic paper - but it has great information.

Great read on why we believe what we believe

Would you consider the audio edition of The Believing Brain to be better than the print version?

Yes - when Michael Shermer read's his own book, it feels like I'm listening to a lecture or debate of his - which I enjoy.

What did you like best about this story?

I liked Shermer's unbiased approach - to everything. I also appreciated his personal testimony in the beginning as I have always wondered what his personal belief structure was like and where it came from.

What about Michael Shermer’s performance did you like?

He did a fine job.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

No extreme reaction, but I supposed I was impressed by his unbiased approach.

Any additional comments?

"The Believing Brain" was an excellent read on belief systems ranging from religion, to the paranormal, and even to politics. I didn't expect the section on politics to be that engaging, but I felt that Shermer did an excellent job presenting an unbiased approach to discussing political beliefs. Bias is something that has to be avoided in science, so I greatly appreciated his ability to remain unbiased when discussing topics that tend to polarize people.

I thought the section towards the end regarding the history of cosmology was a bit stretching and really brought the book's momentum to a screeching halt.

Overall it was an excellent read and I would read this again, as well as recommend to my friends. I also took great insight to Shermer's arching thesis in the book: people first establish their belief and then justify their belief system.

good read

I felt the first half was better than the second half but overall a good read. It was englightening learning how your brain can be a double edged sword and can easily trick itself without you noticing, but I feel much more aware and it got me paying more attention to my thoughts and this book got me to appreciate science that much more.