The Folly of Fools
The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life
An evolutionary biologist asks why humans deceive themselves so readily, and what advantage it confers.
Trivers, who first explained reciprocal altruism, turns to self-deception and asks what it is for. His argument is that we fool ourselves in order to fool others more convincingly: the best liar is the one who believes it. The evidence ranges across immunology, aviation accidents, history and war.
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Bruce Schneier
The Folly of Fools, by the biologist Robert Trivers. Trivers has studied self-deception in humans, and asks how it evolved to be so pervasive. Humans are masters at self-deception. We regularly deceive ourselves in a variety of different circumstances. But why? How is it possible for self-deception – perceiving reality to be different than it really is – to have survival value?
Interview · February 2012
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