🎙️ Welcome to Revise and Resubmit, and you’re listening to this week’s 📚 Weekend Book Review!
Let me ask you something.
Have you ever argued with someone who just won’t budge, no matter how much evidence you throw at them? Maybe it’s about climate change. Maybe it’s about vaccines. Maybe it’s about an election. You’re quoting science, they’re quoting a meme. And somewhere in that conversation, you wonder… how did we all start believing in completely different versions of reality? 🤯
Well, this week’s book just might help us understand that.
🧠 False: How Mistrust, Disinformation, and Motivated Reasoning Make Us Believe Things that Aren’t True is a timely and thoughtful guide through the psychological jungle of false belief. Written by Dr. Joe Pierre, and published by Oxford University Press in February 2025, this isn’t just another book about fake news. It’s a deep dive into the quirks of our own brains — and how all of us, not just “those people,” are vulnerable to believing things that aren’t true.
Now, Joe Pierre isn’t writing from the sidelines. He’s a Health Sciences Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at UCSF, and he’s spent years working with people navigating the murky line between delusion and reality. He’s treated schizophrenia. He’s consulted on forensic cases where faith, psychosis, and ideology collide. And if you’ve ever read his blog Psych Unseen, or seen him on CNN or BBC or Behind the Curve, you already know — he doesn’t just diagnose. He asks why.
In False, he takes us by the hand and walks us through motivated reasoning, cognitive dissonance, heuristics, and all the mental shortcuts that trip us up. He challenges the comforting idea that only “the other side” falls for misinformation. He reminds us that trust — not intelligence — is the real fault line. And he suggests that the cure to our fractured reality may not be more facts, but more compassion. 🩺📘
So here’s what I’m left wondering...
🌍 In a world where facts are easy to find, but harder than ever to agree on, what really separates truth from belief — and how do we learn to trust again?
🙏 Huge thanks to Dr. Joe Pierre for this important and beautifully grounded book.
💬 If this episode got you thinking, do me a favor — hit that Subscribe button on Spotify, follow the Weekend Researcher YouTube channel, and spread the word. We're also streaming on Amazon Prime Music and Apple Podcast, so wherever you listen, we're there.
Until next time — read widely, think kindly, and question everything. 🧩✨
Reference
Pierre, J. (2025). False: How Mistrust, Disinformation, and Motivated Reasoning Make Us Believe Things that Aren't True. Oxford University Press. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/false-9780197765272
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