Wrong again

Bobby Duffy, director of the Policy Institute and professor of public policy at Kings College London, explains Why We're Wrong About Nearly Everything in his 2018 book with that title. One thing I was wrong about was buying his book.

Actually his explanation of why we're so wrong about so much is the most rewarding part of the book. We are all biased, of course, and our biases shaped our opinions. Most of us view the past through rose-colored glasses. The good old days, when we were young and frisky, seems better to us than today's world. We are fooled by the people and media we trust. We believe what we want to believe. We're bad at math. We're bad at logic. We think our particular family group, town, school, country or whatever is better than all the others.

Duffy explains all this better than I can and is worth reading for that reason. Of course, most of us will have known most of this already. We just tend to believe those explanations apply to other people, not to us.

Yet so many of his examples of what we're wrong about seem ridiculous. What percentage of people do you think are happy? How many young adults do you think still live with their parents? What percentage of the population in your country will be Muslim in four years? But my questions are: Where's the shame in being wrong about any of those things? Why are the questions important enough for any but a few people to worry about?

Some of Duffy's value judgments seem suspect. Don't thy reveal his own biases? Might not they be as wrong as anybody else's opinions?

The best parts of this book could have been summarized in one fascinating magazine article. The book itself seems like overkill.