Book Description
Dr. Laura Schlessinger is the incredibly popular and controversial psychotherapist who hosts a nationally syndicated, top-rated midday radio talk show. She has strong convictions and doesn't hesitate to voice them to callers. She urges women emphatically to lose a domineering jerk of a lover and pick one of the "good guys," to stay home and parent the babies they've made, and to follow the dream rather than some dreamboat. Above all, she exhorts women not to blame anybody or anything but themselves if they're unhappy and their lives seem a mess.
10 Stupid Things Women Do to Mess Up Their Lives uses real-world examples from Schlessinger's radio show and private practice to drive the message home. And the message is that our reticence to be bold and brave often makes us act like stupid, submissive victims. Once we muster the courage to take responsibility for our own problems and to tolerate the discomforts of risk, the possibilities for personal growth and joy are limitless.
If you're looking for an all-approving hand to hold, you won't find it here. If you're prepared to take a clear-eyed look at your self-diminishing behavior and to make the move to a quality existence, there's no one better than Schlessinger to keep you honest and to cheer you on. One thing's for sure: You'll never look at your relationships, behaviors and decisions the same way after you've finished reading this book.
Customer Reviews:
Highly recommend!.......2007-09-05
During a discussion with a friend of mine about a relationship issue I had, she made me promise to get and read this book. I have to say, it's a definite must read for any girl, lady or women that has any question about a relationship she's in. The author gives so many great examples of her callers and patients that I found myself able to see a clearer picture of what I was doing in my relationship.
Excellent.......2007-04-22
I read the 10 Stupid Things Men Do, and thought it was fantastic. Then my girlfriend was reading this one. I had to pick it up and find out what was in it.
Schlessinger hits the truth so consistently. And most of it seems so obvious, as if we should have noticed it right away.
Honest.......2007-02-22
I think that every woman should read this book ~ maybe even a requirement for young women in school. I wish I had read it when I was younger... I might not have squandered so many years doing all the things she says not to do. To me, this is the handbook for women ~ & c'mon, it's a quick, good, & life-changing read!
not very deep.......2007-02-21
It does not have much depth. It basically tells you one thing: as a woman, be independent, do not mentally(emphasis of the book) or economically rely on men. I do not think I learned much by reading the book. Some case stories are interesting but I would expect more depth in explaning why this is so and why this is not so.
But if you are upset or depressed because a man rejected you or something like that, this book may help you feel better because you will know that it does not just happen to you becuase there are so many other more unfortunate women.
I wish I read this as a teenager!.......2007-02-17
No one ever told me these things. This is one fabulous book. I am a university counselor and the young women I see were never told these things either. I recommend it to all of them.
Amazon.com
Everything will be okay ... once you admit that Dr. Laura's always right. This companion volume to the radio advice factory's 1994 bestseller (which tackled the stupid things women do) serves up plenty of the no-nonsense, old-fashioned morality that her legions of listeners love. Brutally reductive--but not necessarily wrong--this book chalks up men's problems to trying to save "damsels in distress," refusing to admit to a healthy dependence on others, climbing the career ladder to the detriment of your relationships, denying the duty and pleasure of child-rearing, and many others. Whatever your personal reaction to her brassy, unapologetic style, Dr. Schlessinger is a refreshing antidote to the wishy-washy "everything's relative and everyone's different" trend that held sway for a time. Ten Stupid Things Men Do to Mess up Their Lives contains a lot of good advice--even though it has as much in common with instant soup mix as with therapy.
Book Description
For every woman who wants to know what her man is thinking.
Internationally syndicated radio superhost and columnist, controversial psycho-therapist, and author of the break-out New York Times bestsellers How Could You Do That?! and Ten Stupid Things Women Do to Mess Up Their Lives, Dr. Laura Schlessinger is back with Ten Stupid Things Men Do to Mess Up Their Lives.
In ten vital, compelling chapters, Dr. Laura speaks her mind on:
- Stupid Chivalry
By getting involved with the wrong woman (weak, flaky, damaged, needy, desperate, stupid, untrustworthy, immature, etc.) you think that your love will save/transform her.
- Stupid Independence
Unwilling to admit "need" for bonding and intimacy, you hide in excesses of work, play, drink, drugs, porn, and meaningless sex.
- Stupid Ambition
Unable to comfortably and proudly accept your inherent importance to society and family as husband and father, you bow to the false idols of money, toys, power, and status.
- Stupid Strength
Uncomfortable with feeling weak, vulnerable, useless, powerless, or rejected, you use intimidation, force, or passive-aggressiveness to regain control.
- Stupid Sex
Taking an attraction, opportunity, or erection as a "sign," you measure your masculinity and power by sexual conquests, infidelities, and orgasms.
- Stupid Matrimony
Lacking a mature sense of the purpose, meaning, or value of marriage, you realize too late you've gone down the aisle with the wrong woman for the wrong reasons and feel helpless to "fix it."
- Stupid Husbanding
Thinking that marriage is the honorable discharge from loving courtship, you continue to live as though you were single and your "mommy-wife" will take care of everything else.
- Stupid Parenting
Believing that only women/mothers nurture children, you withdraw from hands-on parenting to assert your masculine importance, missing out on the true "soul food" of a child's hug.
- Stupid Boyishness
Having not yet worked out a comfortable emotional and social understanding with your mother, you form relationships with women that become geared to avenge, resolve, or protect you from your ties to Mommy.
- Stupid Machismo
Understanding the true and meaningful difference between being male and a man, you can become a man.
Download Description
For every woman who wants to know what her man is thinking.
Internationally syndicated radio superhost and columnist, controversial psycho-therapist, and author of the break-out New York Times bestsellers How Could You Do That?! and Ten Stupid Things Women Do to Mess Up Their Lives, Dr. Laura Schlessinger is back with Ten Stupid Things Men Do to Mess Up Their Lives.
In ten vital, compelling chapters, Dr. Laura speaks her mind on:
- Stupid Chivalry
By getting involved with the wrong woman (weak, flaky, damaged, needy, desperate, stupid, untrustworthy, immature, etc.) you think that your love will save/transform her.
- Stupid Independence
Unwilling to admit "need" for bonding and intimacy, you hide in excesses of work, play, drink, drugs, porn, and meaningless sex.
- Stupid Ambition
Unable to comfortably and proudly accept your inherent importance to society and family as husband and father, you bow to the false idols of money, toys, power, and status.
- Stupid Strength
Uncomfortable with feeling weak, vulnerable, useless, powerless, or rejected, you use intimidation, force, or passive-aggressiveness to regain control.
- Stupid Sex
Taking an attraction, opportunity, or erection as a "sign," you measure your masculinity and power by sexual conquests, infidelities, and orgasms.
- Stupid Matrimony
Lacking a mature sense of the purpose, meaning, or value of marriage, you realize too late you've gone down the aisle with the wrong woman for the wrong reasons and feel helpless to "fix it."
- Stupid Husbanding
Thinking that marriage is the honorable discharge from loving courtship, you continue to live as though you were single and your "mommy-wife" will take care of everything else.
- Stupid Parenting
Believing that only women/mothers nurture children, you withdraw from hands-on parenting to assert your masculine importance, missing out on the true "soul food" of a child's hug.
- Stupid Boyishness
Having not yet worked out a comfortable emotional and social understanding with your mother, you form relationships with women that become geared to avenge, resolve, or protect you from your ties to Mommy.
- Stupid Machismo
Understanding the true and meaningful difference between being male and a man, you can become a man.
Customer Reviews:
Finally, a book worth reading!.......2007-05-13
I have never really been into self-help books. After listening to Dr. Laura on the radio, this book was mentioned for guys just like me. There were a few places where I wasn't sure if she was being sarcastic or not, but that happens to me anyway. I was amazed to see how well she could see how guys really think, and to guide us in a perfect direction was brilliant! I only wish that I could have read this book 15 years ago. Maybe my life would have taken a different direction. I hope that more and more young people can read, understand, and apply the teachings that this book has to offer.
10 Stupid Things Men Do to Mess Up Their Lives.......2007-03-30
I am a 62 year old man. Had I this book starting out, I would not have messed up my life. As I read, and look through the book, I am encouraged to know that I am not alone in the world in stupidity. There is hope for me, yet. I look forward to reading the rest of the book and growing and wisdom and hopefully in a relationship with a woman.
Chapter one should be required reading for every 14-year-old.......2005-03-04
Brought up in a strong Christian tradition, I felt obligated and eager to give whenever asked and pretty much offered myself as a sacrifice for whomever came along...espcecially the Damsel in Distress. Such attitudes brought me to a place of usefulness in my career (physician) but also exposed me to the "Stupid Chivalry" trap. I lost a few fortunes and much sleep before I finally got slammed hard enough to be a little more careful with offering myself and the fruits of my labor. This book helped me see when I was about to make a useful sacrifice and when I was about to waste time or money (Stupid Chivalry) that might be better directed toward another person (How to know when I'm playing the Knight and when I'm playing the Fool).
Would I have listened had this book been required memorization material at the age of 14? I don't know. But, all three of my sons will be required to practically recite chapter 1 to me before they leave home for college.
The rest of the book speaks practical self defense for the moral minded; but chapter 1 seems to be the most useful.
Also, read "No More Mr. Nice Guy" by Glover if you have trouble doing too much for the wrong people at great cost to yourself and to those who really need you most.
--Charles Runels, MD
Author of "Anytime...for as Long as You Want: Strength, Genius, Libido, & Erection by Integrative Sex Transmutation (A 15-Day Course for Men to Improve Life and Sex)"
An Excellent Educational Tool.......2004-11-20
Like the book for women, this book is also used as an educational tool in the juvenile facility where I volunteer my time. It is an excellent book for young men to read, and hopefully follow.
Direct Advice - Better than the Cover Suggests.......2004-11-19
As a person who is in a relationship but constantly feeling attracted to other girls, the chapter on 'Stupid Sex' was right on point.
The author identifies the struggle we face to balance biological urges with moral constraints. Her emphasis on doing what is 'right' and to base your behaviour on principles, struck a chord with me.
A lot of people may struggle to take this book seriously given it's straightforward, 'chatty' style, but I found the advice very helpful.
Book Description
Misaligned companies, like cars out of alignment, can develop serious problems if not corrected quickly. They are hard to steer and don't respond well to changes in direction. This groundbreaking book shows you how to get -and keep -all the vital elements of your organization aligned and headed in the same direction at the same time.
Managers must now keep their people centered in the midst of change, deemphasize hierarchy, and distribute leadership by distributing authority, information, knowledge, and customer data throughout their organization. Alignment is a response to the new business reality where customer requirements are in flux, where competitive forces are turbulent, and where the bond of loyalty between an organization and its people has been weakened. The old linear approach to management has given way to one of simultaneity -to alignment.
As pioneers of the alignment concept, the authors have developed this unique approach based on their work with leading companies throughout the world. The Power of Alignment is packed with war stories and the firsthand perspectives of industry leaders. You'll learn how world-class organizations, including Federal Express, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Columbia/HCA Healthcare, Citizens Utilities, AirTouch, and UNUM achieved extraordinary business results. Now, through the authors' expertise, you'll see how alignment can work for your organization.
In essence, alignment links the five key elements of an organization -people, process, customers, business strategies, and, of course, leadership -to obtain breakthrough results, chief among them, sustained growth and profit, loyal customers, and a high-performing work force. The Power of Alignment:
* Offers a clear framework for aligning and linking the crucial elements that build and sustain a company's success
* Provides self-assessment tools as well as benchmarking measures for evaluating an organization's critical competencies
* Enables managers to create a work force where each employee can relate his or her activities to the goals and strategic objectives of the company
* Helps a company determine when and where it is out of alignment, and gives descriptions of such common company pathologies as "The Phantom Limb Syndrome," "Strategy Interruptus," and "Dead Man Walking"
* Prescribes specific steps for getting an organization back on track toward a single, shared vision of its goals
Essential reading for all managers and executives, The Power of Alignment offers a new way to reestablish focus and sustained energy, and is a dynamic approach for staying balanced and achieving extraordinary levels of performance.
"This book is savvy, detailed, timely, and clearly written. I highly recommend it for any leader facing the challenges posed by global business today." - Dana Mead Chairman and CEO, Tenneco Former Chairman National Association of Manufacturers
"It's not only the stars that have to be in alignment to reach your destination, it's all the internal processes, rewards, and drivers. Read The Power of Alignment, and while you may not unlock the secrets of the universe, you will overcome the barriers to corporate success." - William L. Boyan President and COO John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company.
"This important book goes beyond TQM and reengineering by creating a new approach called Alignment. The authors show that great companies manage to link strategy and people and integrate customer needs with continuous improvement processes." - Peter Augustsson President and Group Chief Executive AB SKF.
"The Power of Alignment gets to the heart of a critical element of organizational leadership, namely focus. Every leader who reads it will undoubtedly do some serious soul-searching about the consistency of corporate vision, goals, management systems, and incentive mechanisms." - Louis E. Lataif Dean Boston University School of Management.
Customer Reviews:
As significant today as it was when first published.......2007-08-26
After reviewing several books on Strategic Execution, I was continuously left with the feeling that the authors had ommitted a key ingredient. This book has convinced me that that key ingredient was "Alignment".
This book was published 10 years ago (OK, I am embarrassed that I have only just got around to reading it) but it is as significant today as it was when it was first published. Probably more so considering the rapid state of change that most companies are faced with today.
It is a simple read, and the concepts are easy to follow. What I enjoyed most about the book is that the suggestions are practical and you can take them and implement them immediately within an organization.
I noticed that one of the readers who has reviewed the book said that the book was required reading for his MBA course. 10 years on, I still think it should be required reading for any business executive.
This Is a Great Resource!.......2007-07-10
I'm always looking for visual ways of understanding critical elements of strategy. The Power of Alignment offers a very helpful way of thinking about four important ingredients in keeping the main thing, the main thing. Vertical alignment, the relationship between your strategy and the people on your team, "energizes...provides direction, and offers opportunity for involvement." Horizontal alignment refers to the connection between your processes and customers. Taken together the two measures provide some great insight into the development of genuine alignment.
One of the most interesting elements of the book is a 16 question diagnostic tool that is designed to provide a graphic view of your organization's alignment. Very helpful!
Make Sure That Everything You Do Points To Success !.......2006-05-03
Great book! The basic premise is that once a business has a raison d'etre, or a 'main thing', that profits are maximized by the alignment of four key business areas: Strategy, Processes, People, and Customers. Built on this premise are actionalbe ways to build a self-aligning organization. I got the sense of discovering truth while I read this book. Leadership isn't really about power, it is about responsibility. This book shows a manager at any level how to align his area to the overall strategy of the company and to the end products of the company. It shows how processes should be designed and what factors should be used to reward, recognize and evaluate employees. Great food for thought and realistic to implement.
Five Stars
Powerful Organizational Focus.......2003-05-28
Quite simply, this book was one of the best business management and leadership books I have ever read. It was well-written and expertly balanced management and leadership concepts with real-world examples of effectively aligned organizations, such as Federal Express and Southwest Airlines. This book should be read and discussed by leaders and managers at all levels, especially by mid- to senior-level executives.
In brief, alignment deals with the relationships among the people, processes, strategy, and customers of an organization relative to that organization's purpose, or what the authors called "the main thing." Alignment is both a noun, a state of being, and a verb, a set of actions. Vertical alignment connects organizational strategy with the people responsible for transforming that strategy into meaningful work. Horizontal alignment deals with understanding your customers' wants and then creating processes to deliver what your customers want, when and how they want it. Effective leadership nurtures the organizational culture that is built around and upon "the main thing," and it is this culture and leadership combination that drives and sustains self-aligning organizations in turbulent times.
The authors' analogy of landing a plane helped me to visualize the dynamics involved with organizational alignment. To land a plane, a pilot must adjust and react to multiple simultaneous factors and conditions (i.e. air speed, altitude, angle of approach, wind speed and direction, etc.) and then understand how a change in one will affect the others. Likewise, to align an organization, a leader must adjust and react to feedback about his people, processes, strategy, and customers, and then understand how a change in one will affect the others.
The authors clearly and thoroughly explained the alignment factors and conditions throughout the book. They followed their explanations with incisive questions for readers to ask about themselves and their organizations to assess their degree of alignment. Those questions were definitely a highlight of the book for they really helped to stimulate my thinking and should help inspire organizational progress to alignment. Another highlight was the appendices that contained examples of actual tools and products used and created by some of the aligned organizations studied by the authors.
The inside back cover jacket sums up why I give the book my highest recommendation: "Essential reading for all managers and executives, "The Power of Alignment" offers a new way to reestablish focus and sustained energy, and is a dynamic approach for staying balanced and achieving extraordinary levels of performance."
Alignment is Key Essential Usually Overlooked.......2001-07-13
I found this book easy reading, concise, and presented it's basic premise well with specific examples and good suggestions for creation and implementation.
Working as a Director in Managed Care for several pharmaceutical companies, it creates a focus for any organization and a roadmap for the future(physician, health plan, pharmaceutical company) to avoid many of the mistakes and pitfalls that have already been experienced in an attempt to align with the ever changing healthcare landscape.
For those who do account management, it provides a construct and roadmap to use to optimize alignment with internal customers and maximize resources to create value and return with the external customers (....and their customers.) As the authors point, alignment is a continuing process, not a single event in time. Many companies become quickly aligned with the past, and misaligned with the present & future, and can not sustain the competitive edge because they forget this basic premise that the authors reinforce.
The concepts are basic and fundamental, but usually overlooked and forgotten in the day to day business of rapidly growing companies and changing environments.
Amazon.com
With the many recent advances in technology, it seems, there has followed a diminution of quality. Electronic books have several advantages over their print counterparts, for instance. But for the time being, they're hard to use and unattractive to boot. Computers, which are supposed to make our lives easier, are commonly sources of frustration and wasted time. Movies are wondrously chock-a-block with special effects--but someone forgot the story. And so on.
Donald Norman, a retired professor of cognitive science, is bothered to no end by the fact that grappling with unfriendly objects now takes up so many of our hours. Over the course of several books, of which The Psychology of Everyday Things was the first, he has railed against bad design. He scrutinizes a range of artifacts that are supposed to make our daily living a little easier, and he finds most of them wanting. Why, he asks, does a door need instructions that say "push" or "pull"? A well-designed object, he argues, is self-explanatory. But well-designed objects are increasingly rare, for the present culture places a higher value on aesthetics than utility, even with such items as cordless screwdrivers, dresser drawers, and kitchen cabinets. In their concern for creating "art," many designers don't seem to consider what people actually do with things. Such disregard, Norman suggests, leads to few objects being standardized: think of all the different kinds of unsynchronized clocks that lurk in microwave ovens, VCRs, coffee makers, and the like--and of all the different kinds of batteries needed to drive them. Why, he wonders, must we reset all those clocks whenever the power goes off? Some designer somewhere, he ventures, ought to develop a master clock that communicates with all other electric clocks in a home--one that, when reset, synchronizes its slave units.
You don't need to be especially interested in technological matters to enjoy Norman's arguments. The book's underlying question is aimed at a global audience: will the design of everyday things improve? If this entertaining and, yes, well-designed book changes even a few minds, perhaps it will. --Gregory McNamee
Book Description
Donald Norman's best-selling plea for user-friendly design, with more than 175,000 copies sold to date, is now a Basic paperback.
First, businesses discovered quality as a key competitive edge; next came service. Now, Donald A. Norman, former Director of the Institute for Cognitive Science at the University of California, reveals how smart design is the new competitive frontier. The Design of Everyday Things is a powerful primer on how--and why--some products satisfy customers while others only frustrate them.
Customer Reviews:
Ever wondered why a tea pot looks the way it does?.......2007-09-23
Donald Norman, a very established expert on usability, interaction design and cognitive psychology, wrote this book back in the 80s. Although this is quite some time ago (for a book on design, at least), it still contains a lot of true things. The authors tackles a large amount of absurd mistakes in the design of every day items and explains where, why and how the design has failed. The book is written in an almost informal, novel-like way and therefore is an easy read. The author put a high information density into his text, which allows the reader to quickly advance from one idea to the next, without having the impression that the material repeats itself. A large amount of examples and stories help to convey the relatively abstract material in a way that it is fun to read. The mostly funny aspects of the examples help to connect the abstract information with real incidents. Although the author points out many design flaws, he never speaks negatively and always explains why design mistakes (or even user errors) occur and how they can be avoided.
If you like a book that explains common design errors and how to avoid them, this book is for you. If you want a tutorial in how to design an interaction, I would like to suggest Sharp, Rogers, Preece, 2007, instead.
Open your mind to usability.......2007-09-23
The Design of Everyday Things is not a common book. It is a book about thinking how things are made, and more important, why they are made that way. It's a fantastic way of speaking about usability, about utility, and about design.
After you read it, you'll start to look all around you. You can apply it to software design: Remember those hellish tools nobody could master even reading once and again the help? Or remember that tool that was so easy to use you didn't even opened the help... And analyse them, extract that factors make it good (or bad).
But you can apply it to your life. Are you dumb because you can't program your dishwasher, or maybe is that having 10 buttons is a mess?
I am left-handed and a lot of times I've thought "I can't do this well because it's designed for right handed". Now, sometimes I look more closely and see that even for them it's hard to use.
Something not common to read to learn something about usability and design, but a good source to learn them.
Learn to Apply Critical Aspects of Cognitive Engineering.......2007-09-13
Dr. Norman discusses many important aspects of cognitive engineering in this classic title, including human memory, errors, stages of action, constraints, knowledge in our heads vs. knowledge in the environment, feedback, mappings, to name just a few. He covers these topics fairly deeply, yet keeps them all quite interesting with his clear writing & excellent illustrations. A must read for industrial designers & usability engineers.
Past its 'sell-by' date.......2007-09-12
Originally published as "The Psychology of Everyday Things' in 1988, this book looks at the nexus of function and form from theoretical and practical points of view. While there is much to recommended it, and the principle are solid,the book is hopelessly out-of-date in its examples of everyday design, particularly computers and telephones. While Norman writes in a folksy, sometimes humorous style, DOET still reads like an undergraduate text book, and is highly repetitive. I'd look for something more contemporary.
Excellent reference.......2007-08-28
Its hard for me to imagine someone who _would not_ benefit from this book. This book is definitely meant to be studied, not simply read, although if you are just looking for some light reading, its nicely written for that too.
I am going to recommend this book to everyone I know.
Product Description
The Uncover series combines the best elements of a book with model elements to help readers truly "uncover" the mysteries of what makes things work. A fascinating three-dimensional presentation allows in-depth, hands-on exploration of the subject at hand. This unique "model" is easily build, deconstructed and re-built layer by layer, system by system just by turning a page, until an understanding of the topic is achieved. The complexities of the human body can be daunting, particularly for children. This book-model combination takes some of the mystery out of how the body works. It covers all the major systems and processes. Children get to look at each system on a different page, then by closing the book, combine them into a whole. 16 pages. Ages 8+
Customer Reviews:
Perfect for curious little ones.......2007-09-17
I gave this book to my nephew for his 5th birthday. My nephew is obsessed with learning and his topic of choice at that time was the human body. He literally stared at this book for an entire week. After a month or so, he could name every single bone in the body, point to all the major organs, and tell you how your digestive system works. This book is full of learning and is so interesting for kids because of the 3D body parts. Yes, you may lose a part or two, or need to glue the skull back in, but all in all, it's fascination and wonder for curious little kids!
Loved it!.......2007-07-30
I bought this for my 5 year old for her birthday. She wanted a stand up skelleton with organs that she could take out and look at. As she is only 5 and she has a 2 year old brother I opted for this book instead. She loves it! Not only can she look at the organs but she can also see the nerves, blood vessels and the brain. The book also contains projects you can do with your child that are pretty neat. Believe it or not this has become a bed time book.
Very cool. And no small pieces to lose.
Fun, eye-catching, AND educational.......2007-03-29
I did alot of research to find just the right book for my 7 year old, and am very happy with this book. We both love the way the parts of the body are 3-D in the middle of the book. He can identify most of the parts after just a few sit downs with me. Some of the text is too old for him, but it's easy to simplify the material to age appropriate levels. We will be able to use this book for many more years adding on information as he gets older!
What a "cool" book!.......2007-02-23
My 8 year old daughter has always been fascinated by the human body. I bought this for her as gift and she can't get enough of it. She takes it everywhere we go and is constantly reading it. We went to the doctor's office recently and of course she had her book with her. The doctor was very impressed and kept commenting on what a "cool" book it was. I have to agree, and so does my daughter.
So Cool!.......2007-01-21
We got this for our 4 year old because he was at the stage where he was asking so many questions about how the body works. It is fantastic! I love the little skeleton inside. Every page reveals a different layer that is explained on that page. He loves the book and will actually sit and look at it without my help now. Definitely would recommend this book!
Book Description
A unique, scientific look into why we are all believers.
In Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass, the White Queen tells Alice that to believe in a wildly improbable fact she simply needs to "draw a long breath and shut [her] eyes." Alice finds this advice ridiculous. But don't almost all of us, at some time or another, engage in magical thinking? Seventy percent of Americans believe in angels; 13 percent of British scientists "touch wood"; 40 percent of Americans believe that astrology is scientific. And that is only the beginning.
In Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast, Lewis Wolpert tackles one of the most important causes on the horizon of public debate: the nature of belief. Looking at belief's psychological basis and its possible evolutionary origins in physical cause and effect, Wolpert expertly investigates what science can tell us about those concepts we are so sure of, covering everything from everyday beliefs that give coherence to our experiences, to religious beliefs, to paranormal beliefs for which there is no evidence.
Customer Reviews:
Short on Evidence.......2007-10-09
Mr. (Dr?) Wolpert admittedly states, with all due candor, that his book has weak evidence (although he inconceivably suggests that this is only "at times"). How an honest scientist (even in the field of embryology, which is remarkably afield from evolutionary psychology) can write a book like this in the face of this fact is baffling.
And it shows.
The largest problem with this book is that the author himself has no idea what his causative explanation is. For example, pg. 67 "... I argue that it was causal thining that was a fundamental adaptation required for making complex tools, and that it was technology that drove human evolution". Despite this argument, he himself reverts to a different position later in the book. For example, pg. 117, "My suggestion is that [belief and religion] had their origin in the evolution of causal beliefs, which in turn had its origins in tool use" and also, pg. 79, "Thus causal thinking preceded and was an essential prerequisite for language development...Language would help enormously with the construction and use of new tools...".
As this should illuminate, the author can't keep his explanation straight. Instead of choosing a theory and then looking for evidence confirming or disconfirming his theory, he simply accepts that it is true, and uses all manner of shady evidence to prop up this ridiculous contradictory theory.
That said, he never does form a complete thought in the entire book, that I could detect at least. There are manifest evidences but none are convincing and many don't support the idea at all. A single sentence, however, can refute the entire thing. When the primitive tools of many societies are compared, there are remarkable similarities. These similarities disperse as the populations themselves, do, which is correlated, in turn, with the evolution of languages.
Hrm... that does tend to destroy his hypothesis. And it isn't a very good one, either.
Pass.
Harkius
The Great Ape that asked "Why?".......2007-10-07
I read this book as the last of a group of books comprising the recent works of Daniel Dennett (whew!)(Breaking the Spell), Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion), Christopher Hitchens (God is not Great), and both of the works by Sam Harris (The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation). For many reasons and particularly because of Wolpert's straightforward theme, I regret I ended rather than started with Wolpert's book in the group. As you are no doubt aware, the theme/proposition of Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast is that the cause-and-effect wiring that showed up in our brains to permit the competitive edge* of complex tool-making is the same wiring that causes our children to ask innumerable questions beginning with "why" too soon after learning to speak syntactically. It is this drive to model our world by causes and effects that competitively distinguishes us as a species. We are an anxious bunch when left with too many unanswered "whys" and turn to stories of causal links or assign temporally correlated events as causally linked in order to reassure ourselves all is well...things have always and will continue to happen for reasons that may be in our control or in the control of one or more benevolent supernatural entities. Just as the scientific method often tests hypotheses that are not immediately dispelled by common sense, these stories of causal links do not necessarily need a foundation in the natural world...they just need to satisfy the cause-effect craving. As you are aware, correlation may indicate but does not necessarily equate with causation and so scientific investigators are left determining, and re-determining, the causal mechanisms, if any, in nature underlying the correlation. Unlike the scientific method, once these stories of casual links take root, we are wired to hold them fast even in the face of independently corroborating facts to the contrary.
*Sorry, I just couldn't help myself from punning.
Combining Wolpert's book with the recent works of the above-cited authors, one takes away a broader theme (see Michael Shermer, Why Darwin Matters) that perhaps we humans got this far by the extra caution taken when seeing patterns where none exist, by immediately projecting intent and anticipated actions onto other beings or objects (irrespective of whether these beings were present or ever existed) and responding to those projections, and by developing both our technologies and our myths due to our insatiable quest for causal links. When contemplating an existence of our conscious self beyond the lifespan of our amazing, yet mortal, brain, we naturally feel a part of something bigger than ourselves. If this something involves or is orchestrated by one or more supernatural entities, we have no way of scientifically knowing.
Wolpert ends his book in a fashion reminiscent of the late Stephen J. Gould (Rock of Ages) where religious beliefs and scientific beliefs are each given their own due respect/space (as you may recall Gould's nonoverlapping magisteria). To the extent scientific beliefs are nearly inaccessible to those without sufficient skills in critical analysis and mathematics and to the extent religious beliefs can take hold in the mind of a child in a day, the populating advantage appears to go to religious beliefs. Unlike Dawkins, Wolpert climbs no soapbox to cry for enhanced critical analysis, mathematics and scientific reasoning in American public schools. He shows little if any distaste for purposeful "scientific" misinformation fed children in home schools or schools supported by literalist religions. Perhaps Wolpert took the matter as far as he felt comfortable in his closing that religious belief systems should not abridge the rights of others.
Nice Concept, Bad Execution.......2007-09-22
Wolpert selected a very interesting topic for this book. And that's all the nice things I have to say about it. He makes a large number of claims that he doesn't bother to support with evidence or explanation. He does not cite his references, although they are listed in the back matter (helpful, but not terribly so, since a particular statement cannot be linked to its source). His paragraphs seem to start and stop willy-nilly and do not provide clear arguments to support his claims. It is unclear which of his claims he intends to support and which he intends to lob toward any ear that will listen.
In short, this book seems like it was written in an ad-hoc, stream-of-consciousness manner. The book does not clearly present its arguments, define important terms like "understand" (this is very important when discussing this topic), or lend itself to detailed study of the subject matter. This book was not yet ripe for the printing, but it was printed nevertheless. Do us all a favor and don't support the publishing of bad books by purchasing them.
A Good Summary of Complex New Evidence.......2007-08-05
Six Impossible Things before Breakfast, by Lewis Wolpert.
This book was very interesting to me as an analysis of human understanding of causation and the importance of our understanding of causation in how we perform other intellectual functions. In particular, we formulate beliefs. One of the characteristics that separates us even from the closest animals is our ability to understand and rationalize cause and effect. Animals, even the great apes, have very limited understanding -- if any -- of causality. We know that from subjecting those animals to experiments in which they would be rewarded for exercising any intellectual capacity that they have.
Human beings have a strong motive to understand causation. Sometimes the intellectual process by which we reach conclusions about causation is described as a "belief engine." There is no doubt that our belief engine is somewhat faulty. Our belief engine "prefers quick decisions, it is bad with numbers, loves representativeness, and sees patterns where often there is only randomness. It is too often influenced by authority, and it has a liking for mysticism." p. 220. We suffer from the "Pollyanna principle," being far more likely to focus on and remember positive rather than negative reports about ourselves. The "Lake Wobegon effect," explains why 94% of college professors believe that they are better than their average colleague at their jobs. The "interviewer illusion" guarantees that we will, as a rule, feel far more confident in our ability to predict the future of others than an objective retrospective analysis would justify. We are overconfident in the correctness of our own judgments. The "Barnum effect" means that we will see merit in vague and generalized descriptions.
We tend to make up stories to explain what we have observed, and the stories often overcome the actual memories. We jump to conclusions on inadequate evidence and then hold to those conclusions with vigor. Placebos work. We are capable of internalizing "forced beliefs," manufactured beliefs forced on us by society or authority. These "forced beliefs" are often manufactured to support other beliefs "that are poorly supported by evidence." Page 88.
We are pathetically bad at evaluating risks, fearing the airplane flight more than the automobile trip to the airport. We have no natural ability to infer what we learn from statistics. We are good at acquiring superstitious beliefs, and terrible at getting rid of them. We are vulnerable to both hypnotic and ordinary suggestion. Studies have shown just how susceptible we are to the implantation of false memories.
We are subject to a strong confirmation bias, which means that once we have formed a belief, we are far more likely to credit new evidence that conforms to those beliefs then evidence that challenges them.
It is difficult to understand the human mind because the instrument with which we must understand it is, of course, the human mind. Studies of animals, babies, children, and people with various kinds of brain damage can give us valuable clues. Carefully designed experiments, with adequate controls, can give us valuable hints. Studies of obviously false beliefs held by people with mental illnesses or under the influence of mind altering drugs can help us understand as well. Even this is difficult because "there are no sharp dividing lines between normal beliefs and delusional beliefs." Page 101. Still, susceptibility to delusions has a strong genetic component, suggesting that our susceptibility is somewhat hardwired into the brain.
We are naturally resistant to scientific evidence because scientific results are frequently counterintuitive. "Almost without exception, any common-sense view of the world is scientifically false." Page 203.
Wolpert proposes that some of the same pathways that developed because of our understanding of causality, particularly tool use, help us to understand our "belief engine." He contends that, "religion and causal beliefs in general had their evolutionary origin in toolmaking, which drove evolution." He admits that the evidence is limited but he could find little or no evidence to contradict this hypothesis. Our belief system is genetically programmed, by which Wolpert means, "that there are circuits in our brain that are set up by the genes that predispose us to have religious and mystical beliefs. It is hard to imagine that the religious and mystical beliefs found in every culture have some other origin." Page 217-18.
This is a short book. It is a good introduction to the science of how the human mind works. I had heard of a lot of the studies discussed in this book before. The author does an excellent job of summarizing the significance of the studies. I enjoy books that explain the cutting edge of science to non-scientists. Wolpert goes into my short list of successful popularizers of complex science.
Fantastic .......2007-06-23
It is quite beautiful how Wolpert sets up the book to explain how some can reject his premise of a non-existent god. The facts contained in this book, and the occasional theory (though well-backed ones), are brilliant and come from a man with an extensive background in the field he writes about, taking special care to write in a way anyone, even an unscientific mind, can understand. It is fantastic how someone can understand, through this book, why they reject certain arguments (specifically that a god is irrational) yet walk away still denying everything, holding on to their old beliefs, knowing exactly how. Though that of course is only a mere portion of the book. Brilliant.
Book Description
Based on questions from women who have attended author David Deida's highly acclaimed relationships seminars, this must-have book puts male behavior under the microscope. Included are chapters on sex, work, relationships and communication. Interspersed throughout are sidebars that shed light on the many faces of men and help women grasp what makes them act the way they do.
Customer Reviews:
It's A Guy Thing.......2007-09-23
I loved this book with its short little chapters covering specific things that guys just do and many women just don't get. It's a must read for any gal who seems to think her man should act or react like her girlfriends or is just plain baffled by male behavior. David Deida is genius in presenting the differences between the male and female psyche. Another recommendation for women would be to read Dear Lover: A Woman's Guide To Men, Sex, And Love's Deepest Blissalso by David Deida and The Way Of The Superior Man: A Spiritual Guide to Mastering the Challenges of Woman, Work, and Sexual Desireshould be required reading for all men!
One of the best books on understanding the sexes.......2007-08-23
I've been involved in self awareness work for 29 years. The relief I find by understanding Divine Masculine and Feminine energies is tremendous. It has given me the clarity to know what serves me best in intimate relationship, how I can best serve my partner, and how we can keep passion and love alive. I wish this book was given to every girl when she turned 16 as a "rite of passage" tool. As a Holistic Energy Healer, I use these teachings with clients to help them through crisis and gain a deeper understanding of their own true nature. This book is laid out in bite sized chunks of info that are easy to assimilate and refer to. It is a great on its own, or as an introduction to David Deida's other books.
Men, Demystified.......2007-08-14
This guy knows what it means to be a man, and he puts that into words better than anyone else I've ever heard or read. This book is a must-have for any and every woman who is confused about her man. If you read this book, you will understand what makes men tick.
mars and venus takes a spiritual step.......2006-07-17
I've read Deida's "The way of the Superior Man" as well as "Dear Lover" and am a bit biased at this point as I think his work is helpful within a larger understanding of how men and women typically behave (read Men are from Mars Women are from Venus first), but can come across as extreme at times (more in "dear lover" than this book or "superior man") Overall, Deida's work has been helpful for me. I've explored Deida's ideas and advice with my Man over tha past several months, and find it is usually helpful, but I think much of it would have been hard for me to swallow/potentially damaging if I hadn't read other books on male/female behaviour first. Use your judgement and filter the more perverse aspects of Deida's philosophy against the larger picture of your ethics and use what is helpful to you, discard the rest.
guy thing.......2006-03-19
This book was helpful for understanding guy logic. I learned alot and found it informative. However, the book also tends to be repetitive and could have been edited more stringently.
Customer Reviews:
read it.......2006-07-11
This book has dramatically changed the way I conceptualize reality. It is hard to follow but incredibly insightful. It will hurt to get through but once you do, you might consider practising your best Mr.Universe pose and claiming -- in the words of the the "Governator" -- "No pain, no gain."
I recommend the following steps to understanding this book:
1) read once;
2) see a psychiatrist;
3) read again;
4) think;
5) read again
6) understand.
Im only considering step two. I might just skip it and go strait to step 3.
Good luck.
Difficult but worth it.......2004-04-05
This book is one of the most important philosophy texts of the 20th century, if for no other reason than as an eye-opener. The text is a difficult read (although nowhere near as opaque as Derrida). The section on how our culture and, hence, our world-view has been "set" by accepted taxonomies is worth the read all by itself. I have come back to these comments again and again. Taxonomies are useful, but we need to understand the constraints on understanding imposed by such
Obtuse but Sharp.......2003-02-25
Foucault's stuff is hardly pleasure reading, but it rewards in other ways, more subtly. If you don't read Foucault without coming away with a deeper sense of the world around you, how power and knowledge is diffuse and not central, you would be a rare person. This book isn't so much concerned with power as it is the history of ideas, though.
Order ?.......2001-08-07
The order of things is the second book that I read by this late iconoclastic writer. I greatly enjoyed his stimulating and thought provoking "Discipline and Punish" (DP), yet after a struggle that I can only compare to my adolescent reading of the Brothers Karamazov, I ended this book with an overwhelming feeling of its futility.
This book started its life under the French title "les mots et les choses", things and words. In the introduction Foucault tries to provide the reader with both an explanation and a road map for this archaeological expedition. He explains that this book should be seen as an attempt towards describing the evolution of representation of the world in thoughts/words over the last 5 centuries. Not a small task, and not an easy one for that matter.
It is unfortunate that Foucault did not follow the approach that he chose in DP. In that book he chose one central leitmotiv, the spread of discipline from the military throughout an increasingly complex society, and could leave the "main road" at many instances without the risk of the reader getting lost. This book dearly misses such a backbone. Even worse: whenever Foucault seems to suggest one, he willfully/deviously/confusingly immediately takes an unannounced turn. For example in the introduction he goes in detail about the representation of the world in a language of words. OK you think, that sets us on track of a history of the world with Kant at a critical juncture. Yet in the first chapter we suddenly get a cold shower of a completely chaotic and overwrought description of a Velasquez painting, that has been done much better using less than 10% of the number of words, and is at complete odds with the goals set in the introduction.
Next, Foucault visits Cervantes' masterpiece. He describes Don Q. as representing man before arrival of the stage of distinction between things and their representations. Cute of course, but wasn't Cervantes fictitious book meant as a comedy. On top of that, one cannot help but consider Cervantes own representation of the first part of Don Q. in the second part of the novel a much clearer exploration of the subject of representation than Foucault's.
However, inspired by Don Q., Mickey F. chooses his own collection of windmills and goes on a quest that has way more in common with a self-gratulatory/-exploratory/-gratifying acid trip, than the archaeological quest that he promised. Purposely mentioning Kant as the gatekeeper between to eras, but wasting disproportionate amounts of words on some often obscure lesser gods, Foucault could not have done a better job in helping a well-intentioned reader to get lost in this onanistic swamp.
As such, finishing this book became an increasingly aggravating and futile struggle. In despite of all his cunning and virtuosity, it is just a clear impression of blind vanity that remains. Too bad, Michel. A brain -certainly such a good one, as you had- is a terrible thing to waste.
Seminal work of French Structuralism.......2001-06-14
As much as Foucault would have hated the label, this book is one of the core texts that anchor the French Structuralist school of thought. So, what does that mean exactly? Well, it means that style is as important, if not more so, than substance. So let me begin with style.
The style of the book is what you're likely to notice most immediately. The Structuralists are famous for subordinating lucidity and logical rigor for what is sometimes called "vast erudition." Vast erudition is that set of decidedly French stylistic elements that include such frequently beautiful techniques as intentional obscurity of meaning; undisciplined, looping, rambling metaphors which go on for pages and pages; flowery, arcane rhetoric; and more neologisms than the French Academy could possibly record. In short, Foucault uses 100 words to say what he could have said in 10, but it is great fun to read despite its difficulty. Trust me, if you didn't get it, probably he didn't intend for you to. And what critics like to hail as erudition is sometimes nothing more than purposeful obscurity and literary name dropping. Daniel Boorstin is as erudite as any French Structuralist, but he is infinitely more lucid.
Now, there's the substance. Foucault's essential thesis is that science is a front for an unconscious network of order relating ALL branches of human knowledge. The thesis is, if anything, an epistemological statement. Typical of modern French scholarship in general, this book cuts a wide interdisciplinary swath through arts and sciences to show how seemingly unrelated fields of human knowledge--biology, economics and language, for example--are really empirical manifestations of the same human process. At the heart of the matter is the notion that all of human knowledge is socially constructed, ignorant of the submerged "order of things" that joins it under the surface. Hence, we must discover this order by means of digging, by means of "archaeology."
So, don't worry about deciphering every sentence. Once you get the essential ideas (they're in the Preface), sit back and enjoy Foucault's collage of words and thoughts.
Book Description
Morale is down--spirits are low--the workload is mounting. Today's hard-working employees need a break! And nothing feels better than Care Packages for the Workplace from internationally known, lift-your-spirits author Barbara Glanz. This timely gift-book format provides the hard at work with dozens of simple ``brighten-your-day'' ideas such as: beautifying the work space in order to do what Tom Peters recommends--``Fight Bland Dullness!''; putting a personal signature on all work; sharing a joke-a-day, one month at a time; holding grapevine meetings where rumors are openly discussed; partaking in good news hours where positive news is shared; creating special awards for a job well done; scheduling lunches with management.
Customer Reviews:
Regenerate with Humor; Read WorkLaughs.......2007-01-17
This delightful small book skillfully shows you how not to stress out at work. Another way to get a perspective of your job situation is to learn to laugh at things that stress you out. WorkLaughs:Quips, Quotes, and Anecdotes about Making a Buck can provide you with the laughs to do just that-- from job interviews to meetings to dealing with the boss, WorkLaughs will show you that all aspects of the job can be a laughing matter. (WorkLaughs is also available on Amazon).
Very Pleased Customer from Chicago.......2006-02-26
I am so please to be able to say that product was shipped early and great condition!!!!!!!!!
Great IDEAS.......2003-09-14
This book provided a great deal of information and ideas to draw from. I enjoyed that I could read it quickly. I was able to apply some of the ideas or variations of them at work !
Changing the way you look at work.......2001-12-29
Barbara Glantz has written a life altering book--at least a life at the workplace altering book. It is easy to read and filled with hundreds of big and little things that can change the way you spend 40 hours a week. Very positive, super ideas.
There are better books on the topic..........2001-01-07
This book is just okay. There are a lot of examples of how to improve morale at work, but the writing isn't that great, and the book isn't very well organized. There are much better books on the topic...try Managing to Have Fun by Matt Weinstein or 1001 Ways to Energize Employees by Bob Nelson.
Book Description
Did you know that games can be a terrifically effective way to build team spirit, communication, and trust among people who work together day in and day out? Now you can spark morale in any work group by choosing from 70 stimulating games and activities specifically designed for the manager who's looking to raise sagging morale in a department, liven up boring staff meetings, enable team members to collaborate smoothly and effectively, and much more!
Customer Reviews:
Superb resource book.......2007-05-03
I had this series of books before - loaned them out at work and never got them back (go figure!). Happy to have found them again here.
Great book for great ideas.......2007-03-14
Remember when you were in arts and craft classes, this book is like that
Great.......2007-01-12
Excellent quality and turnaround time, received when promised. The games are fun, and not immature for adults!
Patronising rubbish.......2006-11-04
It's strange how so many businesspeople I meet tend to be right-wing, anti-communist and great believers in personal freedom, yet run their businesses like Stalin's Russia. Workers are motivated by a mixture of fear and ambition and any individual opinion that deviates from the party line is seen as a threat.
I'm a manager. All I ask of my staff is that they're honest, work hard and treat everyone with respect. That's it. For my part I give them a clear idea of what I expect and make sure that they have the tools to do the job and receive recognition of their achievements. What I don't do is mess with their heads.
This book is symptomatic of a trend in management culture where it is not enough to ask people to do their jobs well, we now have to re-engineer their souls. The aim of this book is to motivate staff with 'fun' activities in staff training sessions, but the reality is intrusive and patronising. One game invites workers to mention a childhood achievement that they were particularly proud of and then get other members of the team to discuss it. Well, I believe in personal freedom and part of that is not feeling obliged to talk about personal things in a work setting.
Chairman Mao had his 'Cultural Revolution' and this smacks of the same attitude. It's not enough for people to do as they're told, they now have to have the right attitude and if they're not willing to be team players, they're out. It's like 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers'.
Buy this book to find out how emotionally dysfunctional people struggle to motivate teams and get it horribly wrong.
Big book of Lousy Ideas.......2005-10-06
This was a complete waste of money! The ideas were stale and elementary. Do not waste your money or your time flipping through it.
Books:
- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Unabridged Audio Program)
- The 90/10 Weight-Loss Plan: A Scientifically Desinged Balance of Healthy Foods and Fun Foods
- The Accidental Mind: How Brain Evolution Has Given Us Love, Memory, Dreams, and God
- The Argonautika: The Story of Jason and the Quest for the Golden Fleece (Hellenistic Culture and Society)
- The Blue Day Book
- The Body Sculpting Bible for Women, Revised Edition: The Way to Physical Perfection (Body Sculpting Bible)
- The Complete Book of Massage
- The Cure for All Diseases
- The Diabetes & Heart Healthy Cookbook
- The Last Legion: A Novel
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar
- New Food of Life: Ancient Persian and Modern Iranian Cooking and Ceremonies
- Coal Miner's Holiday: Stories
- From Normandy to the Ruhr: With the 116th Panzer Division in WWII
- Foop!
- Introduction to Quantum Mechanics
- Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone
- Check Point Next Generation Security Administration
- Eastern Europe at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century: A Guide to the Economies in Transition
- Dictionary of Occupational Titles: 2 Volumes in 1
General
| Self-Help
| Health, Mind & Body
| Subjects
| Books
Ten Stupid Things Men Do to Mess Up Their Lives
Ten Stupid Things Couples Do to Mess Up Their Relationships
The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands
Bad Childhood---Good Life: How to Blossom and Thrive in Spite of an Unhappy Childhood
Stupid Things Parents Do To Mess Up Their Kids: Don't Have Them If You Won't Raise Them
