StarAstrologer - Books : Everyday Survival: Why Smart People Do Stupid Things
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 155.9
EAN: 9780393058383
ISBN: 0393058387
Label: W. W. Norton
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: September 15, 2008
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Sales Rank: 114334
Studio: W. W. Norton
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
The author of the life-changing bestseller Deep Survival once again brings us revelations about ourselves from the cutting edge of science.
Laurence Gonzales shows how modern society has made us lazy and susceptible to previously unknown threats. "Curiosity, awareness, attention," he writes. "Those are the tools of our everyday survival...we all must be scientists at heart or be victims of forces that we don't understand."
Gonzales turns his talent for gripping narrative, knowledge of the way our minds and bodies work, and bottomless curiosity about the world to the topic of how we can best use the lessons of our evolutionary history to overcome the hazards of everyday life. He finds that natural laws profoundly affect our actions, and he reveals the hidden causes and costs of our behavior, whether as individuals or as a species whose decisions may be leading to darker times. Whether you are climbing a mountain or the corporate ladder, Everyday Survival will change the way you view your choices in our complex, dangerous, and quickly changing world.
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
This book was a struggle to read. It started off well with examples of how and why people can make fatal or critical mistakes in certain situations, such as Flight 587 which crashed in New York, but then the book went on a long, speculative diatribe about one particular archeological ancestor, the Laoteli woman, and how she and her presumed child may have dealt with a presumed catastrophe. Gonzales goes back to this character, completely based soley on a set of footprints, as a kind of model for ... Read More
Rating:  -
The first half of the book gives some solid vignettes about internal scripts and behavioral models that explain why our brains sometimes run on autopilot and get us into trouble. But the final half of the book really has nothing to do with the title. It's a meandering, free-association ramble about whatever the heck happened to be in the author's head the minute his fingers were striking the keys. Once I got to Page 254 where he tries to compare the curve of entropy of the universe since the big ... Read More
Rating: -
After hanging on every word while reading Deep Survival, I was very disappointed with Everyday Survival. The first 3-4 chapters showed promise with the same excellent story-telling blended with psychology research, evolutionary psychology, and well developed arguments. After that, however, the book devolves and gets lost in ramblings on entropy, environmentalism, and other topics that have little to do with "everyday survival". Instead, just when you think you know where Gonzales is heading, he drifts ... Read More
Rating:  -
Pros: First six chapters are interesting and about the main reasons why folks do silly things with good examples provided.
Cons: Last 10 chapters are an odd mix of material on saving the Earth, physics, entropy, natural history, "look who I met when I went here" and biography of Gonzales and his father. Sources not cited, only selected bibliography provided. Poorly edited: Caption of picture on page 22 of the hardcover is incorrect, "dollars" is spelled "dolars" on page 210.
Rating: -
Like other reviewers, I have a dog eared, underlined, heavily used copy of Deep Survival. So when I saw that Gonzales had a new book out, I couldn't wait to read it. What disappoints me about this book is not that it is not as good as Deep Survival, but that it starts with some interesting ideas and ends up getting side tracked and derailed.
The first six chapters are excellent. His link between how we make decisions and our impact on the environment are elegant and provocative. He talks ... Read More
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