-
The Intelligence Paradox: Why the Intelligent Choice Isn't Always the Smart One
- Narrated by: Paul Neal Rohrer
- Length: 5 hrs and 49 mins
- Categories: Science & Engineering, Science
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Audible Premium Plus
$14.95 a month
Buy for $19.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Organized Mind
- Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload
- By: Daniel J. Levitin
- Narrated by: Luke Daniels
- Length: 16 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Organized Mind, Daniel J. Levitin, PhD, uses the latest brain science to demonstrate how those people excel - and how readers can use their methods to regain a sense of mastery over the way they organize their homes, workplaces, and time. With lively, entertaining chapters on everything from the kitchen junk drawer to health care to executive office workflow, Levitin reveals how new research into the cognitive neuroscience of attention and memory can be applied to the challenges of our daily lives.
-
-
A few good takeaways, a mess of ancillary
- By Max Osterhaus on 10-18-16
-
Kluge
- The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind
- By: Gary Marcus
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Are we "noble in reason"? Perfect, in God's image? Far from it, says New York University psychologist Gary Marcus. In this lucid and revealing book, Marcus argues that the mind is not an elegantly designed organ but a "kluge", a clumsy, cobbled-together contraption. He unveils a fundamentally new way of looking at the human mind - think duct tape, not supercomputer - that sheds light on some of the most mysterious aspects of human nature.
-
-
Elegant
- By Joshua Kim on 06-10-12
By: Gary Marcus
-
The Evolution of Desire
- By: David M. Buss
- Narrated by: Greg Tremblay
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If we all want love, why is there so much conflict in our most cherished relationships? To answer this question we must look into our evolutionary past, argues prominent psychologist David M. Buss. Based one of the largest studies of human mating ever undertaken, encompassing more than 10,000 people of all ages from 37 cultures worldwide, The Evolution of Desire is the first work to present a unified theory of human mating behavior.
-
-
Phenomenal
- By Anonymous User on 04-25-19
By: David M. Buss
-
Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters
- By: Alan S. Miller, Satoshi Kanazawa
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 6 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Contrary to conventional wisdom, our brains and bodies are hardwired to carry out an evolutionary mission that determines much of what we do, from life plans to everyday decisions. With an accessible tone and a healthy disregard for political correctness, this lively and eminently readable book popularizes the latest research in a cutting-edge field of study: one that turns much of what we thought we knew about human nature upside-down.
-
-
Not bad but didn't live up to the reviews
- By Ana Mohammed on 01-08-12
By: Alan S. Miller, and others
-
The Paradox of Choice
- Why More is Less
- By: Barry Schwartz
- Narrated by: Ken Kliban
- Length: 7 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By synthesizing current research in the social sciences, Schwartz makes the counterintuitive case that eliminating choices can greatly reduce the stress, anxiety, and busyness of our lives. He offers eleven practical steps on how to limit choices to a manageable number, have the discipline to focus on the important ones and ignore the rest, and ultimately derive greater satisfaction from the choices you have to make.
-
-
The Tyranny of Pop Economics
- By Darwin8u on 10-28-13
By: Barry Schwartz
-
The Parasitic Mind
- How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense
- By: Gad Saad
- Narrated by: Jim Meskimen
- Length: 7 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Serving as a powerful follow-up to Jordan Peterson’s book 12 Rules for Life, Dr. Gad Saad unpacks what is really happening in progressive safe zones, why we need to be paying more attention to these trends, and what we must do to stop the spread of dangerous thinking. A professor at Concordia University who has witnessed this troubling epidemic firsthand, Dr. Saad dissects a multitude of these concerning forces (corrupt thought patterns, belief systems, attitudes, etc.) that have given rise to a stifling political correctness in our society.
-
-
Some pros and some cons
- By chris boutte on 10-11-20
By: Gad Saad
-
The Organized Mind
- Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload
- By: Daniel J. Levitin
- Narrated by: Luke Daniels
- Length: 16 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Organized Mind, Daniel J. Levitin, PhD, uses the latest brain science to demonstrate how those people excel - and how readers can use their methods to regain a sense of mastery over the way they organize their homes, workplaces, and time. With lively, entertaining chapters on everything from the kitchen junk drawer to health care to executive office workflow, Levitin reveals how new research into the cognitive neuroscience of attention and memory can be applied to the challenges of our daily lives.
-
-
A few good takeaways, a mess of ancillary
- By Max Osterhaus on 10-18-16
-
Kluge
- The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind
- By: Gary Marcus
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Are we "noble in reason"? Perfect, in God's image? Far from it, says New York University psychologist Gary Marcus. In this lucid and revealing book, Marcus argues that the mind is not an elegantly designed organ but a "kluge", a clumsy, cobbled-together contraption. He unveils a fundamentally new way of looking at the human mind - think duct tape, not supercomputer - that sheds light on some of the most mysterious aspects of human nature.
-
-
Elegant
- By Joshua Kim on 06-10-12
By: Gary Marcus
-
The Evolution of Desire
- By: David M. Buss
- Narrated by: Greg Tremblay
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If we all want love, why is there so much conflict in our most cherished relationships? To answer this question we must look into our evolutionary past, argues prominent psychologist David M. Buss. Based one of the largest studies of human mating ever undertaken, encompassing more than 10,000 people of all ages from 37 cultures worldwide, The Evolution of Desire is the first work to present a unified theory of human mating behavior.
-
-
Phenomenal
- By Anonymous User on 04-25-19
By: David M. Buss
-
Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters
- By: Alan S. Miller, Satoshi Kanazawa
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 6 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Contrary to conventional wisdom, our brains and bodies are hardwired to carry out an evolutionary mission that determines much of what we do, from life plans to everyday decisions. With an accessible tone and a healthy disregard for political correctness, this lively and eminently readable book popularizes the latest research in a cutting-edge field of study: one that turns much of what we thought we knew about human nature upside-down.
-
-
Not bad but didn't live up to the reviews
- By Ana Mohammed on 01-08-12
By: Alan S. Miller, and others
-
The Paradox of Choice
- Why More is Less
- By: Barry Schwartz
- Narrated by: Ken Kliban
- Length: 7 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By synthesizing current research in the social sciences, Schwartz makes the counterintuitive case that eliminating choices can greatly reduce the stress, anxiety, and busyness of our lives. He offers eleven practical steps on how to limit choices to a manageable number, have the discipline to focus on the important ones and ignore the rest, and ultimately derive greater satisfaction from the choices you have to make.
-
-
The Tyranny of Pop Economics
- By Darwin8u on 10-28-13
By: Barry Schwartz
-
The Parasitic Mind
- How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense
- By: Gad Saad
- Narrated by: Jim Meskimen
- Length: 7 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Serving as a powerful follow-up to Jordan Peterson’s book 12 Rules for Life, Dr. Gad Saad unpacks what is really happening in progressive safe zones, why we need to be paying more attention to these trends, and what we must do to stop the spread of dangerous thinking. A professor at Concordia University who has witnessed this troubling epidemic firsthand, Dr. Saad dissects a multitude of these concerning forces (corrupt thought patterns, belief systems, attitudes, etc.) that have given rise to a stifling political correctness in our society.
-
-
Some pros and some cons
- By chris boutte on 10-11-20
By: Gad Saad
-
Preventive Medicine
- The Rational Male, Book 2
- By: Rollo Tomassi
- Narrated by: Sam Botta
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Building on the core works of The Rational Male, Preventive Medicine presents a poignant outline of the phases of maturity and the most commonly predictable experiences men can expect from women as they progress through various stages of life. Rational and pragmatic, the book explores the inter-gender and social dynamics of each stage of women's maturity and provides a practical understanding for men in dealing with women in those phases.
-
-
This book changed me life...
- By Bin Teo on 10-12-18
By: Rollo Tomassi
-
Infinite Powers
- How Calculus Reveals the Secrets of the Universe
- By: Steven Strogatz
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Infinite Powers recounts how calculus tantalized and thrilled its inventors, starting with its first glimmers in ancient Greece and bringing us right up to the discovery of gravitational waves. Strogatz reveals how this form of math rose to the challenges of each age: how to determine the area of a circle with only sand and a stick; how to explain why Mars goes "backwards" sometimes; how to turn the tide in the fight against AIDS.
-
-
Elegant, clear, cutting edge.
- By Amazon Customer on 09-05-19
By: Steven Strogatz
-
Superforecasting
- The Art and Science of Prediction
- By: Philip Tetlock, Dan Gardner
- Narrated by: Joel Richards
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Everyone would benefit from seeing further into the future, whether buying stocks, crafting policy, launching a new product, or simply planning the week's meals. Unfortunately, people tend to be terrible forecasters. As Wharton professor Philip Tetlock showed in a landmark 2005 study, even experts' predictions are only slightly better than chance. However, an important and underreported conclusion of that study was that some experts do have real foresight.
-
-
Great for Experts
- By Michael on 02-20-17
By: Philip Tetlock, and others
-
How To
- Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems
- By: Randall Munroe
- Narrated by: Wil Wheaton
- Length: 6 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For any task you might want to do, there's a right way, a wrong way, and a way so monumentally complex, excessive, and inadvisable that no one would ever try it. How To is a guide to the third kind of approach. It's full of highly impractical advice for everything from landing a plane to digging a hole.
-
-
Bad Ideas So BAD They Are NEARLY Irresistable! 🤓
- By C. White on 09-03-19
By: Randall Munroe
-
Human Diversity
- The Biology of Gender, Race, and Class
- By: Charles Murray
- Narrated by: David Baker
- Length: 14 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The thesis of Human Diversity is that advances in genetics and neuroscience are overthrowing an intellectual orthodoxy that has ruled the social sciences for decades. The core of the orthodoxy consists of three dogmas: Gender is a social construct. Race is a social construct. Class is a function of privilege. The problem is that all three dogmas are half-truths. They have stifled progress in understanding the rich texture that biology adds to our understanding of the social, political, and economic worlds we live in. It is not a story to be feared. But it is a story that needs telling.
-
-
Purchase the Kindle version not the audio book
- By Wayne on 02-09-20
By: Charles Murray
-
The Art of Thinking Clearly
- By: Rolf Dobelli
- Narrated by: Eric Conger
- Length: 7 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A novelist, thinker, and entrepreneur, Rolf Dobelli deftly shows that in order to lead happier, more prosperous lives, we don't need extra cunning, new ideas, shiny gadgets, or more frantic hyperactivity - all we need is less irrationality. Simple, clear, and always surprising, this indispensable audiobook will change the way you think and transform your decision making - at work, at home, every day.
-
-
Major Downer
- By Daniel Ales on 01-22-20
By: Rolf Dobelli
-
Zero to One
- Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future
- By: Peter Thiel, Blake Masters
- Narrated by: Blake Masters
- Length: 4 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. And the next Mark Zuckerberg won't create a social network. If you are copying these guys, you aren't learning from them. It's easier to copy a model than to make something new: doing what we already know how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding more of something familiar. But every time we create something new, we go from 0 to 1.
-
-
Seems Insightful Until You Think A Little Deeper
- By Mark Brandon on 10-31-14
By: Peter Thiel, and others
-
The Big Short
- Inside the Doomsday Machine
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Jesse Boggs
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Who understood the risk inherent in the assumption of ever-rising real-estate prices, a risk compounded daily by the creation of those arcane, artificial securities loosely based on piles of doubtful mortgages? Michael Lewis turns the inquiry on its head to create a fresh, character-driven narrative brimming with indignation and dark humor, a fitting sequel to his number-one best-selling Liar’s Poker.
-
-
Informative and Engaging
- By Jay on 03-23-10
By: Michael Lewis
-
The Madness of Crowds
- Gender, Race and Identity
- By: Douglas Murray
- Narrated by: Douglas Murray
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Madness of Crowds Douglas Murray investigates the dangers of ‘woke’ culture and the rise of identity politics. In lively, razor-sharp prose he examines the most controversial issues of our moment: sexuality, gender, technology and race, with interludes on the Marxist foundations of ‘wokeness’, the impact of tech and how, in an increasingly online culture, we must relearn the ability to forgive.
-
-
This book destroys WOKE MADNESS. Read it today.
- By RBS on 12-03-19
By: Douglas Murray
-
21 Lessons for the 21st Century
- By: Yuval Noah Harari
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Yuval Noah Harari's 21 Lessons for the 21st Century is a probing and visionary investigation into today's most urgent issues as we move into the uncharted territory of the future. As technology advances faster than our understanding of it, hacking becomes a tactic of war, and the world feels more polarized than ever, Harari addresses the challenge of navigating life in the face of constant and disorienting change and raises the important questions we need to ask ourselves in order to survive.
-
-
Good stuff, but mostly repeats
- By Amazon Customer on 09-13-18
-
Fooled by Randomness
- The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets
- By: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This audiobook is about luck, or more precisely, how we perceive and deal with luck in life and business. It is already a landmark work, and its title has entered our vocabulary. In its second edition, Fooled by Randomness is now a cornerstone for anyone interested in random outcomes.
-
-
Pass on this one and read The Black Swan
- By Wade T. Brooks on 06-25-12
-
Thinking in Systems
- A Primer
- By: Donella H. Meadows
- Narrated by: Tia Rider Sorensen
- Length: 6 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the years following her role as the lead author of the international best seller, Limits to Growth - the first book to show the consequences of unchecked growth on a finite planet - Donella Meadows remained a pioneer of environmental and social analysis until her untimely death in 2001. Thinking in Systems is a concise and crucial book offering insight for problem-solving on scales ranging from the personal to the global. Edited by the Sustainability Institute's Diana Wright, this essential primer brings systems thinking out of the realm of computers and equations and into the tangible world....
-
-
Left me craving for more systems literature
- By Andrew C on 05-12-19
Publisher's Summary
A book that challenges common misconceptions about the nature of intelligence.
Satoshi Kanazawa's Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters (written with Alan S. Miller) was hailed by the Los Angeles Times as "a rollicking bit of pop Science & Technology that turns the lens of evolutionary psychology on issues of the day." That book answered such burning questions as why women tend to lust after males who already have mates and why newborns look more like Dad than Mom. Now Kanazawa tackles the nature of intelligence: what it is, what it does, what it is good for (if anything). Highly entertaining, smart (dare we say intelligent?), and daringly contrarian, The Intelligence Paradox will provide a deeper understanding of what intelligence is, and what it means for us in our lives.
- Asks why more intelligent individuals are not better (and are, in fact, often worse) than less intelligent individuals in solving some of the most important problems in life - such as finding a mate, raising children, and making friends
- Discusses why liberals are more intelligent than conservatives, why atheists are more intelligent than the religious, why more intelligent men value monogamy, why night owls are more intelligent than morning larks, and why homosexuals are more intelligent than heterosexuals
- Explores how the purpose for which general intelligence evolved - solving evolutionarily novel problems - allows us to explain why intelligent people have the particular values and preferences they have
Challenging common misconceptions about the nature of intelligence, this book offers surprising insights into the cutting-edge of Science & Technology at the intersection of evolutionary psychology and intelligence research.
More from the same
What listeners say about The Intelligence Paradox: Why the Intelligent Choice Isn't Always the Smart One
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sanguine
- 07-20-19
Insightful and fascinating!
Very interesting to listen to. Explains a lot of things that one asks himself over the course of life!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Liz W.
- 03-01-20
Very entertaining
This intelligent person had a great time listening to this book. It’s a dose of humorous humility.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- ThunderInTheSun
- 05-27-19
Good Stuff!!
If you are I interested in evolutionary biology and psychology as well as sociobiology, you'll enjoy this book.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Omar
- 10-07-17
great none fiction,
very interesting ideas to challenge the current mainstream culture of PC, great performance by the voice actor.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- s. qali
- 07-20-16
very academic yet insightful
the conclusions drawn are based only on the western civilization data. would be interesting if other datasets are also used. i understand the availability of such datasets may be an issue.
-
Overall

- Mike Hayden
- 10-17-18
useful concept
The main concept is good and useful. Some of the traits like having less kids, having kids late, eating healthy... correlate with slow life history which is correlated with higher intelligence. So I'm not sure they provide proof that intelligent people are acting in novel ways instead of in line with evolution. The narrator is awful but still worth listening to.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Ben Gawne
- 06-26-17
interesting facts bent to author's agenda
What did you like about this audiobook?
The author describes an extenisve body of work that examines the relationship between IQ and personal characteristics e.g. marriage success, drug taking. There are some interesting and suprising results included that, like all good research, provoke interesting questions. Unfortunately, the author corrales them to emphasise his view that intelligent people (as measured by IQ) are not necessarily better than everyone else. This is clearly an important point for him, but I needed no convincing. People interested in this point would be much better off reading Grit.
His preoccupation with this "paradox" means that he ignores many of the interesting issues and questions that his results suggest. As a consequence, the book is laborious and a little frustrating
How has the book increased your interest in the subject matter?
The book raised some interesting observations that provoked some thought, but the focus of the book is not on these assumptions, but rather on demonstrating that intelligent people are not better.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Anonimo Nonlodico
- 12-03-15
Evolutionary psychology explains our behaviour
If you could sum up The Intelligence Paradox: Why the Intelligent Choice Isn't Always the Smart One in three words, what would they be?
We can't understand ourselves and our behaviour without evolutionary psychology.
Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
It made me think deeply more than once. Surely that counts for something?
Any additional comments?
It's very politically incorrect, so please avoid if you are sensitive to texts offensive to progressive worldview.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- The Supreme Galactic Overlord of Ipswich
- 04-29-17
Fascinating yet repetitive & robotically narrated
[{ "answer" : "Not for listening!", "type" : "Overall", "question" : "If you could sum up The Intelligence Paradox: Why the Intelligent Choice Isn't Always the Smart One in three words, what would they be?", "id" : 234, "typeString" : "overall" }, { "answer" : "My reaction was, 'Oh good, it's finished.'", "type" : "Story", "question" : "What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)", "id" : 201, "typeString" : "story" }, { "answer" : "Throughout the book I could never be sure if the narrator was a real person or a text-to-speech bit of software. The pauses often came in the wrong place. He would read one section, only pausing after, rather than before, reading the subheading of the new section. I'm afraid I fell asleep many times while listening, so monotone was the poor man's voice.", "type" : "Performance", "question" : "How did the narrator detract from the book?", "id" : 208, "typeString" : "performance" }, { "answer" : "Why intelligent people are often weird - and foolish.", "type" : "Genre", "question" : "If you made a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?", "id" : 251, "typeString" : "genre" }, { "answer" : "This book, with all its dense data and graphs (presumably), has to be read, not listened to. Even then I think it might be a little repetitive for those who want a good read rather than to be informed. Still, the book really was fascinating and Mr. Kanazawa did a good job of condensing it into such a short book. He doesn't dwell overly long on details, for which I was grateful. I simply wanted to learn some curious facts about intelligence and get a general overview of what intelligence is and isn't, and this I did.
I liked the no-nonsense style, cutting out all the apologising and hand-wringing that what he had to say was politically incorrect. That was like a breath of fresh air.
In short, it's a fascinating, concise book but a little repetitive, too full of statistics for an audiobook and the narrator made rather heavy weather of it. This is an audiobook only for blind pop science fans. Any sighted person should read it instead.", "type" : "Misc", "question" : "Any additional comments?", "id" : -1, "typeString" : "misc" } ]
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Tom Saleeba
- 06-20-17
Really enjoyed it
Full disclosure: I already believe the evolution argument so I'm predisposed to like this. Having said that, I really enjoyed this book. The rule about more intelligence means the person will pursue evolutionarily novel behaviours gels with me.
The production has a few things that annoy me:
- there's not enough space left between the end of a paragraph and the title of the next section
- you can't say 1.14 as "one point fourteen". It's not fourteen!
- reading 1 < value < 6 as "one less than value less than six" is a bit painful. Something like "the value is between one and six non-inclusive" might be better.