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

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)

It's all in your head

I was knocked out once. Nothing. Can't even remember the time I was out. I am guessing death is the same. I am also finding this book to back up a lot of my other ideas. Your brain has to make sense out of the world, stimuli and memories and so fills it in with voices, ghosts and flying saucers. Then you have to make up a reason for all this, after all it can't just be me otherwise I would fit in better, surely! Well Michael Shemer explains it all, lost me a little in the bit about the universe and alternative universes, but I will go back to that another time. Once you listen to Michael, who narrates his (not the best to listen to but passable) book, you start to see that it might just be time to stop believing and get on with it, living that is. He dose not say it does not exist, but as a scientist, or at least someone using science, just because it does not have a normal reason does not mean it is supernormal, it means we just don't have a normal answer yet. Worth listening to and once you have, you can discuss with your brainy intelligent friends his theories and feel a little more wiser than the 'spoon benders'.

Great !!!!!! Will listen again. So far, Shermers

What does Michael Shermer bring to the story that you wouldn???t experience if you just read the book?

It is a great story itself.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

The first story he told.

Any additional comments?

One of the better audible books I've listened to. I was really into the stories. Very good.

Great narrative and objective analysis

What made the experience of listening to The Believing Brain the most enjoyable?

The content, construction and flow of this book make it, to me, a 'must read' for anyone interested in belief systems, psychology, ethics, brain functioning, mysticism, religion, spirituality and human motivation.

What about Michael Shermer’s performance did you like?

MS does a good reading without trying to 'sell' his ideas.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

It is long and I play/replay it over a matter of days.

Any additional comments?

The only trite aspect of the production is the addition of melodramatic music at the end of some chapters. It is unnecessary, cheapens the reading, and is totally out of style with the content of the book and production.

Skeptics of the World Unite

I have to admit at the beginning that I have a significantly pro-skeptic bias. I love skeptics, so it is hard for me not to like the book. An interesting book that belongs on my shelf between my books on psychology and science (The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives, Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions) and my books on agnosticism, skepticism, neo-atheism and the evolution of religion (The Evolution of God, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, The God Delusion). Anyway, 'Believing Brain' was worth my time and was a nice homage to science, and the scientific method.

Really, really interesting stuff.

I was skeptical of this book at first. Then I really got into it. And found myself nodding along as I listened. Perhaps I was merely subdued by my innate confirmation bias... ;-) Good stuff.