Readings and Ramblings

Will this book make you smarter? What is smart? It is a synonym for intelligent and Stephen J. Gould described intelligence as a vernacular term that describes a wide variety of abilities propensities and interests none of which are very closely related to most of the others. If that is the case then it is hard or even impossible to measure smartness so that we can tell if someone has gotten smarter. What this book does do, though, is to teach you to think scientifically. That is, it teaches you to think scientifically if you are willing to learn to think scientifically. I have met all too many people who just reject not only learning to think rationally, but also reject learning what rationality even is. However, science is the study of reality and everything we want is gotten only by manipulating reality and the closer we can come to understanding what reality actually is the more efficiently can we manipulate it to our liking. That means that learning to think scientifically is a great benefit to all of us, both individually and collectively. If you learn to think scientifically and act accordingly then you will be acting in a way that can be said to be -- to use a vernacular term -- smarter. This book is well worth reading.