The Irrational Ape

Why Flawed Logic Puts us all at Risk and How Critical Thinking Can Save the World

By: David Robert Grimes

Narrated by: David Robert Grimes

THE IRISH TIMES TOP FIVE BESTSELLER

'A beautifully reasoned book about our own unreasonableness' Robin Ince

In 1983, the reasoning of one unsung Russian narrowly averted nuclear war, proving that critical thinking can save the world. Today, facing unprecedented tides of disinformation, we’re frequently misled, to our detriment. The Irrational Ape explores the reasons why we get things so wrong, illustrated with incredible stories from the comical to the catastrophic.

With a cast including murderous popes, conspiracy theorists, snake-oil salesmen, dubious celebrities and superstitious pigeons, The Irrational Ape delves into how reasoning errors, skewed perceptions and even our own psychology render us so susceptible to falsehood – and how we can improve our reasoning to ensure we avoid being taken in.

Critic reviews

'From anti-vaxxers to Dunning-Kruger, from homeopathy and astrology to “false balance” (what I call the BBC Fallacy), from misused statistics to nuclear brinkmanship, our irrationality could be our undoing. A book exposing the irrational ape and teaching us to mend our ways might so easily have become all preachy and teachy. Instead, such is David Robert Grimes’s storytelling skill, his book is an unstoppable page-turner. If our leaders were forced to read this book, the world would be a safer place' (Richard Dawkins)

'Grimes’s book addresses an all-too-urgent contemporary political question: how do we protect our societies and ourselves from charlatans and fools?...It brings a fresh perspective, and has been painstakingly researched. This spirited cocktail of data leavened with anecdotes is served up in Grimes’s trademark provocative, combative style...a highly creditable debut from a skilled communicator.' (John Gibbons)

Why people believe stupid things

With the recent meteoric rise of conspiracy theories and alternative truths, this book is well positioned to explain why this is so. The author is excellent in explaining the different types of ways people get fooled into believing things that do not make much sense.
If you are like me and you are struggling to understand why people believe things that are clearly, in your experience, not true, then this book will help you get a better understanding of the situation through many recent controversies, learnings from history as well as the author's many experiences.
I highly recommend this book and it was 14 hours well spent!

Why it matters...

The book is an excellent explanation of why we react superstitiously and emotionally, why we tend to ignore or select evidence to please our views. It debunks a lot of myths, skewed perceptions and beliefs.
But it is the elegant, simple and yet clear-cut way the author arguments that is the best. Few people can explain so eloquently why truth matters and how dangerous it is to ignore it. Unfortunately, this excellent book is likely to only convince the already convinced: Belief is deaf to argument - because it KNOWS...