Nobody's Fool: Why We Get Taken in and What We Can Do about It

From two New York Times-bestselling psychologists, “an engaging master class in how to foil purveyors of false promises” (Philip E. Tetlock, author of Superforecasting)
 
From phishing scams to Ponzi schemes, fraudulent science to fake art, chess cheaters to crypto hucksters, and marketers to magicians, our world brims with deception. In Nobody’s Fool, psychologists Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris show us how to avoid being taken in. They describe the key habits of thinking and reasoning that serve us well most of the time but make us vulnerable—like our tendency to accept what we see, stick to our commitments, and overvalue precision and consistency. Each chapter illustrates their new take on the science of deception, describing scams you’ve never heard of and shedding new light on some you have. Simons and Chabris provide memorable maxims and practical tools you can use to spot deception before it’s too late. 
 
Informative, illuminating, and entertaining, Nobody’s Fool will protect us from charlatans in all their forms—and delight us along the way.  

Daniel Simons is a professor in the department of psychology at the University of Illinois, where he directs the Visual Cognition Laboratory. He lives in Champaign, Illinois.

Christopher Chabris is a cognitive scientist who has taught at Union College and Harvard University. He lives in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.