Recommendation: Tavris and/or Burton

If our Jeff Center lecture committee sets up a visit to Ashland by a book author, would you like to read the book? Would you like to read book(s) by writers being actively considered by the committee, and pass your opinion along to them? If so, here are some to consider:

The Jeff Center will almost certainly host Carol Tavris in spring 2015. We might want to read her book “Mistakes were made (but not by me) Why we justify foolish beliefs, bad decisions, and hurtful acts.” (2007). This book focuses on cognitive dissonance, and why it doesn’t lead us reliably or directly to good decisions. (This means she would disagree with Peter Boghossian, who wrote the book “A Manual for Creating Atheists” (2013) and says we can get people to at least question, and maybe change, their beliefs, by creating cognitive dissonance.)

The committee is also considering Robert Burton, whose most recent book is “A Skeptic’s Guide to the Mind: What Neuroscience can and cannot tell us about ourselves.” (2014). We’ve read his earlier book “On Being Certain” (2008), and I am very interested in where he is going next.

--Sandra