Respecting Truth

Lee McIntyre is a Research Fellow at the Center for Philosophy and History of Science at Boston University and author of Dark Ages: The Case for a Science of Human Behavior (MIT Press, 2006). He is co-editor (with Alex Rosenberg) of the forthcoming Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Social Science.

Preface. Chapter 1. Attitudes Toward Truth: Willful Ignorance and the Last Glimpse of Shoreline. Chapter 2. The Value of Truth: Should My Genes Care Whether I Can Justify My Belief That A Tiger Is Coming Toward Me? Chapter 3. The Roots of Human Irrationality: Behavioral Economics, Self-Deception, and Lawn Chair Larry. Chapter 4. The Assault on Truth and the Triump of Ideology: The Flying Spaghetti Monster, Climate Change, and the "Myth" of Race. Chapter 5. Sources of (Mis)Information: Why the Media Worship Objectivity But the Ivory Tower Rejects Truth. Chapter 6. Sources of Hope: The Wisdom of Crowds, Group Benefits, and Why Wikipedia Is More Reliable Than You Think. Chapter 7. A More Reasonable World: Better Living Through Empirical Social Science. Bibliography.