Not Born Yesterday

A bracing book that might make you less gullible about gullibility. ---Barbara Kiser, Nature At the risk of being seen as credulous, I'd say [Mercier] makes a strong case for gullibility being a far less prevalent and important trait than we thought. * New Scientist * [Not Born Yesterday] will be of interest to anyone who wonders how to trust what people say and do, especially in the digital, free-for-all age of unfettered, often suspect, information. The breadth and depth of research studies presented by Mercier will be especially appealing to science aficionados. ---Karen Koenig, New York Journal of Books In Not Born Yesterday, the cognitive scientist Hugo Mercier brings the conceptual reversal to a domain in desperate need of new insights: that of truth and falsehood, knowledge and ignorance. ---N. J. Enfield, Times Literary Supplement [Not Born Yesterday] marshals a convincing body of research . . . from history and sociology, from anthropology and from the psychology laboratory. ---Timandra Harkness, UnHerd [Mercier's argument] is refreshingly optimistic. ---Daniel Akst, Strategy+Business [A] thought-provoking book about the science of who we trust. * Paradigm Explorer * At a time when large swaths seem to believe that we are hopelessly doomed because everyone else is stupid and easily misled or manipulated, Mercier's book provides a nuanced antidote to such thinking, grounded in a careful examination of a wealth of evidence from psychology and the social sciences. ---Felix Simon, Medium [A] lucidly written introduction to the social psychology of communication and reasoning. ---Shreeharsh Kelkar, Public Books