Rethink

August 29, 2016
Guardian columnist Poole (Trigger Happy 2.0) explores the ways ideas are adapted, amended, and abandoned over time, and considers where the human capacity for rethinking might take us in the future. Poole represents human understanding not as a linear trajectory but rather as “a wild roller-coaster ride full of loops and switchbacks.” In the 21st century doctors are reconsidering the benefits of leeches and shock therapy, and ideas ahead of their time, such as a 1965 invention similar to the e-cigarette, come back around. Poole champions thinkers who have fallen by the wayside, including pre-Darwin evolutionist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Copernicus’s rival Tycho Brahe, and considers current theories that may eventually gain ground, such as Rupert Sheldrake’s controversial “morphic resonance” theory of collective memory. The most entertaining chapters concern “zombie” ideas, which reemerge despite being demonstrably false, such as the belief that the Earth is flat, and “placebo” ideas, which are useful without necessarily being true, such as the contested theory that alcoholism is a disease. Poole rounds out the discussion with ideas currently undergoing an ideological makeover, such as eugenics (newly relevant due to innovations in gene-editing techniques), and predictions of the most promising ideas for the future. Poole covers a remarkable amount of ground in the history of Western thought, from ancient Greek philosophy to modern warfare. With the exception of some mind-bending theoretical physics, the book is remarkably accessible and well-organized. Such a cross-section of material guarantees there is something here for everyone. Agent: Jon Elek, United Agents.

October 1, 2016
When seeking inspiration, Guardian columnist Poole (Unspeak: How Words Become Weapons, How Weapons Become a Message, and How that Message Becomes Reality, 2006, etc.) writes, its not a bad idea to sift through the junk pile for second thoughts.How does inspiration happen, and how can it be leveraged into reality? That question has nourished a stream of self-help, psychology, and business literature on creativity and its capture, including books such as Steven Johnsons Where Good Ideas Come From (2011) and Daniel Levitins The Organized Mind (2014). In this lightly written narrative, Poole looks at a number of case studies that show how actionable new ideas are often reiterations of old ones. For instance, the modern electric car draws on 150-year-old technology, while medical treatments using maggots and leeches stretch back hundreds of years. The story of human understanding is not a gradual, stately accumulation of facts, a smooth transition from ignorance to knowledge, he writes. Itsa wild roller-coaster ride full of loops and switchbacks. Those old ideas need not even be good ones, since merely examining them can prompt better ones, and of course not all old ideas are good. In this respect, Poole conjures up the 19th-century craze for big-game hunting and then invites us to consider what happened to the dentist who recently shot a beloved lion. Some of the authors examples run a little long, as with his extensive discussion of how placebo drugs came into being; still, his extension of the placebo effect into other realms is interesting, as are his musings on the political applications of old ideas such as basic income and governance by peers rather than professional politicians. More than a compendium of anecdotes about the forerunners of the Tesla car or the sideways history of Viagra, Pooles book is a jog on how to think, closing with exhortations to make a little room for the absurd and to abandon common sense and bet against the market. Theres not much thats new here, but thats the point. A modest, enjoyable look at the care and feeding of creativity.

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