Think!: Why Crucial Decisions Can't Be Made in the Blink of an Eye Reviews

• The demise of critical analysis and the fall of the empire

  
  By A2EQ74Y24BHHIF on 2006-01-03
  Legault writes this book in order to expose the lack of critical thinking skills inherent in the stunted thinking processes of a society with full stomachs and empty heads i.e. like the non-thinking of so many voters in their recent vote on Gov Scharzenegger's initiatives in the great state of California. Or, the thinking skills unused where it comes to critiquing the coming problems inherent in our social security and medicare/medicaid ponzi schemes.
  
  As such, LeGault seeks to contrast objective thinking and reasoned analysis with the more subjective forms of decision making borne of emotion and ideals. He exposes the intellectual fraud of political correctness where the perfect is the enemy of the good (LeGault sees politcal correctness as a deceit and a dishonesty by drawing the distinctions between a moral code that sees the world as it is versus one where the viewer sees it as he thinks it ought to be.) He also upholds the kind of reasoning found in Malcolm Gladwell's book "Blink" to the kind of scrutiny it deserves.
  
  Gladwell essentially writes about the concept known today as "profiling" without uttering the word. In essence, profiling isn't about a snap, emotional analysis as much as it's about how one who has spent inordinate time in a particular environment arrives at instant decisions based on prior experiences and bouts of critical analysis, all of which have resulted in a myriad of successes and failures over a time contuiuum. From this, seemingly instant decisions are made when in fact they are more on the order of Darwinian instincts honed over time. Think of a rookie quarterback who after many hard knocks and errors learns his craft over several seasons of trial and error. The blink factor for him comes i.e. when he reads a blitz and adapts immediately by hitting a seam in the zone versus being sacked. Critical analysis is what he does in the film room. Practice is where he learns to change his habits. And, game experiences preceed his improvement as a quarterback. He learns to audible under pressure or he's out of the league or taken off the count, take your pick.
  
  The truism is that all progress is the result of confronting truth with almost all great disparities between people the result of individual decisions, the way that they think and act upon their thinking. In an open system like that found in America disparities can be erased quickly by people deciding to change the way they think. To this he discusses how political ideology can lead to unclear lazy thinking among smart people, and amen to that (it makes you rethink the definition of smart; you'd think they'd look at the game films, would you not?)
  
  He correctly identifies how bad thought and research can harm societies and he cites "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson as an example. Look no further than that tomes' ridiculous dunuciation of DDT, a claim based on junk science, which has resulted in so many unnecessary worldwide deaths over the last 35 years.
  
  He also recognizes the importance of sound social policy based on factual evidence, sound critical thinking skills, and logical reasoning, all of which can result in a common ground beyond political partisanship. And in this regard, he scolds both sides of the political isle where looney decision making is to be found. Of note, he exposes Noam Chomsky, the assumed intellectual guru of the far left as not a thinker, but as a dogmatist, a pedant and an anarchist; plus, as a hypocrite as documented in Peter Schwiezer's latest book, "do as I say, not as I do." In the final analysis he begs the reason why people aren't more analytical with regard to all the available facts and not just the ones that support their position. I'll wait, but that's the book I want to read. Meanwhile, this one is pretty good.
  
  

• Don't Be Fooled

  
  By A3AVXZGJMC4HLP on 2006-01-06
  Despite the title and the packaging, this book has little to do with critical thinking or with Malcolm Gladwell's book, BLINK. Former Washington Times columnist Michael LeGault's THINK is a thinly veiled rehash of familiar neo-con rants about the decline of American culture. The old villain in Allan Bloom's THE CLOSING OF THE AMERICAN MIND, relativism, is recast as impulse or emotion. Unfortunately, THINK really pales in contrast to Bloom's already deeply flawed book. In Bloom's CLOSING, there were at least conceivably real identifiable "villains" arguing for relativism. Here, you have the privilege of reading an entire book attacking non-existent "straw men." Ask yourself: who would actually suggest that we should make important decisions based solely on impulse or emotion?
  
  Malcolm Gladwell? On the surface, he would appear to be the villain in the piece. But where in BLINK does Gladwell suggest anything like making decisions on impulse or emotion? Gladwell gives examples of where intuition seems to outperform the straight science (or where intuition can be effective and useful). But all the examples deal with professionals and experts, eg, art experts, firemen, policemen, doctors, etc. Their experience trains them to make fast decisions. This is not the same as making decisions based on impulse or emotion - not even close.
  
  Experts can draw correct conclusions based on very small data sets. Look at Gladwell's discussion of the psychologist who was able to figure out which couples would eventually divorce by observing them for extremely short durations. Why? Well, a trained expert is able to recognize a significant pattern of behavior in that first minute or so. The expert can safely draw his conclusion based on a small sample b/c the rest of the data will likely be redundant. That is, the husband will be the same jerk at minute 30 as he was in minute 1. It's not that complicated.
  
  LeGault takes a stand against irrational decision-making. Well, good for him, but who the hell takes a stand in favor of irrational choices? No one.
  
  Really, his heroic stand is nothing more than his attempt to attribute reason and objectivity to his conservative agenda. And guess who gets to look nutty and irrational? Those wacky environmentalists, those leftist extremists (ala Noam Chomsky), etc. Our society is imperiled by emotional and impulsive liberals and environmentalists; our salvation is in the being objective and rational. And that surprisingly coincides with a conservative and libertarian agenda. Amazing.
  
  Don't buy this book to look at where Gladwell's BLINK goes wrong. It's not a book about psychology or about critical reasoning. Read it if you want to jump back into the culture wars.
  
  

• Two Sides Of The Same Coin And A Good Book

  
  By A2NNPISXOKJ1K4 on 2006-03-24
  Many of the reviewers here criticize this book because it isn't Blink (which by the way I think is an excellent book) but in my opinion, that is the wrong comparison. This is a book about critical thinking, Blink is a book about intuitive thinking.
  
  The path to superior thinking is using both sides of the coin.
  
  This book is a great look at critical thinking particularly as it relates to may of the not-thought-through group think decisions that many people make.
  
  This is a great book for breaking down the critical thinking process and encouraging people to start thinking again in an age where many would have us not stop and question the avalanche of messages we get on a daily basis.
  
  Read this book and Blink, you'll be a better thinker.
  
  

• Deceptive

  
  By A1O3RACPMOQY4N on 2006-01-08
  Based on its title and implied relationship to Malcolm Gladwell's excellent Blink, I was hoping for insight into how the human mind works its way through making decisions. What I got was warmed-over socio-political prattle, yet another tired litany of right-wing culture-war talking points.
  
  I should have known better. Right there in the flyleaf the book represents itself as a counterargument to Blink and then proceeds to describe a book that may exist somewhere, but is not in any way similar to Blink. That is a good clue as to how much bearing the ideas on this book have to reality.
  
  Do not waste your time.
  
  

• Too long and sometimes inconsistent.

  
  By A1D6ES3914TMV7 on 2006-03-06
  The author has some good points but he drags on for way too long. The book could have been easily shorter as he often enters in long winded descriptions - borderline rants - which add nothing to the points already expoused. I haven't yet read Blink!, so I cannot tell on whether he's correct or not in his assessment of the book. I do however feel strongly that this book is not immune from the typical polarization of much discourse in the US today. I share his dislike for "political correctness" when it becomes a hamper to the free flow and discussion of ideas, nonetheless his cartoonish depiction of the liberal left is a poor service to the critical thinking he aims to promote. He fails his own litmus tests. A couple of examples. He's extremely critical of global warming and says that the majority of scientist is unconvinced or not against it. Actually the majority of relevant scientist world wide is convinced that man made global warming is real although they may still disagree on the overall impact and best mitigation -if any - policy. Also he uses rethorical arguments which are the negation of critical thinking. Again in the case of global warming he criticizes those who "believe that carbon dioxide (a non pollutant) causes global warming". This is intellectually dishonest as it is meant to instill in the reader the equivalence non-pollutant=harmless. In other term since co2 is a not a pollutant - which is true - it cannot cause anything as dangerous a global warming is supposed to be. Too bad that pollution potential and ability to reflect electromagnetic radiation - and therefore have the potential for global warming - are absolutely unrelated. He's disonest because if he belives that co2 does not cause global warming, should argue that and not using unrelevant rethoric to bias the readers in a desired direction. That is a cheap trick that doesn't belongs to a book on critical thinking and demeans the whole argument he set forth to promote.
  The author says rightly that while we all have our own ideology and our bias, critical thinking should allow us to see behind it and avoid ideology to become a screen that obfuscates our interpreation of the world. Sadly, I feel that several times he fail to heed his own advice and in doing so he's doing a disservice to his own message and several nonetheless relevant points raised by the book. Eventually once again those - like me - who are disenfranchised with the monopoly of debate held by the liberal left and the conservative right, will find scant comfort in reading this book.
  
  
  
  
• Don't 'Thin-Slice' Th!nk"
  By A21WRBAW3Q6YK5 on 2006-01-28
  If one were to take Malcolm Gladwell's advice to "Thin-Slice", they should just read the cliff notes of "Blink." Would reading just the chapter titles of "Blink" fairly explain the message in "Blink?" The answer is of course, NO.
  
  Likewise, it appears previous negative reviews on this web site regarding Michael LeGault's "Think" were from readers who 'thin-sliced' "Think." The result was a misunderstanding of the message.
  
  In part, LeGault's "Think" is a response (correction) to the theory expressed in Gladwell's "Blink" that most decisions including life threatening situations and monumental decisions made by government leaders can and should be made through 'thin-slicing', intuition, and gut feelings.
  
  However, responding to Gladwell's hypothesis is not the main point of "Think." LeGault reminds the reader that bad decisions are based on greed or fast fixes (putting a band-aid on a pipe). While LeGault accepts that intuition can be a valuable part of the thought process, he articulates that failures are caused as a result on non-critical thinking. He provides examples of government (Katrina), business (GM and Ford) and social (every other kid on Ritalin and political correctness gone too far) failures supporting his message. That being, bad decisions are the result of irrational, "blink" thinking methods.
  
  Previous reviews appear politically motivated. However, those reviewers misunderstood the message. This is not a "You are stupid because you are Democrat or ignorant because you are Republican" book. Rather, LeGault reminds the reader of the value of critical thinking and that incisive and analytical reasoning in America appears a lost art.
  
  This is truly a good and positive read. "Think" is the modern "Common Sense" (Thomas Paine) and a must read for decision makers, government and business leaders.
  
  
  
• Why the compulsion to be dishonest?
  By AIJY6SB2SC43K on 2006-04-04
  I read Blink and Think back to back and having just finished Think, feel that I was suckered into picking it up.
  
  I expected a rational discussion of the issues involved in decision-making that would complement Gladwell's emphasis on the role of experience-based intuition. I found no thinking about the nature of critical thinking in Think that was not obvious and banal.
  
  Then it struck me that the book is not about thinking at all. Its a slippery, covert screed (yes, its both) that reads like a talking-point paper from the right. Only my growing outrage -- and perversity in not being able to stop watching a train-wreck -- kept me going.
  
  Who would publish this?, I wondered. A look at the acknowledgements and a few strokes on the web revealed that the Editor-in-Chief of Threshold Editions is Mary Matalin-Carville. If I had wanted politics, I would have bought quite another book.
  
  The way this book is presented and written is symptomatic of exactly what is wrong with political discourse these days. Nobody talks straight. Its this lack of honesty that will damn our culture. Everyone seems full of hidden agendss and the publication of this book, in this dishonest way, is just another symptom of the corruption that is raining down on all of us.
  
  
• Not a Rebuttal - A Diatribe
  By A2NZRZCSWS6JYR on 2006-01-24
  For good or for bad, I decided to buy and read this book because I have read Malcolm Gladwell's BLINK and I thought this would be serious examination (both the good points and the bad) of that author's work. What a mistake. There is a lot in BLINK that is tripe and needs to be called that; however, THINK is definitely not that book.
  
  I teach thinking and creativity skills as part of my living and LeGault's book is about as relevant to thinking skills as it is to learning to fish. Indeed, it seems like he was on a fishing expedition when he must have been sitting at his word processor to compose this 336 page excoriation of everything he hates about contemporary American culture and society - liberals, permissive parents, Dr. Spock, educators, Hollywood, etc. All the usual suspects as defined by ultraconservatives and libertarians. The problem is that despite spicing his text with the term "critical thinking" on almost every page, those attacks have nothing to do with thinking. They have everything to do with the author's political agenda, and there's ++++ to pay if you get in his gun sights.
  
  My favorite part of this whole claptrap is on page 218 (can't believe I actually got that far). "Prosperity is good, but the values that produced it are better. Here, I'm not necessarily talking about extreme wealth, but the comfortable, three-car, five-bedroom affluence of middle, professional America." Where did I go wrong? That's the funniest line I've ever read outside a Steve Martin book.
  
  A final observation - LeGault or his publisher went to every length obviously to make this book look like BLINK, even to the look and feel of the interior and exterior of the dust jacket. If they were hoping it would ape BLINK's NYT best-seller success, they should have worked harder making the internal contents of better quality.
  
  
• Trojan horse for right wing politics
  By A3AA9GEJC3ETQ7 on 2007-04-18
  While I very much appreciate and agree with Michael LeGault's position that what the world needs now is more critical thinking, I was very disappointed at the serious lack of critical thinking the political diatribe entitled Think! If you are looking for an intellectually consistent treatise on the importance of critical thinking in all walks of life, you won't find it here. You will find an essay on the importance on not thinking like a liberal. Michael Moore (bad Democrat) being a favorite target. E.g., p. 331, "There is a reason Moore always wears a ballcap. He is a big kid with a slingshot in his back pocket picking off large, easy targets." You will find an interesting few pages on the problem with a Blink-like approach. But no conservative topic gets critically examined.
  
  What is the prime area of American life where critical thinking is left at the door? Surely that must be religion where faith trumps logic. But there in no mention at all of religion in this book. Certainly no hint at all that one ought to apply critical thinking to things religion asks one to believe. It is definitely odd that LeGault apparently doesn't think one should apply critical thinking to one's core beliefs, the beliefs that guide so much of our other activity.
  
  The author is not an academic and it shows with his lack of balance, objectivity and evidence to support his views. And he twists things in ways no decent academic would ever do. For example, pages 97-98, quoting Joyce Clark about No Child Left Behind, " `There's no incentive to worry about them [gifted students] because they can pass the tests.' In other words, the goal of educators has become to enforce mediocrity, not inspire excellence." LeGault turned an accurate comment about a sad byproduct of the system and twisted it into a goal with active enforcement. He discusses television (~page 135) and shifts from market share to money as if they were equivalent, but apparently switching to the one that supports his view when needed. A good academic wouldn't do that. In many places (e.g., 137) he writes "the definitive study is yet to be done." This is his sloppy pseudo-academic language to say he has no evidence to support his proposition but he'll state his opinion anyway.
  
  Evidence really doesn't seem to matter too much to this critical thinker. Asserted without proof on page 139 is "the underlying and primary cause of obesity . . . is . . . the increasingly barren intellectual life led by many people." Because "knowledge produces activity." P. 324: "There appears to be no great amount of research on the role subjectivity has played in decline of great ages . . . still, it is clear there must be a connection." Even when he acknowledges lack of evidence, it clearly doesn't deter LeGault from his opinions. On page 332, "the media actually believe Americans live in a sort of Uganda-style state in which a tiny percentage of people live in mansions and the rest of us reside in shanty-towns, ghettos, and trailers." No evidence is presented to support this baloney.
  
  He mentions (p. 147) Herst's papers in the led up to the Spanish American war but gave no mention of how Fox News beat the drums for the Iraq war which would be a far more relevant story. He talks (p. 153) about the media "gleefully" reporting economic problems but no mention of G.W. Bush's first campaign for the presidency where he repeatedly did the same. He seems to love red herrings in arguments. Such as the fact that more people drown in bath tubs in the U.S. each year than die from terrorists as reason why we should vacation in terrorist prone areas (p 155).
  
  The government and universities are problems. P. 172: "Working in a free-market economy is more stressful than a job in a government-run shop, but maybe boredom is stressful also" (bad government). P. 200, he can imagine that Sir Isaac Newton "would probably be demonized on a typical campus of today as the icon of white male oppression, the progenitor of corporate technocracy and mass production" (bad liberal campuses). What incredible and totally unsupported baloney. P. 312. "radical feminism in particularly has weakened, perhaps fatally, the ethical and intellectual principles upon which Western civilization has been able to grow and flourish" (bad liberals are killing our civilization). Baloney. On p. 313, "Kyoto protocols to reduce carbon dioxide . . . cost billions . . . when most scientists acknowledge that the reductions will have no impact on the earth's climate" (bad hypocritical environmentalists). Most scientists? This is baloney and presented with zero evidence to support it. If one reads the recently released Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report it is clear that how much carbon dioxide is released in the future directly impacts the magnitude of climate change. "Why do bureaucracy . . . cause a society to decay?" (p. 316, bad government). On pages 327-8, writing about urban decay, personal healthy, racial disparity in reading skills, etc. "There is no empirical evidence that any government, anywhere can do anything more than offer Band-Aid fixes to large problems such as these" (bad government). This offered with no proof, yet evidence to the contrary abounds. Polio vaccines greatly improved personal health as did clean government supplied drinking water. Social security ended terrible old-age poverty. Etc.
  
  Democrats seem to do bad things but not Republicans. For example, on page 28 he talks about the problems from hurricane Katrina. He mentions the Democratic Governor on Louisiana (bad Democrat). He ascribes some of the problems to "bureaucracy increasingly preoccupied with mastering rules and staying out of trouble, rather than one engaged by knowledge, progress, truth-seeking, and clear, innovative, analytical thinking" (bad government). Missing completely from LeGault's assessment is any mention that when a Democrat appointed a professional emergency manager to head FEMA, FEMA was responsive. But when a Republican appointed an Arabian Horse Association director to head FEMA, FEMA was not responsive. No mention of the head of FEMA was made in this discussion of hurricane Katrina. When he dislikes something pushed by a Republican, such as No Child Left Behind (page 97), there is no mention of the Republicans' involvement.
  
  On page 57 he complains that Canadians have a negative view of the US and calls them hypocrites for holding that view when trade with the US accounts for 50% of the economy. Rather than critical thinking, the economic comment is a red herring. A better case could be made that it is a sign of nobility that one holds views contrary to one's economic self interest.
  
  Page 323: "One sure sign that American society is in decline is its increasing dependency on therapy. . . Almost every other person in California is a psychotherapist. . . therapy sessions these days . . . detracts from the productivity and creativity of society." Why wouldn't prayer or talking to a minister be tarred by that same brush? Isn't therapy a sign of wealth rather than decline?
  
  By the way, the cover and much publicity refers to the author as "award-winning." I've googled but can't seem to find out what award he won? After reading too much of his book, I doubt if the award had anything to do with critical thinking.
  
  
  
  
• A Hastily Thrown Together Scam
  By A3DO3BVMMR918M on 2006-08-12
  Think is a mess.
  
  Here are the main problems:
  1) Assertions with little evidence or argument to support them are strung together on page after page. The book reminds me of a high school essay with a word count assigned, where the student stretched a ten word argument into 4 pages by writing a bunch of fluff.
  
  2) The prose is so poor as to get in the way of the reading. I frequently found myself grimacing at the amateur writing effort.
  
  3) The author sets out to prove that critical thinking is important, but waits until four fifths of the way through to offer any real argument toward that end. Most of the book meanders strangely in and out of opinion column sort of topics without any purpose. It's not until we get to a discussion of postmodernism versus objective reality that we are reading a thing about thinking.
  
  4) The book is advertised and presented as an opposing view to Blink, but most certainly is not.
  
  That fourth one is what really irks me as a reader. The book jacket is a mimic of Blink, the back blurb references Blink, and the author takes cheap shots at Blink throughout, but Think never makes a serious attempt to present or even understand the thrust of Blink.
  
  Most ridiculous of all, what little presentation of an argument Think does put together in no way contradicts or even challenges Gladwell's views in Blink.
  
  In Blink, Gladwell showed how powerful our subconscious minds are. He never bagged on reason or logic, and in fact, his discussion of expertise showed how rational thinking and subconscious calculation can go together in a powerful way.
  
  What we have here is a phony attempt to cash in on the deserved success of an excellent book. LeGault is either incapable of writing a book worthy of publication, or he barely even tried. He and his publisher are practicing flat-out deception with this book, and I'm sad that I was snookered into reading it.
  
  
• How Karen Hughes taught me to be a critical thinker.
  By AWJ1K00TGVANF on 2006-02-07
  A comedy in three acts.
  
  He takes random, and gratuitous potshots at Michael Moore. He blames our intellectual decline on straw men and "liberal" stereotypes. He even quotes "Free Republic." Worse, the quote doesn't even have anything to do with politics. It's an anecdote related by some nameless right-wing schmuck about how he feels self-conscious walking for exercise around his quiet, proper neighborhood. I've tried, I really have, but I just can't figure out why in hell he'd gone to Free Republic to research alienation and irrational self-conscious fear. (Well, I can, but that doesn't seem to be the point here.) In any case, it seems to serve no purpose whatsoever other than name-dropping and advertising.
  
  The book has its good points, but most of them are strained, and every one is sandwiched between some of the most awkward and deliberate pandering I've had the misfortune to witness. Time after time, paragraph after paragraph, he dutifully lays the blame for the seeming decline of intellectual rigor on Liberalism, J-Lo, and reality TV. Not an original idea to be found, and hardly a thread, even, of an organized approach to the ideas of others. It's haphazard crap, sloppily dashed together during late Internet research binges. And it shows.
  
  The author and I agree on at least one important subject. We both believe critical thinking is a good thing, and the United States needs more of it. I wanted to like the book, and I was about as receptive to the premise as anyone could be. But somewhere between his constant jousting with absurd caricatures of liberalism, and his unending credulity regarding all but the nuttiest religious excess on the other side of the political divide, the message must be lost on any but his narrow target audience.
  
  Meanwhile, he even manages to compare the admittedly execrable "reality television" fad unfavorably to sitcoms, on the premise that sitcoms have more in common with the old Greek comedy variety. The decline of the empire is, it seems, at least nominally better when it has a script. And J-Lo? There's something about her too, though I can't for the life of me figure out why.
  
  
• Boring and biased.
  By A114AJO9TWM3UZ on 2006-04-24
  I found the content to be one part interesting and four parts boring and/or biased. I kept reading it hoping that there would be some payoff. I kept hoping that the few things I found of interest would eventually be expanded upon. They weren't.
  
  From reading the book, you get the impression there are serious flaws in the book Blink.
  
  I am now reading Blink and find it to be profound and insightful.
  
  As a result I find the book Think spends too much time reacting to Blink and never gives a quality response to the facts and research provided in Blink. Blink provides the names and details of specific studies to support its conclusions. Think does not. If you dont like what Blink says, you should provide the names and details of specific studies that refute the conclusions outlined in Blink.
  
  My impressions of the book Think:
  - it is a knee-jerk response to the book Blink
  - it does not compare to the book Blink in terms of quality or reliability
  - it spends too much time reacting to Blink and not enough time supporting and elaborating on its own position.
  - reminds me of a disgruntled unintelligent 8 year old who tries to spout off things to get your attention but does not have the facts to backup what he says. All noise and hot air. No substance.
  
  This book spends too much time politicizing the process of thinking.
  
  For a book that spends so much time reacting to Blink, it never truely addresses many of the points brought out in Blink. For example, what role does the unconscious play in the act of thinking?
  
  This book does not deliver. Blink does deliver.
  
  For unbiased and non-politicized books on thinking, refer to Edward de Bono. He could be more concise in his writing but at least he delivers.
  
  
  
• the book is a right-wing rant
  By A1KYKEX36EAD78 on 2006-02-06
  This is a "bandwagon" book. It's written by a right-winger who sets up Malcolm Gladwell's book "Blink" as a political target. The author deliberately distorts Gladwell's book in order to set it up as a phony straw-man target.
  The inappropriately titled "Think!" is an utterly worthless book.
  
  
• Sucks
  By AOJZMQJKE3XJ5 on 2006-02-07
  I'm a conservative and while I believe in some of the principles of this book it really sucked. I have no idea why he took Blink to be some self help book. It was merely describing, through various studies, personal experiences, and stories, how people make snap judgments. Some of these judgements were good, and some bad. And the ones that were successful judgments were usually by people who were highly educated 'critical thinkers'. Blink was in no way a licence for its readers to stop critically thinking. Seeing how LeGault missed this premise entirely its ironic that his book is entitled Think. My thinking is that he used the whole anti-Blink as ploy to sell books. I guess it worked. I wish I hadn't bought it though. To top it off his writing stile is clumsy, unnecessarily flowery, and pretentious. Skip this one....read the Tipping Point or Freakanomics.....if you have read those read Mean Genes by Terry Burnham and jay Phelan. If you have read all of those, well then you're awesome.
  
  
• More Right-Wing Dogmatist Blather
  By A1QE2WGCCH9V4A on 2006-02-08
  Why does the right-wing attack the person instead of offering reasonings about the issue? The author takes to task several "left" writers and is dogmatic without offering much in the way of proof. Just believe me because I said so (like their leader, GW Bush).
  
  I did like the chapter on "stress," but it didn't save the book. Too bad the far right-wing (not the moderates) are so negative about anything even centrist.
  
  
  
• The Reviews Prove the Point
  By A55MRYPUAX4QU on 2006-05-29
  The vast majority of reviews are split along ideological lines - the very thing the author decries in his book. The author does take on BLINK but in all fairness, the examples in that book were not "average Joes" but folks who studied a problem for years before they learned to "blink" - the cases of food ingredients and facial/emotional recognition come to mind.
  
  But that is all beside the point. Those who carry on about BLINK are purposefully ignoring the gist of the story - critical thinking, rational discussion and problem solving are rapidly disappearing from the American (and European) landscape. I think the author is correct in stating that that the problem in America is cultural while in Europe,political. He notes that equilatarain education inevitably leads to "lower standards", esteem building leads to lower esteem & total freedom leads to choices determined by emotion, whim or marketing.
  
  The author is a libertarian and in a sense this is a call for Americans of all political stripes (sadly, that is how we define ourselves today) to heed the message. He delivers somewhat rambling discussions (my reason for four and not five stars) of our trash culture- "Musicians" who cannot read or write music or play an instrument, artists who can't paint, sculptors whose results look like junk, businessmen working from "feelings", idiot celebreties taken seriously as spokesmen, multimillionaire athletes that are illiterate. He discusses the drop in trust in public institutions (newspapers, government, business), the elevation of junk news (shark attacks, weather, stress, sprawl, etc) and the abysmal decline in reading, especially among youth. But the biggest problem is the number of folks living day to day without reference to the past.
  
  Anti-intellectualism is not something new - Americans have always had an aversion to academic untested theories, preferring to trust experience and pragmatism. Indeed, we are the most pragmatic peoples on the face of the Earth. But this new wave of anti-intellectualism is pointed at academia and government. The author points out (correctly) that all these signs and trends are related in an unholy mass of PC, contradictions, avoidance, easy acceptance and refusal to think.
  
  
• An instant, thought-provoking classic
  By A3MUZ27TJXUFNY on 2006-02-08
  This book is an entirely original, well-written work that connects the way we think with the type of society we live in. I was fascinated by LeGault's cogent analysis and his ability to logically tie together cultural trends, for example our increasing reliance on therapy, with a rise in intuitive, self-centered, subjective thinking. I did not think of this as a political book, but I can see why many on the left (as evidenced in some of the reviews here) are having hissy fits about it as it impales some of their sacred cows. This is one for the ages
  
  
• Breath of Fresh Air
  By A2NWL435QC5WJV on 2006-02-03
  It's about time somebody challenged Gladwell. I was beginning to wonder if anyone in North America has a mind of it's own. I read Th!nk in two sittings, and it is one of the smartest and most entertaining books written in the last 10 years. Political correctness, our culture of victimization, therapy, and consumerism are destructive. Th!nk offers answers instead of encouraging us to continue our slide downward into stupidity.
  
  
• Gladwell isn't political
  By A1P63A913E35HV on 2006-02-05
  Another right winger who wants to bank off real thinking. Do not be mistaken, this book is a ripoff of Malcom Gladwell's awesome book. In Blink Malcom talks about the ability of people to make snap decisions - for good or bad. Blink didn't encourage people not to think, it just explained how your mind worked.
  
  This author (Think) obviously didn't read Blink, nor took the time to understand its contents. So much for Think eh? Sounds like he read the bookjacket of Gladwell's book and made a "Blink" decision.
  
  
  
• Great Book Saying What Needs To Be Said
  By A2W5K829LUYNS7 on 2006-05-06
  I can only assume that the people who find this book offensive, a) stopped reading once LeGault de-boned one of their sacred cows, or b) are part and parcel of one of the vested interests he courageously takes on. The fact that people on the political Left are so thin-skinned about Think's analysis bears out one of LeGault's point's--subjectivity, the right to believe in something because you feel like it, is sancrosact to them. The idea that Blink is built on "evidence" is another misconception. Blink is just a series of stories, not controlled studies or experiemnts. Finally, he is clear about the scope of Think from the very first chapter, on page 15, he writes: "I am certainly not out to bury intuition, ah-ha moments or emotion." noting that they're are indispensible to the human intellect. And that "It is not the aim of this book to be a compendium of case studies proving the superiority of critical thinking over intution." Rather, noting that the overwhelming amount of historical and scientific evidence favors critical thinking as a better way of making decisions, Think sets out to understand why "emotion, subjectivity and instinct have come to predominate in the lives of people and wider society." Right on! LeGault is the Einstein of social and cultural studies.
  
  
• Great Book--Washington Post Review
  By A3JIP406QX0NQ6 on 2006-01-31
  THINK: An Answer to the Bestselling "Blink"
  
  Sunday, January 29, 2006; BW09
  
  THE WASHINGTON POST
  
  Better not blink , says Michael R. LeGault -- Blink being the bestselling appreciation of quick-draw decision-making by Malcolm Gladwell, a former Washington Post staff writer. In his riposte, Think: Why Crucial Decisions Can't Be Made in the Blink of an Eye (Threshold, $24.95), LeGault argues that this country should insist on more critical thinking and painstaking analysis while downplaying the ad lib; the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina would seem to bear him out.
  
  LeGault takes particular issue with a prominent example from Blink : the story of the J. Paul Getty Museum's kouros , a kind of statue produced widely in ancient Greece. Several experts, including scientists, had authenticated a kouros bought by the museum in 1984, but the legendary Thomas Hoving, former director of New York's Metropolitan Museum, sensed that something was wrong with the piece. His doubts, among others', prompted the Getty to order a thorough investigation, which led to the conclusion that the statue was a brand-new forgery. According to LeGault, what Gladwell overlooked in citing this as a shining example of an intellectual lightning stroke is that when Hoving smelled a fish, he was drawing on decades of experience. "In other words," LeGault writes, "lying behind these 'snap judgments' are educated impressions formed by years of study, thought, and analysis."
  
  LeGault is on more familiar ground in arguing for the value of a liberal education, but even here he points to interesting examples, such as the "scientific hell-raiser" Lynn Margulis, an expert on microorganisms whose work on cell evolution has won her multiple awards. LeGault traces Margulis's brainy iconoclasm to "her exposure to the Great Books curriculum while an undergraduate at the University of Chicago." "The curriculum emphasized the reading of original works to trace and understand how an idea developed," LeGault goes on, "rather than the use of half-truths of textbooks or the language of specialized academic disciplines."
  
  
  
• Disappointment
  By A268GRG2JQ3UZW on 2006-02-13
  As others stated, I too had hopes for a balanced discussion of the book's premise. Instead of finding the critical thinking mentioned, there were old arguments about culture wars. For a more thoughtful discussion of culture wars, see the February Atlantic article by E.J. Dionne, Jr. called, "Why the Culture War Is the Wrong War".
  
  
• The Secret Connection Between Gladwell and LeGault
  By A3PVYFVFEA771Y on 2007-02-17
  This book was clearly retrofitted as a rebuttal to Blink as part of a marketing ploy. It is, in fact, a rant riding the coat tails of a bestseller. To add insult to injury, it is poorly organized and frustrating to read. Shame on you Mr. LeGault, and shame on your publisher. I await the publication of "St!nk"---an expose on how fickle the publishing world is. It will have nothing to do with the substance of Think or Blink, will promise to reveal all sorts of secrets about Malcolm Gladwell and Michael LeGault, and will, instead, be a book about weapons of mass destruction. If you read this review because of its title, you know exactly how I felt after reading your book.
  
  
• Pro critical thinking. Who isn't?
  By A1GC9A61EUU5JZ on 2006-01-28
  I do not want to diss this book because it contains some salient points about the art of making good decisions, but in an attempt to be relevant, the author tries to piggy-back on top of the popular NYT bestseller Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, which is a psychological assessment on the art of making skilled decisions quickly. LeGault dismsses Gladwell and other psychology as new age science, saying the downfall of our country is occurring because no one knows how to be analytical and make sound decisions based on observation. The author sights our growing economic and buisness decline in sound judgment as well as our lowly output of educated students. The only problem with LeGault is that few of his points are based on anything but anecdotes and second-hand sources. Who LeGault is mostly mad at are the people who make decisions he disagrees with politically (mostly liberals). If anyone read Gladwell's book, which LeGault pans, he or she would see that at the very least Gladwell backs up his observations and theory with research (which I would agrue is based on science and analysis even if it is psychological in nature). Because LeGault does not agree with the outcome does not mean Gladwell is not a "critical thinker." Any evolutionary psychologist could tell you that some of our behaviors are instinctual. It doesn't take an hour to size up emergency situations. But LeGault is correct to note that Americans tend to use emotion over reason way to much, particularly leaders making decisions of national importance. However, LeGault is being a bit deceptive when he claims to use critical thinking but choses to title his last chapter: How to Save Civilization in One Easy Step. Sound credible to you?
  
  
• As shallow as it is boring...
  By A35DUMUE3CLFZ9 on 2006-01-31
  Stink! would be more like it, as in "covered with the stink of the Neocon ignorati"..this, as some perceptive reviewers below have noted is not some masterly thesis on the value of critical thinking, it is merely the same old, tired, Neocon rants, very thinly disguised and, opportunistically, piggybacking on the (deserved) popularity of Malcolm Gladwell's "Blink". Avoid like the Avian Flu....
  
  
• Say Yes to Success!!!
  By A2ORDE1I8ICCW on 2006-02-03
  I read Blink, but Th!nk is great too. Th!nk: why crucial decisions can't be made in the blink of an eye is now one of my favorite books. I'm a Gladwell fan, but Th!nk offers so much more information. It gives real practical solutions on how to achieve your goals in life. I'm a manager, so I know how important it is to make the right decision quickly. Anybody can learn so much from this book, which is why I recommend it for people who want to change their lives and employment situation for the better.
  
  
• Odd book name by somebody who doesn't
  By A3N87ODNW4BF44 on 2006-02-02
  Think! starts out with a tirade against the excellent book Blink, a tirade that clearly demonstrates only one thing, the author of Think! never really read Blink. That's a helluva start from someone who is an advocate of knowledge-based thinking.
  Secondly, the first chapter reads like a right-wing, ultra-conservative activist who, though apparently having some intelligence, apparently doesn't believe in practicing what he's preaching--it's full of bias and opinion, and states often that he may eventually get around to writing about the topic.
  I very highly recommend Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell, especially for analytical types who want some insight into human behavior. But I'll have to get over the utterly stupid start to Think! before I'll be able to objectively consider what he has to say in the rest of the book.
  
  
• Think stomps Blink hands down
  By A3J1FGUNSIQ101 on 2006-03-10
  Think is the anti-matter (and antidote) to the da-da of pop culture, ala Gladwell. It is neither strict reporting or a mind-numbing academic treatise, but a beautifully written, engaging book that is something of a throwback to the days of real writers and essayists. More important, Legault explains what critical thinking is, why and how it's useful and impotant, and why it is going to hell in a handbasket--and what we can do about it before our standard of living, freedom and security go the way of all other former great civilizations. Bravo!
  
  
• A multi-book collision: polemics obliterate lessons in critical thinking
  By A3BFKY618DR43K on 2006-07-22
  I wish that people who encourage critical thinking would set a better example. I agree with LeGault on its importance, but his presentations simply don't illustrate it. I will take his discussion of Harvard President Larry Summer's remarks about women in science as an example. (Chapter 5: "The Rise of the Political and Correct, the Fall of the Smart and Quick.")
  
  LeGault gives us conflicting statements by "experts", claiming that men's and women's brains are/are not different from one another without demonstrating how the opinion that he agrees with is a better example of clear thinking; it is apparently supposed to be intuitively obvious.
  
  His argument is something like this:
  
  Premise 1: "Men's and women's brains are nearly as distinct from each other as their bodies are."
  
  Premise 2: "... on the basis of decades of test scores and grades ... women appear to have less 'intrinsic aptitude' then men in math and the sciences".
  
  Conclusion: "... women are not in fields such as science and math ... [as] a result of choices made by women, or gender differences in cognitive skills".
  
  Sound logical? It's actually very shaky reasoning. For the sake of argument, please grant me that the two premises are individually true. It still risks a serious False Cause error to assume that Premise 1 causes Premise 2. (One may read up on this fallacy in LeGault's Chapter 11.) LeGault himself notes: " ... the presence of many high-profile women scientists across all branches of the natural and physical sciences ... ". Oh, there MIGHT be a connection, but no actual evidence is advanced. The fact that some women are scientists and most men are not ought to make one skeptical.
  
  Using "men" and "women" in this case is probably a bad choice of categories. Suppose that scientists tend to have a particular bundle of qualities, call it Q. The issue then is Q and non-Q, gender is a pointlessly crude substitute. Further, LeGault gives us no figures, not a meta-analysis nor a range of results for Premise 2. Statistically significant differences are not necessarily practically significant differences. If 30% of all men and 25% of all women were Q, the difference could be real, but would it be important? We can't tell how the supposed differences match up with the distribution of the genders in tenured positions.
  
  The most serious problem with his reasoning is that even if Premise 1 causes Premise 2, AND the figures matched up with male/female ratios in math and science, it would be still be irrelevant. Summers was specifically speaking of women who took advanced graduate training, not women in aggregate. These women are not described by gender averages: they wouldn't have made it into advanced training if they didn't have the aptitude and interest. And yet LeGault describes Summer's views as " ... largely grounded in factual evidence and reason."
  
  I agree with LeGault about the dangers of political correctness; liberal columnist E. J. Dionne once made similar remarks about "code words" stifling discussion. However, I am 53 having been born in 1953, and I have an inconveniently long memory for "now vs then" arguments. LeGault is ahistorical in his criticisms. He comments that owing to political correctness, we can " ... approach the issue of gender discrepancies ... only on the path marked 'lack of self-esteem and self-confidence' not on the trail designated 'different intrinsic attitudes.'" We have already tried the latter trail: I can remember when there was a public school that specialized in scientific and technical training, for BOYS who had the aptitude. Girls were not admitted, whatever their gifts. Am I willing to assume that we are past all that now? No, I've read way too much history to believe that.
  
  Ii is important, at the same time, to realize that this information doesn't disprove what Larry Summers said, either. The most important thing to understand is that it is the wrong information, improperly construed. If Summer's reasoning was based on the evidence that LeGault gives us, he wasn't thinking too clearly, however right or wrong time may show him to be.
  
  For critical thinking, I recommend Darrell Huff's classic How to Lie With Statistics. It is both a model for reading and for writing.
  
  
• Think for yourself...This book may be of little use!
  By ALGJXWKZCV87H on 2006-02-20
  Having enjoyed Blink (the book referred to over and over again in Th!nk), I thought I might like this book as a counterpoint. But this book merely plods through a list of "correct" ways of thinking. Unlike Blink, which was loaded with interviews and accounts of the author's personal experiences with snap decision making, Th!nk is almost all references to historians, researchers and pundits. The book is basically a third-hand rehash of other's ideas. Th!nk lambasts marketing, therapy and 'self-help gurus' for cheapening our culture, yet the book markets itself as a self help book "saving American culture".
  
  

• Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
• The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
• Blank: The Power of Not Actually Thinking at All (A Mindless Parody)
• The SPEED of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything
• Crimes Against Logic: Exposing the Bogus Arguments of Politicians, Priests, Journalists, and Other Serial Offenders