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Review of Rationality by Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker’s new book Rationality: What it is, why it seems scarce, why it matters is a great overview of the many strands of rational thinking and especially the scientific process. The author has more faith in the rationality of people than others, and although he discusses the importance of biases, fallacies, illusions he balances this with the equal importance of critical thinking, probabilistic thinking and seeing the difference between correlation and causation.

During the course of the book, Pinker explains the basics of logic, Bayesian reasoning, economic utility, statistical decision theory, game theory and other aspects of rational thinking. This book is a good primer on rational thinking and would make a good textbook for a critical thinking class. Recommended for anyone who cares about the way they and others think.

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