308. Iris Berent The Blind Storyteller: How We Reason About Human Nature
b'
The Blind Storyteller is an intellectual journey that draws on philosophy, anthropology, linguistics, cognitive science, and Berent\\u2019s own cutting-edge research. It grapples with a host of provocative questions, from why we are so afraid of zombies, to whether dyslexia is \\u201cjust in our heads,\\u201d from what happens to us when we die, to why we are so infatuated with our brains. The end result is a startling new perspective on the age-old nature/nurture debate \\u2014 and on what it means to be human.
Shermer and Berent discuss: nature/nurture genes/environment biology/culture \\u2022 language and innate knowledge \\u2022 what babies are born knowing \\u2022 how people reason about human nature \\u2022 dualism \\u2022 essentialism \\u2022 theory of mind \\u2022 the nature of the self \\u2022 innate beliefs in the soul and afterlife \\u2022 free will and determinism \\u2022 how people think about mental illness and disorders \\u2022 how one\\u2019s theory of human nature effects one\\u2019s attitudes about nearly everything.
Iris Berent is a Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University, Boston, and the Director of the Language and Mind Lab. Berent\\u2019s research has examined how the mind works and how we think it does. She is the author of dozens of groundbreaking scientific publications and the recipient of numerous research grants. Her previous book, The Phonological Mind (Cambridge, 2013), was hailed by Steven Pinker as a \\u201cbrilliant and fascinating analysis of how we produce and interpret sound.\\u201d
'