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Deceit and Self-Deception: Fooling Yourself the Better to Fool Others
Paperback
Published January 4, 2011
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About the author
Robert Trivers
14 books107 followersRobert L. Trivers (born February 19, 1943, pronounced /ˈtrɪvɚz/) is an American evolutionary biologist and sociobiologist, most noted for proposing the theories of reciprocal altruism (1971), parental investment (1972), and parent-offspring conflict (1974). Other areas in which he has made influential contributions include an adaptive view of self-deception (first described in 1976) and intragenomic conflict. Along with George C. Williams, Trivers is arguably one of the most influential evolutionary theorists alive today.
A 1961 graduate of Phillips Academy, Andover, Trivers went to Harvard to study mathematics, but wound up studying U.S. history in preparation to become a lawyer. He received his A.B. degree in History on June 16, 1965 from Harvard University. He took a psychology class after suffering a breakdown, and was very unimpressed with the state of psychology. He was prevented from getting into Yale law school by his breakdown, and wound up with a job writing social science textbooks for children (never published, due in part to presenting evolution by natural selection as fact). This exposure to evolutionary theory led him to do graduate work with Ernst Mayr at Harvard 1968-1972. He earned his Ph.D. in Biology on June 15, 1972 also from Harvard University. He was on faculty at Harvard 1973-1978, then moved to UC Santa Cruz.
He met Huey P. Newton, Chairman of the Black Panther Party, in 1978 when Newton applied (while in prison) to do a reading course with him as part of a graduate degree in History of Consciousness at UC Santa Cruz. Trivers and Newton became close friends: Newton was even godfather to one of Trivers' daughters. Trivers joined the Black Panther Party in 1979. Trivers and Newton published an analysis of the role of self-deception by the flight crew in the crash of Air Florida Flight 90.
Trivers was a faculty member at UC Santa Cruz 1978-1994. He is currently a Rutgers University notable faculty member. In the 2008-2009 academic year, he is a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin).
He wrote the original foreword to Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, and was recently awarded the 2007 Crafoord Prize in Biosciences for "his fundamental analysis of social evolution, conflict and cooperation".
—— From Wikipedia
A 1961 graduate of Phillips Academy, Andover, Trivers went to Harvard to study mathematics, but wound up studying U.S. history in preparation to become a lawyer. He received his A.B. degree in History on June 16, 1965 from Harvard University. He took a psychology class after suffering a breakdown, and was very unimpressed with the state of psychology. He was prevented from getting into Yale law school by his breakdown, and wound up with a job writing social science textbooks for children (never published, due in part to presenting evolution by natural selection as fact). This exposure to evolutionary theory led him to do graduate work with Ernst Mayr at Harvard 1968-1972. He earned his Ph.D. in Biology on June 15, 1972 also from Harvard University. He was on faculty at Harvard 1973-1978, then moved to UC Santa Cruz.
He met Huey P. Newton, Chairman of the Black Panther Party, in 1978 when Newton applied (while in prison) to do a reading course with him as part of a graduate degree in History of Consciousness at UC Santa Cruz. Trivers and Newton became close friends: Newton was even godfather to one of Trivers' daughters. Trivers joined the Black Panther Party in 1979. Trivers and Newton published an analysis of the role of self-deception by the flight crew in the crash of Air Florida Flight 90.
Trivers was a faculty member at UC Santa Cruz 1978-1994. He is currently a Rutgers University notable faculty member. In the 2008-2009 academic year, he is a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin).
He wrote the original foreword to Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, and was recently awarded the 2007 Crafoord Prize in Biosciences for "his fundamental analysis of social evolution, conflict and cooperation".
—— From Wikipedia
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November 23, 2023
NB - I read and reviewed this originally for Amazon Vine (years ago!), but that review has vanished. So here’s a slightly revised version…
I found this pretty compelling at the time of reading, but now I come to review it, I’m surprised at how little of it has stayed with me.
Deceit and self-deception are fascinating facets of life, and I share Trivers’ desire to better understand these areas. But at times I found his writing a little opaque, either just being plain confusing, or assuming knowledge I didn’t have.
I feel the best authors of such popular science books - as this appears to want to be - have the skill of making themselves easily understood. So, whilst I certainly admire Trivers intent, I wasn’t entirely bowled over with the execution.
Much of what Trivers discusses here, i.e. the bigger more basic ideas (such as that alluded to in the books subtitle), seemed rather obvious to me. Granted, he does in places go into some depth and detail, compared to which one’s own intuitions perhaps ought to be considered interesting but insubstantial.
But I didn’t find the book as robustly scientific as I might’ve have hoped. One aspect I found rather trying being the unsignposted blending of scientific findings, anecdote and opinion. All these things may be welcome components of his thesis, but knowing if and when a statement is supported by scientific research (and the nature of that research, and it’s source) seems vitally important to me.
So, for example, his comments on the cognitive dissonance reduction of ‘lifers’ who say they would murder again, whilst plausible (and predictable, really), strikes me as pure speculation, unless he has some kind of evidence for his view, in which case it should be cited.
In contrast with the way in which some of the broader ideas seem obvious, where Trivers cites material that appears to be drawn from research in his own field (biology), he’s not always clear enough, making too many assumptions for the ‘lay reader’ like myself.
I suppose he’s simply assuming a familiarity with evolutionary terminology and science I simply don’t possess? One example might be the use of the term ‘selected’, which in everyday language assumes the conscious selection of a discerning agent, whereas ‘selected’ in the context of natural selection has a quite different meaning.
His use of the term selection, though not clarified, is something I was able to cope with. But, as an example of something less digestible, I’ll cite the following: “In competition over access to maternal investment, paternal genes in offspring are inevitably less related to siblings than are maternal genes.” That may be clear to some. But it’s far from east to understand for me, and needs more and better ‘unpacking’ than I feel it got; ‘inevitably’? Why/how?
When it comes to the impact these ideas have on human life, there’s some pretty harrowing stuff, such as the material relating to aircraft accidents, and Trivers is clearly, as we all ought to be, very concerned about the role of deceit in national and international politics, particularly given the ramifications such deceits have in terms of the destruction of lives and environments, these days, thanks to our industry and technology, on catastrophically large scales.
Still, I had hoped that he’d engage my interest more deeply, in the manner of someone like Carl Sagan, whose ruminations on similar (but also very different) themes, in his landmark Cosmos series, penetrated my consciousness in a more profoundly resonant manner.
Still, despite the caveats and complaints, this is a very welcome opening up of an area that we seem, on the whole, resolutely determined not to look at, And however unsatisfactory it is in places it also contains a lot worth thinking about.
Trivers says himself that he sees the book as the first public word in a debate he hopes will mature into a whole area of research and understanding, and I say ‘amen’ to that. I just hope that later editions might clarify or simplify a few things on the one hand, and present arguments a bit more rigorously on the other.
I found this pretty compelling at the time of reading, but now I come to review it, I’m surprised at how little of it has stayed with me.
Deceit and self-deception are fascinating facets of life, and I share Trivers’ desire to better understand these areas. But at times I found his writing a little opaque, either just being plain confusing, or assuming knowledge I didn’t have.
I feel the best authors of such popular science books - as this appears to want to be - have the skill of making themselves easily understood. So, whilst I certainly admire Trivers intent, I wasn’t entirely bowled over with the execution.
Much of what Trivers discusses here, i.e. the bigger more basic ideas (such as that alluded to in the books subtitle), seemed rather obvious to me. Granted, he does in places go into some depth and detail, compared to which one’s own intuitions perhaps ought to be considered interesting but insubstantial.
But I didn’t find the book as robustly scientific as I might’ve have hoped. One aspect I found rather trying being the unsignposted blending of scientific findings, anecdote and opinion. All these things may be welcome components of his thesis, but knowing if and when a statement is supported by scientific research (and the nature of that research, and it’s source) seems vitally important to me.
So, for example, his comments on the cognitive dissonance reduction of ‘lifers’ who say they would murder again, whilst plausible (and predictable, really), strikes me as pure speculation, unless he has some kind of evidence for his view, in which case it should be cited.
In contrast with the way in which some of the broader ideas seem obvious, where Trivers cites material that appears to be drawn from research in his own field (biology), he’s not always clear enough, making too many assumptions for the ‘lay reader’ like myself.
I suppose he’s simply assuming a familiarity with evolutionary terminology and science I simply don’t possess? One example might be the use of the term ‘selected’, which in everyday language assumes the conscious selection of a discerning agent, whereas ‘selected’ in the context of natural selection has a quite different meaning.
His use of the term selection, though not clarified, is something I was able to cope with. But, as an example of something less digestible, I’ll cite the following: “In competition over access to maternal investment, paternal genes in offspring are inevitably less related to siblings than are maternal genes.” That may be clear to some. But it’s far from east to understand for me, and needs more and better ‘unpacking’ than I feel it got; ‘inevitably’? Why/how?
When it comes to the impact these ideas have on human life, there’s some pretty harrowing stuff, such as the material relating to aircraft accidents, and Trivers is clearly, as we all ought to be, very concerned about the role of deceit in national and international politics, particularly given the ramifications such deceits have in terms of the destruction of lives and environments, these days, thanks to our industry and technology, on catastrophically large scales.
Still, I had hoped that he’d engage my interest more deeply, in the manner of someone like Carl Sagan, whose ruminations on similar (but also very different) themes, in his landmark Cosmos series, penetrated my consciousness in a more profoundly resonant manner.
Still, despite the caveats and complaints, this is a very welcome opening up of an area that we seem, on the whole, resolutely determined not to look at, And however unsatisfactory it is in places it also contains a lot worth thinking about.
Trivers says himself that he sees the book as the first public word in a debate he hopes will mature into a whole area of research and understanding, and I say ‘amen’ to that. I just hope that later editions might clarify or simplify a few things on the one hand, and present arguments a bit more rigorously on the other.
Displaying 1 of 1 review