Having believed more than my share of impossible things, I’ve become very interested in the thinking processes behind matters of belief.  Evolutionary biologist Wolpert tackles this subject from a different angle than many in his field.  Wolpert proposes that our development of tool use created a heavy mental emphasis on the relationship between cause and effect.  While searching for cause and effect in the natural world has served us well in such fields as science and technology, not being able to find a cause for an effect is apparently so vexing to the brain that it has proven more than willing to simply make one up when necessary.

 
There’s a litany of interesting studies cited in this book in support of these arguments, but Wolpert rarely goes into detail as he discusses everything from complex tool use in ravens to retention rates in Moon’s Unification Church.  This left me wanting a lot more information at times and also makes the reading a bit dense.  Still, I learned a great deal about how the brain functions in relationship to various topics.  The book is well-organized, with each chapter addressing issues on a theme ranging from belief development in children to the persistence of beliefs in the paranormal despite the lack of evidence to how scientific beliefs differ from other kinds of beliefs.  Very useful for anyone interested in how we think and why we believe what we do.