Skip to main content

Tribal - Michael Morris ****

Before I got into popular science books I was a big fan of the really impressive business book - something like, for instance, Maverick, Ricardo Semler's astonishing account of transforming a family business. Now mostly a reader of popular science, I find most business books facile and full of padding - so it was refreshing to read this business-popular science crossover on the nature of our 'tribal' cultural instincts - primarily relating to peers, heroes and ancestors in the broadest sense and how these influence our interactions.

Although in some ways I'd dispute Michael Morris's approach in putting tribalism central - I personally am more inclined to see the way we tell each other stories as central to what he describes, with tribalism just as symptom of that - it is still an engaging hypothesis. Morris gives us plenty of examples from around the world of the benefits that these instincts have brought over the millennia.

Perhaps particularly interesting at a time when American politics has been described as 'toxic tribalism' is Morris's take on this. He starts strongly with a story of sharing a cab with a Republican on the night Hillary Clinton lost the election in 2016, emphasising the shock realisation that his own Democrat tribalism was just as much based on poor understanding as was his opponent's Republican equivalent. There is also an attempt to suggest a way to reduce the toxicity by moving from an 'anti-them' approach to a 'pro-us' approach, though this is a little short on practical solutions. 

All in all, I found the book engaging, but part of the reason I consider it a business book crossover is that, unlike a true popular science book it is very shallow in the way it engages with the science, using lots (and lots) of passing references to studies which hardly ever give any detail of what was involved or the science behind them. (I also consider it a business book as it was shortlisted for the FT business book of the year.)

Worryingly, there is not a mention of the replication crisis that has rocked psychology and other soft sciences - not only are many of the studies referenced from the pre-2012 period when it has been suggested around two thirds of studies were useless, Morris even references some that have been specifically debunked.

Because, however, we are presented with quite a shallow take, this is more forgivable than in book with a purer popular science approach. Even though the grounding in academic research may be limited, it's hard not to feel that there is a genuine basis for this concept. I can't entirely forgive the author for ignoring the replication crisis, but this doesn't nullify the engaging nature of the premise.

Hardback:   
Kindle:  
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
These articles will always be free - but if you'd like to support my online work, consider buying a virtual coffee:
Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Antigravity Enigma - Andrew May ****

Antigravity - the ability to overcome the pull of gravity - has been a fantasy for thousands of years and subject to more scientific (if impractical) fictional representation since H. G. Wells came up with cavorite in The First Men in the Moon . But is it plausible scientifically?  Andrew May does a good job of pulling together three ways of looking at our love affair with antigravity (and the related concept of cancelling inertia) - in science fiction, in physics and in pseudoscience and crankery. As May points out, science fiction is an important starting point as the concept was deployed there well before we had a good enough understanding of gravity to make any sensible scientific stabs at the idea (even though, for instance, Michael Faraday did unsuccessfully experiment with a possible interaction between gravity and electromagnetism). We then get onto the science itself, noting the potential impact on any ideas of antigravity that come from the move from a Newtonian view of a...
Post a Comment
Read more

The World as We Know It - Peter Dear ***

History professor Peter Dear gives us a detailed and reasoned coverage of the development of science as a concept from its origins as natural philosophy, covering the years from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. inclusive If that sounds a little dry, frankly, it is. But if you don't mind a very academic approach, it is certainly interesting. Obviously a major theme running through is the move from largely gentleman natural philosophers (with both implications of that word 'gentleman') to professional academic scientists. What started with clubs for relatively well off men with an interest, when universities did not stray far beyond what was included in mathematics (astronomy, for instance), would become a very different beast. The main scientific subjects that Dear covers are physics and biology - we get, for instance, a lot on the gradual move away from a purely mechanical views of physics - the reason Newton's 'action at a distance' gravity caused such ...
Post a Comment
Read more

It's On You - Nick Chater and George Loewenstein *****

Going on the cover you might think this was a political polemic - and admittedly there's an element of that - but the reason it's so good is quite different. It shows how behavioural economics and social psychology have led us astray by putting the focus way too much on individuals. A particular target is the concept of nudges which (as described in Brainjacking ) have been hugely over-rated. But overall the key problem ties to another psychological concept: framing. Huge kudos to both Nick Chater and George Loewenstein - a behavioural scientist and an economics and psychology professor - for having the guts to take on the flaws in their own earlier work and that of colleagues, because they make clear just how limited and potentially dangerous is the belief that individuals changing their behaviour can solve large-scale problems. The main thesis of the book is that there are two ways to approach the major problems we face - an 'i-frame' where we focus on the individual ...
Post a Comment
Read more