How Much Knowledge Is Inherent, Is Hardwired?

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Some of what I read in your book strikes a non professional reader as common sense or intuitive. How would you defend against that charge? It's a fair charge. Our insights are often banal and uninteresting, and we don't write anywhere near as well as a great novelist. But I think we honestly have made some discoveries, some surprising and interesting discoveries.

Do psychologists know anything? Psychologist Paul Bloom says yes--but not the things that you might think. Bloom discusses his book Psych with EconTalk's Russ Roberts and what the field of psychology can teach us about human intelligence, consciousness, and unhelpful instincts. They also discuss just how far psychology is from a true understanding of the human mind, and why, according to Bloom, that might not be such a bad thing.