Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind by Gary Marcus

Now, if you don’t want to blame your momma anymore, this is the book for you. All those problems -- making those questionable food and partner choices, believing in the devil and not in NASA’s moon trip, making dumb math mistakes, forgetting just about anything sometime—These problems are not your mama’s fault; they are not your fault. Those proto-monkeys and lizards did it. They spawned and recreated, bequeathing you a bottom brain that smolders and cooks up schemes for living in the jungle, not the city. Your brain stays always alert for that big, furry, pointy-toothed thing you have nightmares about, while always ready to grub for smelly roots, tasty rabbit parts and potential breeding partners. We have a lizard brain that is worse than our parents’. Gary Marcus explains our thinking tools as a big kludge—just a pile up of lizard, mammal, and, finally, faulty reasoning circuits that do not play well together.

The worst is--we default to the lizard brain when life gets tough.

Most people know how evolution failed us by standing up four-legged hoofers to a life of backaches and, eventually, metal knees. But the million year old brain is just as bad—we react; we don’t plan. We were evolved to eat, not to do math. According to Mr. Marcus, it’s a wonder we can even post well-reasoned stuff like this. He wrote a slim little offering, but it is a nice intro for the layperson. Note: I prefer Amos Twersky talking about wacky thinking or Eleanor Rosch explaining how we make categories in our heads.