Third Millennium Thinking: Creating Sense in a World of Nonsense

by Saul Perlmutter PhD, John Campbell PhD, Robert MacCoun PhD

Overview

Based on a wildly popular UC Berkeley course, how to use scientists’ tricks of the trade to make the best decisions and solve the hardest problems in age of uncertainty and overwhelming information.  

In our deluge of information, it’s getting harder and harder to distinguish the revelatory from the contradictory. How do we make health decisions in the face of conflicting medical advice? Does the research cited in that article even show what the authors claim? How can we navigate the next Thanksgiving discussion with our in-laws, who follow completely different experts on the topic of climate change?
 
In Third Millennium Thinking, a physicist, a psychologist, and a philosopher introduce readers to the tools and frameworks that scientists have developed to keep from fooling themselves, to understand the world, and to make decisions. We can all borrow these trust-building techniques to tackle problems both big and small.
 
Readers will learn:

• How to achieve a ground-level understanding of the facts of the modern world
• How to chart a course through a profusion of possibilities  
• How to work together to take on the challenges we face today
• And much more

 
Using provocative thought exercises, jargon-free language, and vivid illustrations drawn from history, daily life, and scientists’ insider stories, Third Millennium Thinking offers a novel approach for readers to make sense of the nonsense.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316438100
Publisher:	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date:	03/26/2024
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	53,664
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Saul Perlmutter is a 2011 Nobel Laureate, sharing the prize in physics for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe. He is a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and a senior scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
  
John Campbell is a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. He has held Guggenheim and NEH Fellowships and served as President of the European Society for Philosophy and Psychology.
 
Robert MacCoun is a social psychologist, a professor of law at Stanford University, and a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute. He received the 2019 James McKeen Cattell Award for lifetime achievement from the Association for Psychological Science.

Editorial Reviews

02/19/2024

In this solid if elementary primer, Nobel Prize–winning physicist Perlmutter, UC Berkeley philosopher Campbell (Reference and Consciousness), and Stanford University psychologist MacCoun (Drug War Heresies) equip lay readers with conceptual tools for assessing technical research. Covering common ways that errors creep into scientific studies, the authors note that researchers run the risk of identifying nonexistent or meaningless patterns when working with complex data. For instance, the physicists who discovered the Higgs particle took preemptive action to avoid such misreadings by assessing information from the Large Hadron Collider in two independent teams before comparing findings. To maintain a critical eye when considering complicated problems, the authors recommend adopting a “third millennium thinking” mindset that involves embracing “intellectual humility” by recognizing that “scientific evidence can provide probabilities but not absolute certainties.” Discussions on the dangers of confirmation bias and drawing sweeping conclusions from isolated anecdotes are competent if familiar. More intriguing is the authors’ proposal for “deliberative polling.” Stemming from their concern that credulous readings of flawed data contribute to political polarization, the authors recommend that “a randomly selected ‘jury’ of people drawn from the American public” solve policy issues with moderated input from experts across the political spectrum. The result is an efficient overview of methods for evaluating scientific claims. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

A model of clear thinking, and a terrific discussion of how to use logic and evidence to solve the hardest problems. This might just be the cure for what ails us.”—Cass R. Sunstein, Robert Walmsley University Professor, Harvard University, and author of Decisions About Decisions

“If our species is to stagger through another millennium, we need to get better at thinking about how we think—and conducting high-stakes debates more intelligently. This book lays out, with superb clarity, the path forward.”—Philip E. Tetlock, author of Superforecasting

“This is a wonderful book for anyone interested in how best to navigate our complex world of information overload. Engagingly and informatively, it emphasizes how processes used in the practice of science can provide widely-applicable tools for approaching individual and collective decision-making. A truly valuable resource for taking on the challenges facing our species and the planet.”—Elizabeth Blackburn, PhD, Nobel Prize winner and coauthor of The Telomere Effect

"A physicist, a philosopher, and a psychologist walk into a book, and mix an inviting cocktail about how to think through big problems and make effective decisions in a Third Millennium age of overwhelming, complex, and contradictory information. A must read for anyone who needs to make expert judgments without being experts themselves."—David Dunning, Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan and discoverer of the Dunning-Kruger Effect

“In a world filled with uncertainty and fractured by polarization, this guide to critical thinking couldn’t come at a better time. A Nobel laureate physicist, an influential philosopher, and an expert on legal psychology reveal how you can use the tools of science in everyday life to make smarter judgments and wiser decisions.”—Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and Hidden Potential, and host of the podcast Re:Thinking

“Third Millennium Thinking offers a roadmap for making more effective decisions in an increasingly complex and noisy world. If you could only read one book about how to think more clearly, make it this one.”—Annie Duke, author of Thinking in Bets

“A pertinent study about how knowing what questions to ask is the way to cut through confusion and misunderstanding. . . the authors offer valuable tools for understanding this complex, confusing era.”—Kirkus Reviews

“The strategies laid out in Third Millennium Thinking are very likely to help people navigate life decisions, and have the potential to empower better thinking about some of today’s pressing challenges.”—The Wall Street Journal

From the Publisher

2024-01-04
A pertinent study about how knowing what questions to ask is the way to cut through confusion and misunderstanding.

This interesting, challenging book is based on a popular “Big Ideas” course at UC Berkeley. Perlmutter, Campbell, and MacCoun—a physicist, philosopher, and psychologist, respectively—aim to help people “learn to think about big problems and make effective decisions in this ‘too much information’ age.” Media saturation, data overload, fake news, and the proliferation of experts (and pseudo-experts) have combined to make the world seem like a labyrinthine mess. The authors argue that the methodology of science provides a way out, and it can be applied broadly as long as the process is properly understood. They lay out the questions to ask, the ways to separate facts from opinions, how to distinguish reliable information from background noise, how to think in terms of probabilities instead of absolutes, and how to incorporate personal values. As the authors demonstrate throughout, this approach involves a change of thinking. Get out of the echo chamber of the like-minded, they advise, and make contact with people who have different views. Review your opinions and policies, and admit it if you were wrong. Be aware of your own biases, especially the tendency to believe things simply because they confirm your views. Perlmutter, Campbell, and MacCoun provide case studies and thought exercises from their respective fields, but they avoid jargon wherever possible. They admit that the methodology can be difficult to use, although it gets easier with practice. This book is not an easy book to read and requires a good deal of attention, but the authors present many useful lessons for making sense of what is happening around us.

Working across disciplines, the authors offer valuable tools for understanding this complex, confusing era.

Kirkus Reviews