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16 Werken 696 Leden 18 Besprekingen

Over de Auteur

Dean Burnett is a neuroscientist and research associate at the Centre for Medical Education at Cardiff University. He writes a popular science blog called Brain Yapping for the Cosmic Shambles Network and dabbles in stand-up comedy. He lives in Cardiff, Wales.

Bevat de naam: Dean Burnett

Werken van Dean Burnett

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Geboortedatum
c1980
Geslacht
male
Nationaliteit
UK

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A smooth accessible romp through the brain and its quircks. A very good introduction to some of the key Neuroscience findings presented in a fun accessible format.
 
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yates9 | 15 andere besprekingen | Feb 28, 2024 |
Overall a well-put-together book with copious visible endnoting and careful use of explanatory and discursive footnotes. I felt like it was a rather lolloping kind of book, like it wanted to read quickly but I kept tripping over it, so it took me longer than I would have liked to get through. Still, it went a long way to explaining a lot that I either didn’t know or knew but didn’t have terms for (e.g., impression management).
½
 
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rabbitprincess | Jun 16, 2023 |
Not only is brain science trendy at the moment, but at least one author has been described by blurb-writers as “the poster-boy of neuroscience”. So thank heavens for Dean Burnett.
   His warts-and-all approach is refreshing: “Don’t get me wrong, there really is nothing as baffling as the human brain; it is incredibly interesting. But there’s also this bizarre impression that the brain is ‘special’, exempt from criticism, privileged in some way, and our understanding of it is so limited that we’ve barely scratched the surface of what it’s capable of. With all due respect, this is nonsense. The brain is still an internal organ in the human body, and as such is a tangled mess of habits, traits, outdated processes and inefficient systems. Bottom line: the brain is fallible. It may be the seat of consciousness and the engine of all human experience, but it’s also incredibly messy and disorganised despite these profound roles. You only have to look at the thing to grasp how ridiculous it is: it resembles a mutant walnut, a Lovecraftian blancmange, a decrepit boxing glove, and so on. It’s undeniably impressive, but far from perfect, and these imperfections influence everything humans say, do and experience”.
   The eight chapters here cover, in turn: routine maintenance (i.e. how the brain regulates things like appetite and sleep); memory; fear (from social anxiety to thrill-seeking behaviour); intelligence; the senses; personality; social behaviour; and, finally, how warped the world can look when this organ goes badly wrong. Some of the details are fascinating—a section on apophenia for example (“seeing” connections where there actually aren’t any, “perceiving” meaning and intentionality in randomness) covers superstitions and conspiracy theories. Perhaps most chastening (and to me depressing) is the chapter about groupthink, about humans en masse and the distorting effects being part of a group (clique, team, mob, belief-system, country, anything at all in fact) has on our picture of ourselves, our picture of other people and of the world and the way it works.
   This is detailed, well written and, despite some very good jokes, a serious look in the mirror, eyes wide open.
… (meer)
 
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justlurking | 15 andere besprekingen | Nov 9, 2022 |
https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3840738.html

A good breezy book about the wiring system that makes us all function. Style maybe a little too chatty in places, but I guess it helps us to digest the complex subject matter (or at least it helped me to). Rightly excoriates Myers-Briggs and the like. Accepts the standard narrative on the Stanford Prison experiment, Milgram and Kitty Genovese, unlike Rutger Bregman. A lot of what Burnett says is also aligned with cognitive behavioural therapy, with the difference that he is at least as interested in physiology as psychology - which maybe actually makes it all easier to accept.… (meer)
 
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nwhyte | 15 andere besprekingen | Jan 14, 2022 |

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Statistieken

Werken
16
Leden
696
Populariteit
#36,357
Waardering
½ 3.7
Besprekingen
18
ISBNs
48
Talen
8

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