Book Review – The Knowledge Illusion

Why We Never Think Alone by Steven Sloman and Philip Fernbach (Macmillan) ISBN: 9781509811069

As my father, always says: “You don’t know what you don’t know.”

Humanity is suffering from an illusion of understanding. We confuse the knowledge in our heads with the actual facts and, scarily, we believe we know more than we actually do.

This is a brilliantly written book highlighting this faulty and caveman-like flaw in our design. Professor Philp Fernbach of the Leeds School of Business and Steve Sloman, Professor of Cognitive, Linguistic & Psychological Sciences at Brown University at times seem dumbfounded at how humanity has evolved and thrived.

This is a fun read if you are in the mood to break down your ego as they reveal how very little you actually know. But, you are not alone, because we all think the same way. You probably know just as little as your neighbour does.

Let me leave you with one question. How does a toilet work?

Tammany Barton
4/5

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