Copyright: 2008
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
ISBN: 0-618-87964-1

Gary Marcus provides an entertaining trip through some of the oddities and weirdnesses of the human mind.  The title Kluge reveals Marcus' main premise: the brain is not a wonderfully architected organ but rather a system of subsystems that has been cobbled together by an imperfect process called evoltion to produce a workable but far from perfect solution.  Within a few pages of starting the book, Marcus makes it plain that he is a highly educated professor used to spending time around those less educated.  His schtick seems to be that of an argumentative professor that simultaneously wants to disprove intelligent design as well as put the damper on those who think evolution leads to perfection. 

Pop Psychology

If you haven't read Blink or The Paradox of Choice you will enjoy this book a lot more.  Marcus covers a lot of the same ground as these authors as he covers all the usual mind tricks and psychology studies that non-psychologists find so fascinating.  I love to read this kind of stuff but at some point the studies about framing and videos of trickery get tedious and you want some real conclusions to be drawn.

Unfortunately 95% of Marcus' book seems to be an argument that the brain really isn't all that wonderful of an invention.  He is enamored with what he calls "postal code memory" wherein information is stored in specific addressable locations and when you want that information, you just look up the address and presto, you have the information.  The brain, as Jeff Hawkins points out in On Intelligence,  uses pattern matching rather than specific addressing to find information.  Marcus argues that postal code memory would solve many of the problems that we have with our brains.

At one point, Marcus goes as far as to argue that since Google can remember everything with it's underlying addressable memory scheme, the brain would be better off if it used the same thing.  I think Marcus would do well to take a look at all the hardware and power consumption that goes into making Google work.  If you could fit that all into something the size of the brain and power it with a few hundred calories per day, then perhaps I would buy into his argument a little more. 

Marcus is also fond of pointing out things that I am sure his undergrad students find fascinating but I found a bit trite.  For instance he points out that many of our tidbits of wisdom are contradictory.  For instance:

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Contradicts with:

Out of sight, out of mind.

Think about it for a minute... what is the context in which you use these sayings?  In the first case there is obvious desire.  In the second it's something you are trying to forget.  A simple look at the context (something our brain does quite well without conscious effort) is enough to see that these are not directly contradictory statements. 

Tidbits
  • With regard to evolution, adequacy and not beauty is the name of the game.  If it works, it spreads. 
  • Beliefs (as Marcus uses the term) are based on contextual memory. 
  • Types of mental contamination
    • Focusing illusion (too much emphasis on one point)
    • Halo effect
    • Anchoring & Adjustment (starting point bias)
    • Familiarity effect (preference for that with which we are already familiar)
    • Confirmation Bias (notice things that we agree with)
    • Motivated reasoning (reason towards existing conclusion)
  • Beliefs are formed by Hearing -> Accepting -> Evaluating.  We would be better off if we evaluated before we accepted.
  • Control brings pleasure.  The mind enjoys being in control.  This is why software should be written in such a way as to put the user in the driver's seat.  Frustrated users aren't enjoying our software much!
Book Conclusions

The majority of the book seems to be Marcus ranting about how wrong people are about the beauty of the brain.  He goes on about the weaknesses of the brain without much in the way of practical knowledge.  Towards the end of the book, he provides a list of suggestions, although most of these are only nominally related to the other sections of the book.  It's almost as though he took a common sense lecture and tacked it onto the end of the book.  Here are some of his suggestions:

  • Consider alternative hypotheses (including counterfactuals)
  • Rephrase the question
  • Correlation does not equal causation
  • Pay attention to sample size
  • Pre-commit to help resist impulses
  • Have a contingency plan (to help resist impulses)
  • Make important decisions while rested
  • Perform cost-benefit analyses
  • Imagine that your decisions will be spot-checked
  • Distance yourself from the decision (wait before you send that nasty email)
  • Beware of the vivid, the personal and the anecdotal
  • Choose your battles (don't try to make every decision perfectly)
  • Try to be rational
Conclusion

The book is a fun read if you can get past the usual professorial arrogance and the combative stance of the author.  There are plenty of gems that keep you interested and while at times combative, the contrarian viewpoint is sometimes refreshing.  Oddly, one of the most disappointing things to me was at the very end of the book.  Marcus started a discussion about the role of education and how it should change given the state of technology today.  Educators need to spend more time focusing on how to process information rather than how to store information.  This discussion was incredibly short but extremely fascinating.  If Marcus writes a book about education in the future, I will be first in line to buy!