"Provocative enough to make you start questioning your each and every action."—Entertainment Weekly

The brain's power is confirmed and touted every day in new studies and research. And yet we tend to take our brains for granted, without suspecting that those masses of hard-working neurons might not always be working for us. Cordelia Fine introduces us to a brain we might not want to meet, a brain with a mind of its own. She illustrates the brain's tendency toward self-delusion as she explores how the mind defends and glorifies the ego by twisting and warping our perceptions. Our brains employ a slew of inborn mind-bugs and prejudices, from hindsight bias to unrealistic optimism, from moral excuse-making to wishful thinking—all designed to prevent us from seeing the truth about the world and the people around us, and about ourselves.

Cordelia Fine is a research associate in the Centre for Applied Philosophy & Public Ethics at the Australian National University. She lives in Australia.

Publisher: W. W. Norton
Distributor: W. W. Norton
Publication Date: 06-23-2008
Pages: 256
Measurements: 8in X 6in