• The Hidden Half

  • The Unseen Forces That Influence Everything
  • By: Michael Blastland
  • Narrated by: Kris Dyer
  • Length: 8 hrs and 26 mins
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars (2 ratings)

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The Hidden Half  By  cover art

The Hidden Half

By: Michael Blastland
Narrated by: Kris Dyer
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Publisher's summary

Why does one smoker die of lung cancer but another live to 100? The answer is "The Hidden Half" - those random, unknowable variables that mess up our attempts to comprehend the world.

We humans are very clever creatures - but we're idiots about how clever we really are. In this entertaining and ingenious book, Blastland reveals how in our quest to make the world more understandable, we lose sight of how unexplainable it often is. The result - from GDP figures to medicine - is that experts know a lot less than they think.

Filled with compelling stories from economics, genetics, business, and science, The Hidden Half is a warning that an explanation which works in one arena may not work in another. Entertaining and provocative, it will change how you view the world.

©2019 Michael Blastland (P)2021 Tantor

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I learned nothing.

Blastland somehow finds the idea that we do not know everything amazing. His fascination with the not obvious is the age old question of epistemology- how do we know anything? He is stumped.
He mocks that we did not or now do not know how something works, but rather celebrate the challenge and encourage the curiosity he tells us too often it is near pointless.
The potential downside here is the use of his examples by some to dismiss the idea of facts or authority.

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