No hemos sido engañados

In recent times we have become accustomed to hearing about the irresistible power of fake news, and how propaganda strategies and hoaxes manage to fool the unsuspecting masses. But the reality is that, if there is a hoax, it is precisely that of the supposed credulity of human beings. That is what the cognitive scientist Hugo Mercier intends to show us in this book against the current. Human beings are the result of millions of years of evolution, so it seems unlikely that a species so inexperienced in the selection of information could have survived to the present day. Drawing on the latest findings in experimental psychology, We Have Not Been Fooled explains how we decide who to trust and what to believe. We will discover how evolution has equipped us with sophisticated surveillance systems, which make us on our guard against unreliable information, but at the same time keep us open-minded enough to change our minds if presented with good arguments to do so. In this fun and thought-provoking book, we'll discover how virtually all attempts at mass persuasion, whether by religious leaders, politicians, or advertisers, fail miserably. The only certain thing is that, from the rigorous analysis of countless historical examples of supposed collective irrationality, what is shown is that the narrative about a supposed generalized credulity is simply wrong.