Today I would like to introduce a book that I hope will have a wide audience, simply because I wrote it myself with my brother.

This is what it looks like from the outside:

Fallstricke_Cover
Fallstricke

But: never judge a book by its cover… (although I think the cover is well done).

And this is what it looks like on the inside (the blurb):

In 1999, a Mars probe (the Mars Climate Orbiter) was built for $320 million – but unfortunately one software module used the metric system of measurement and the other the Anglo-American system, which meant that the orbit was set 170 kilometres too low and the probe burned up silently. Why do even clever people keep making stupid mistakes, mistakes that are surprisingly easy to see through? Often it is not just carelessness or the circumstances of the time that are to blame, but also the way we think. Using everyday situations and many examples from medicine, technology and physics, the two authors vividly explain how human thinking works and why it is generally prone to error. Because we humans are part of an evolutionary process, certain thought processes and structures have proven to be the best over millions of years, but fail in other contexts, especially given the strict methodological requirements of science. Nevertheless, there are ways and means of quickly identifying and perhaps even avoiding the mistakes that are made over and over again.

And this is how it sounds (a positive review by Deutschlandradio Kultur as an audio file to listen to):

Frey-Fallstricke (for download).

As already mentioned in the posts on my blog, it is about human errors of thought in everyday life and in science. I think, if I am not mistaken, that the reader can expect not only an impressive collection of errors in thinking, but also a well-founded evolutionary-theoretical explanation of why this is the case. It is also made clear that these “errors” are not all negative, but have their function. But it also shows how they can be avoided, which is very useful in areas like science where they cannot be used at all.

I hope you enjoy reading it!

Link to Pitfalls on Amazon:

Pitfalls

Link to The Blind Spot on Amazon

The Blind Spot