Review - 'Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters' by Steven Pinker

I'd like to think I'm a rational being, but I also know that I'm prone to sporadic fits of irrationality, just like everyone else out there. So I when I came across this book, I knew I had to read it. I was hoping it would give me insight into myself, and also help me understand why it seems like a large portion of our population have lately given in to the irrational devils of our nature.

And this book did offer insight. In particular, the first and second to last chapters were riveting, approaching the discussion from psychological and sociological perspectives. The examples on how people end up making less than optimal choices are intriguing, and this book offers the most intuitive explanation of the Monty Hall problem I've ever come across. And the concluding discussion on personal knowledge being divided into two different zones, real and mythological, is absolutely fascinating as well as illuminating.

But that isn't the majority of this book. Rather, the focus of this book is how to use probability and statistics to understand numerical implications of different choices, including how to calculate their actual probabilities. I have nothing against the topics, but that isn't what I thought I signed up to read when I opened this book.

Because the topics covered are so technical, the majority of this book reads like a textbook. It doesn't help that they are often presented in a heavily pedantic style, with lots of terms and formulas, as well as philosophical musings. In fact, there is enough content in here to cover multiple university classes (I know because I had the joy of taking these exact ones back in college), so you can imagine trying to fit them into 300 pages makes the whole thing dense and dry.

When a book is so technical, it gets into a bit of a dilemma with its target audience. If you already know most of the topics covered, then you should have no trouble following along, but in that case, why are you reading this book? On the other hand, if you haven't seen the topics before and this is your first introduction, I think you'll have a lot of trouble understanding and retaining the information, especially as the later chapters build on concepts from the earlier ones.

Don't get me wrong, this is an interesting book, but I think it requires the reader to go in with the right expectations. The misleading title will have you think it's a psychological deep dive into rationality, but it isn't that. This is really a book on probability and statistics, and how to use them to make sense of our world. With that mindset, this book could offer a lot to the right audience.

Readaroo Rating: 3 stars

My heartfelt thanks for the copy that was provided for my honest and unbiased review.