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| Think!: Why Crucial Decisions Can't Be Made in the Blink of an Eye | 
 enlarge | Author: Michael R. Legault
Publisher: Threshold Editions
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  71 reviews
Sales Rank: 21477
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 368
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.4 x 1.1
ISBN: 1416531556
Dewey Decimal Number: 158
EAN: 9781416531555
ASIN: 1416531556
Publication Date: October 24, 2006
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Product Description
Outraged by the downward spiral of intellect and culture, Michael LeGault offers the flip side of Malcolm Gladwell's bestselling phenomenon, Blink, which theorized that our best decision-making is done on impulse, without factual knowledge or critical analysis. If bestselling books are advising us to not think, LeGault argues, it comes as no surprise that sharp, incisive reasoning has become a lost art in the daily life of people everywhere. Somewhere along the line, the Age of Reason morphed into the Age of Emotion; this systemic erosion is costing time, money, jobs, and lives in the twenty-first century, leading to less fulfilment and growing dysfunction. LeGault provides a bold, controversial, and objective analysis of the causes and solutions for some of the biggest problems facing Western culture in the 21st century. From the over- load of reality TV shows and gossip magazines that have rendered curiosity of the mind and spirit obsolete to permissive parenting and low standards that have caused an academic crisis among our children, LeGault looks at all aspects of modern lives and points to how and where it all went wrong.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 66 more reviews...
 The demise of critical analysis and the fall of the empire January 3, 2006
91 out of 129 found this review helpful
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 January 6, 2006
82 out of 112 found this review helpful
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 March 24, 2006
64 out of 74 found this review helpful
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 January 8, 2006
50 out of 98 found this review helpful
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. March 6, 2006
29 out of 30 found this review helpful
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.
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