Tom Denniss' 3 favorite reads in 2024

In this work synthesizing thirty years of research, psychologist, historian of science, and the world's best-known skeptic Michael Shermer upends the traditional thinking about how humans form beliefs about the world. Simply put, beliefs come first and explanations for beliefs follow. The brain, Shermer argues, is a belief engine. From sensory data flowing in through the senses, the brain naturally begins to look for and find patterns, and then infuses those patterns with meaning. Our brains connect the dots of our world into meaningful patterns that explain why things happen, and these patterns become beliefs. Once beliefs are formed the… show more.

Concentrating on the Centre for the Study of Complex Systems in Los Alamos, California and the religious beliefs of surrounding communities, this book explores the new science of complexity, which suggests the existence of a strong impulse towards order in nature, drawing parallels with the varied religious groups in the area and the source of the religious impulse in a need to deny chance and blind fate. It is a thought-provoking look at the ever-appealing subject of the claims of science and religion in shaping man's view of the world outside him.

Albert Einstein's brain floats in a Tupperware bowl in a gray duffel bag in the trunk of a Buick Skylark barreling across America. Driving the car is journalist Michael Paterniti. Sitting next to him is an eighty-four-year-old pathologist named Thomas Harvey, who performed the autopsy on Einstein in 1955 -- then simply removed the brain and took it home. And kept it for over forty years.

On a cold February day, the two men and the brain leave New Jersey and light out on I-70 for sunny California, where Einstein's perplexed granddaughter, Evelyn, awaits. And riding along as the imaginary… show more.