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A review by osmose
Not Born Yesterday: The Science of Who We Trust and What We Believe by Hugo Mercier
3.0
I really wanted to give this book a 5 star, but I can’t go beyond 3. Sometimes, I find that essays such as this one are too long for no real reason and should be reduced by 30%. It is not the case here. In fact, I think Not Born Yesterday would have gained a lot if it had been 30% longer—although that extension would probably have weakened the author’s thesis. Let me explain.
Why the wish for a 5-star review? Because the approach taken by Mercier is inspiring, original, taught provoking, and goes beyond the standard take on the topic of trust and belief acquisition. Mercier isn’t satisfied with the opinion that people are just gullible and need to be educated. It doesn’t take much cognitive effort to see that education can’t solve everything and that people are not simply gullible (if it were the case, why would it be so hard to convince them that they are wrong?).
In the first few chapters, Mercier uses evolutionary biology and psychology to discriminate between different views on trust and communication. Can any species really afford total gullibility? Probably not. The way Mercier develops his concept of open-vigilance is fantastic! And then, how he uses the framework he built in these chapters throughout the rest of the book is definitely fascinating. For instance, I found his analysis of how different types of rumours spread and to what levels they are accurate and/or believed, or his analysis of who we trust particularly insightful.
BUT.
While I was reading Not Born Yesterday, my reactions were constantly cycling between “uh, good point” and “oh come on, that’s a little dishonest”. At one point, the amount of “oh, come on, that’s a little dishonest” became simply unacceptable. Like many thinkers, Mercier seems to be unable to simply point out a flaw in one theory or make a nice addition to it; he must take the whole thing down and make his contribution appear disproportionally big. That tendency really got me annoyed. For readers with even a modest background in cognitive science, it is hard not to think that every two chapters Mercier avoids confronting important counterarguments, makes relatively solid and nuanced results on a topic appear all wrong, and cherry-picks the studies he presents. Often, I would read a passage and be like “no way, what about x, y, z?” Sometimes, only a few paragraphs later I would read a quick sentence nuancing his take, but without affecting his argument, like: by the way, this applies only in that situation or if we interpret x to mean y. Other times, this nuancing but purposefully hidden remark would be found in a footnote, like: many studies show that [the opposite of what I think], but see my article on this. He also depicts some accomplished researchers in a way that can mistakenly lead one to believe they are complete charlatans or flatly incompetent, when Mercier only touches on one aspect of their work. As I progressed in his book, I—ironically—lost trust in his ability to present a charitable literary review on topics he wishes to discuss.
So, why did I wish Not Born Yesterday had been 30% longer? Because Mercier often fails to argue conclusively for many of the key points his thesis is built on and side-steps important critics. For instance, there are specifics places where when he argues against gullibility, I wondered why he did not discuss the sunk-cost fallacy which is relevant in this context (could we be gullible when we first accept a belief in a debate, but not gullible when this belief is later challenged?). (ii) When he argues that propaganda does not work very well, I wondered why he didn’t address the effect of repetition bias or availability cascade. (iii) When he argues that people rationally evaluate arguments, I wondered why he did not discuss belief bias and confirmation/my-side bias. (iv) And so on…
Overall, this book was surprisingly very fun and annoying to read all at once. I like how Mercier challenges my views and often introduces nice ideas in the quest to better understand how reasoning works in general—I just wished he cherry-picked less, argued more rigorously, and that I could trust him more. I recommend it mostly to people with a background in cognitive science, and one should probably take his words with many grains of salt.
Why the wish for a 5-star review? Because the approach taken by Mercier is inspiring, original, taught provoking, and goes beyond the standard take on the topic of trust and belief acquisition. Mercier isn’t satisfied with the opinion that people are just gullible and need to be educated. It doesn’t take much cognitive effort to see that education can’t solve everything and that people are not simply gullible (if it were the case, why would it be so hard to convince them that they are wrong?).
In the first few chapters, Mercier uses evolutionary biology and psychology to discriminate between different views on trust and communication. Can any species really afford total gullibility? Probably not. The way Mercier develops his concept of open-vigilance is fantastic! And then, how he uses the framework he built in these chapters throughout the rest of the book is definitely fascinating. For instance, I found his analysis of how different types of rumours spread and to what levels they are accurate and/or believed, or his analysis of who we trust particularly insightful.
BUT.
While I was reading Not Born Yesterday, my reactions were constantly cycling between “uh, good point” and “oh come on, that’s a little dishonest”. At one point, the amount of “oh, come on, that’s a little dishonest” became simply unacceptable. Like many thinkers, Mercier seems to be unable to simply point out a flaw in one theory or make a nice addition to it; he must take the whole thing down and make his contribution appear disproportionally big. That tendency really got me annoyed. For readers with even a modest background in cognitive science, it is hard not to think that every two chapters Mercier avoids confronting important counterarguments, makes relatively solid and nuanced results on a topic appear all wrong, and cherry-picks the studies he presents. Often, I would read a passage and be like “no way, what about x, y, z?” Sometimes, only a few paragraphs later I would read a quick sentence nuancing his take, but without affecting his argument, like: by the way, this applies only in that situation or if we interpret x to mean y. Other times, this nuancing but purposefully hidden remark would be found in a footnote, like: many studies show that [the opposite of what I think], but see my article on this. He also depicts some accomplished researchers in a way that can mistakenly lead one to believe they are complete charlatans or flatly incompetent, when Mercier only touches on one aspect of their work. As I progressed in his book, I—ironically—lost trust in his ability to present a charitable literary review on topics he wishes to discuss.
So, why did I wish Not Born Yesterday had been 30% longer? Because Mercier often fails to argue conclusively for many of the key points his thesis is built on and side-steps important critics. For instance, there are specifics places where when he argues against gullibility, I wondered why he did not discuss the sunk-cost fallacy which is relevant in this context (could we be gullible when we first accept a belief in a debate, but not gullible when this belief is later challenged?). (ii) When he argues that propaganda does not work very well, I wondered why he didn’t address the effect of repetition bias or availability cascade. (iii) When he argues that people rationally evaluate arguments, I wondered why he did not discuss belief bias and confirmation/my-side bias. (iv) And so on…
Overall, this book was surprisingly very fun and annoying to read all at once. I like how Mercier challenges my views and often introduces nice ideas in the quest to better understand how reasoning works in general—I just wished he cherry-picked less, argued more rigorously, and that I could trust him more. I recommend it mostly to people with a background in cognitive science, and one should probably take his words with many grains of salt.