Strength Through Error - Review of Being Wrong by Kathryn Schulz

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When was the last time you admitted to being wrong about anything? It is a question that journalist Kathryn Schulz has pondered for some time, so much so that her book, "Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error", appears to be a veritable bible on something she calls "wrongology". This work investigates, dissects and embraces the whole concept of wrongness, letting no one off the hook in its research and conclusions. Being fully aware of the many ways that error has helped shape the way we progress as a species, she takes first half of Alexander Pope's famous idiom "To err is human" literally and explores the truth of this statement at great length. As Schulz, explains in her opening chapters this is not book about forecasting errors, but more about how we as deal with errors and how we can use them to our advantage.
The book is divided into four parts: "The Idea of Error", "The Origins of Error", "The Experience of Error" and "Embracing Error". Each part is divided into different numbers of chapters. The first and fourth parts only have two chapters a piece and act introductory and conclusive bookends to the whole piece. Schulz's tour of the way error affects and changes us as human beings is contained within the two meatier parts, containing six and five chapters respectively. Despite coming under the category of "Popular Psychology/Philosophy" the whole book is handled like a scholastic work. It is footnoted on many of its pages to provide fascinating additional information on certain case studies and has meticulous endnotes to provide all of the book's reference material.

Ten Best True Crime Books Currently Available

Image via WikipediaTrue crime, at its best, is a fascinating combination of historical investigation dominated by primary source evidence often with strong aspects of prominent scientific psychological theory and an understanding of cultural dimensions. Their authors range from thorough historians who have enough discipline to not be led away by confirmation bias or too many preconceived ideas and prejudicesto objective interviewers who gain a unique insight into their subject's personality. Unfortunately the majority of books that go under title "true crime" are actually close cousins of the ghost story or urban legend. They range from tabloid style reports on cases to outright fabrications to ghost-written romantacized autobiographies of criminals trying to capitalize on their parasitic and rather sad lives. However, we shouldn't be too hard on all these modern day evolutions of penny dreadful compilations. Often they are the tantilizing baits that draw us in originally.
Below is a list of 10 particularly significant books that come under this genre and, for the most part, will steer you in the right direction to get the most out of this landmine filled area of non-fiction reading...

Tony Curtis: The Man Who Played Hollywood and Won! (The Icon Series)

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The death of Tony Curtis (June 3, 1925 – September 29, 2010) inspired me to think of his place as an icon in my life. I never met the man, but he is very much a fabric of my culture due to his starring role in the film “Trapeze”. I did meet his daughter, the actress Jamie Lee Curtis, on the set of “Fierce Creatures”, but that was about as close I got to an individual who – along with Charlton Heston, John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, James Stewart and, more than anyone, Burt Lancaster – represented “my people” in a good light on the silver screen.

Finally Rational Self-Help!

Cover via AmazonSceptics are often considered to be life's party poopers. Damn them and their rationality, sense of logic and reason! Not satisfied with debunking everything from reptoid conspiracy theories to hippy herbal cures in recent times the critical eye has been cast over the self-help movement. According to Professor Richard Wiseman much of the advice being touted by the gurus of positive motivation is based on little scientific evidence. In fact, many anecdotal stories told by these gurus relating to certain experiments used to justify their methods are either only partially reported or didn't happen at all. So, you might think, if this isn't raining on the proverbial happy parade than what is. Well, according to Wiseman much of these self-help

Henry V, an English icon revisited (the icon series)

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Henry V (16 September 1386* – 31 August 1422) is an English icon embedded in our cultural identity. This is largely due to William Shakespeare’s immortal play “The Chronicle History of Henry V” and its two prequels concerning his father’s reign. The medieval king from the house of Lancaster has been painted in literature as the archetypical English hero. He begins as the roguish tearaway Prince Hal in his youth, son of the usurper Henry of Bollingbroke now known as Henry IV, but becomes a pious and gallant warrior who cements his reputation when he defeats the French on their home ground at the Battle of Agincourt. This symbolic and yet short-lived battle is where the mythology of Henry V begins. Like many icons, Henry V’s legend began during his lifetime. He was purposefully modelled by his propaganda in a way that was so convincing that it has inspired many people up to the present day. However, as primary source evidence indicates, Henry V was also responsible for several atrocities during his lifetime and, in particular, during 1415 when he fought his most famous battle. 

That Day Again

Friday the 13th did not even have a completed script when Sean S. Cunningham took out this advertisement in Variety magazine (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Cover of Friday the 13th Uncut [Blu-ray
So, we arrive on the day when superstition runs rife in the western world. 13 witches in a coven, Judas Iscariot, the treacherous member of JC’s gang, made the number of participants at The Last Supper 13, the Knights Templar were arrested on Friday 13th and so on. “The Thirteenth in the Series” is a great episode of the Alan Simpson and Ray Galton brilliant comedy show “Hancock’s Half Hour”, and is a wonderful satire of how the number 13 can set off a chain reaction of superstitious confirmation bias in a gullible individual followed by buying into any amount of New Age nonsense. In 1980 director Sean S. Cunningham had both horror and humour on his mind when he directed and produced the slasher film, “Friday the 13th”. The humour was designed to relax the audience and the horror came in the form of cheap shocks. It was a pretty bad film in so many ways. It was unoriginal and it kick-started a cynical franchise

Fads & Fallacies: a review of the seminal work on modern scepticism

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Fads and Fallacies

First published in 1952 as “In the Name of Science”, “Fads and Fallacies” is often cited as the first book written for the scientific or rational sceptical movement. True, as Gardener states in his preface to the first edition, there were prototypical works, but nothing really comprehensively looked at the culture, motivations and nature of pseudoscience, charlatanism and quackery as this book. Most of the major American sceptics see Gardner as the unofficial founder of their movement and he is regularly credited as a huge influence by Michael Shermer and James Randi, who was a good friend of Gardner up until his death in May 2010.