ON BEING CERTAIN is a revolutionary look at how we know what we know. At stake is the commonly held belief that we can logically and reasonably determine when our thoughts are correct.

If, after due rumination and deliberation, we decide that a thought must be correct, we presume that this conclusion is itself a conscious choice. ON BEING CERTAIN presents compelling evidence that this assumption is inconsistent with present-day understanding of basic brain function. Drawing from case studies and recent neuroscience advances, as well as such far-ranging subject material as the physics of baseball, high-stakes poker, and popular discussions of gut feelings and the nature of intuition, ON BEING CERTAIN systematically undermines certainty and conviction as products of reason.

The central premise:
Despite how certainty feels, it is neither a conscious choice nor even a thought process. Certainty and similar states of “knowing what we know” are sensations that feel like thoughts, but arise out of involuntary brain mechanisms that function independently of reason.

The day after the space shuttle Challenger disaster, a psychology professor named Ulric Neisser had his students write precisely where they'd been when they heard about the explosion. Two-and-a-half years later, he asked them for the same information. While fewer than one in ten got the details right, almost all were certain that their memories were accurate, and many couldn't be dissuaded even after seeing their original notes.

For neurologist Robert A. Burton, the Challenger study is emblematic of an essential quality of the human mind, and evocative of the psychology underlying everything from nationalism to fundamentalism. In his brilliant new book, Burton systematically and convincingly shows that certainty is a mental state, a feeling like anger or pride that can help guide us, but that doesn't dependably reflect objective truth. Evidence for Burton's fascinating insight is everywhere around us, and "On Being Certain" expertly weaves together studies from Science and The New England Journal of Medicine, as well as the front page of the New York Times, to consider the myriad ways in which the brain constructs a useful worldview -- often by manipulating details for the sake of consistency -- and sometimes, as in the case of schizophrenia, takes untenable liberties.

Faced with the inherent unreliability of the human mind, a lesser author might become cynical. Burton, however, is able to appreciate the cultural worth of unjustified certainty, which fuels the impulsive creativity of scientists and artists alike. Equally important, he argues that, "if science can shame us into questioning the nature of conviction, we might develop some degree of tolerance and an increased willingness to consider alternative ideas." In the polarizing atmosphere of the 2008 election, "On Being Certain" ought to be required reading for every candidate -- and for every citizen.

--Jonathon Keats

The day after the 1986 Challenger shuttle accident, psychologist Ulric Neisser asked 106 students to write down exactly where they were and what they were doing when they first heard about the explosion. When he interviewed the students two and a half years later, 25 percent of them gave strikingly different accounts. But when confronted with their original journal entries, many students defended their beliefs. One of them answered, “That’s my handwriting, but that’s not what happened.”

In On Being Certain, neuroscientist and novelist Robert A. Burton tries to get to the bottom of the curious sensation he calls the “feeling of knowing”—being certain of a fact despite having no (or even contrary) evidence. Throughout his book, Burton makes the compelling argument that certainty “is neither a conscious choice nor even a thought process.” Instead, he says, that unmistakable sense of certainty “arises out of involuntary brain mechanisms that, like love or anger, function independently
of reason.”

Burton thinks that just as we perceive our external world through our physical senses, our internal world presents itself in the form of feelings, such as familiar or strange and correct or incorrect. And he shows that these inner perceptions are necessary for us to function properly in everyday life, because our thoughts are subject to constant self-questioning. For example, even though reason may tell us that running up a tree to escape a lion is an excellent strategy, experience shows that great strategies can fail and that there may be better options. Because alternative choices are present in any situation, logical thought alone would be doomed to a perpetual “yes, but” questioning routine. Burton reasons that it is the feeling of knowing that solves this dilemma of how to reach a conclusion. Without this “circuit breaker,” indecision and inaction would rule the day.

One of the startling implications of Burton’s thesis is that we ultimately cannot trust ourselves when we believe we know something to be true. “We can’t afford to continue with the outdated claims of a perfectly rational unconscious or knowing when we can trust gut feelings,” he writes. On Being Certain challenges our understanding of the very nature of thought and provokes readers to ask what Burton calls “the most basic of questions”: How do we know what we know?

Doubt Thyself

If biology underpins human thought, can we still think for ourselves? By David Pizarro

(excerpts)

...Burton investigates the sources of the feeling of certainty. Why are people so sure of themselves despite overwhelming evidence that they are often wrong?

A neurologist by training, Burton mounts a scientific argument for skepticism of a very deep sort. By presenting a broad set of findings, ranging from the disciplines of neurobiology to social psychology, Burton argues that the feeling that we know something is most likely a biologically-based, involuntary, and unconscious process that cannot be trusted as a reliable marker that we are right. For Burton, the feeling of certainty is simply “…not a biologically justifiable state of mind....

Cognitive science has raised the possibility that “…the very building blocks of thought might be subject to involuntary, even genetic influences that make each of us ‘private islands’ of perception and thinking....

Burton provides a compelling and thought-provoking case that we should be a bit more skeptical about our beliefs. He guides the reader toward a healthy suspicion about any claim that is framed in absolute terms. Indeed, this seems to be one of his primary objectives, viewing an attitude of absolute certainty as the root of many societal ills. Along the way, he also provides a novel perspective on many lines of research that should be of interest to readers who are looking for a broad introduction to the cognitive sciences.


-- David Pizarro is professor of psychology at Cornell University.

A wide-ranging exploration of cognition, certainty and what we mean when we say we “know” something is true.

Certainty, argues neurologist and novelist Burton (Cellmates, 1999, etc.), is not a conscious choice, nor a thought process, but a sensation that can best be described as a “feeling of knowing.” As a feeling, like anger or fear, certainty does not rely on any underlying state of knowledge. What this means, Burton argues, is that we can be wrong even when we’re convinced we’re right. As an example, Burton describes the “Challenger study,” in which students expressed high levels of confidence, three years after the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded, that their false memories of the explosion were more accurate than descriptions they had written down one day after the event. Examples of feelings that seem like knowledge, says Burton, include so-called mystical experiences, the feeling that one has actually seen a fast-moving baseball prior to striking it with a bat and the conviction that taking a risk in poker will pay off. The tendency of an individual to have any one of these feelings—to be, for example, an inveterate gambler—is partly determined by genetic predisposition (in this case, the so-called “risk-taking gene”) and partly by prior experience. How, then, can we tell the difference between feeling right and being right? The answer, Burton argues, lies in accepting the limits of our ability to know and in “playing by the rules of scientific method”—believing we are right if empiric evidence and testing give us reason to do so, but accepting that subsequent evidence may one day prove us wrong.

A new way of looking at knowledge that merits close reading by scientists and general readers alike.

Just like love or anger, certainty is an emotion. So says neuroscientist Robert Burton, whose engaging new work exposes the involuntary, physiological roots of conviction. Whether you're sure about political affiliations or alien abduction, that feeling of knowing derives not from rational thought, he argues, but from the brain's primitive limbic system; the gut feeling is more likely to emerge from careful electric stimulation than from careful consideration. Burton is convinced that being certain is not the same as being right. I'm not so sure.

A gem of a book.

There are implications for politics, religion, and every sphere of human activity. The insights from this book can be applied to every human interaction from marital squabbles to terrorism. It may be frightening to recognize the limits of our knowledge. It will be hard for some to give up their cherished certainties, but Burton says he has gained an extraordinary sense of an inner quiet born of acknowledging his limitations.

This well-written book is the result of many years of cogitation by a wise clinician. He supports his arguments with tales of neurology patients, recent research into brain function, and examples of how our senses constantly fool us.

--Harriet Hall, MD

--The possibility that knowledge for the feeling of knowing is biologically based rather than the result of thinking... will get the epistemologists and everyone else up in arms.

On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not A favorite subject of mine -- how we know what we know. Burton, a neurologist and novelist, looks at how and why certainty feels utterly the same whether we're right or woefully wrong about the thing we're so certain about. I got a pre-release copy of this (and many other books), and this one stood out. There are many books lately about fascinating neuroscience these days, but few are as fascinating as this one, which eloquently marshals a strong argument about something important on both personal and societal levels.

If there’s anything you think you’re certain of, read this book and you may change your mind.