Why do Oscar winners live for an average of four years longer than other Hollywood actors?Who experiences the most stress - the decision-makers or those who carry out their orders?Why do the Japanese have better health than other rich populations, and Keralans in India have better health than other poor populations - and what do they have in common?In this eye-opening book, internationally renowned epidemiologist Michael Marmot sets out to answer these and many other fascinating questions in order to understand the relationship between where we stand in the social hierarchy and our health and longevity. It is based on more than thirty years of front-line research between health and social circumstances. Marmot's work has taken him round the world showing the similar patterns that could be affecting the length of your life - and how you can change it.

"[The author] had the courage to take a look at what was behind all of this religious belief in markets." - Nassim Taleb

"I am now spoiled; I need more essays by opinionated, original,and intellectual, contemporary scientists." - Nassim Taleb

"I don't want to spoil the story but I felt that I was reading a detective story until I realized what it was..." - Nassim Taleb

"The man is one of the greatest traders in history. There are a few jewels in there." - Nassim Taleb

"[Approaches] the problem of randomness and success using the state of the art scientific arsenal we have." - Nassim Taleb

"Horribly written (that is Fodor's charm after all) but his argumentation is so ferocious that he ends up loud & clear." - Nassim Taleb

Reading this book will make you less sure of yourself—and that’s a good thing. In The Invisible Gorilla, Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons, creators of one of psychology’s most famous experiments, use remarkable stories and counterintuitive scientific findings to demonstrate an important truth: Our minds don’t work the way we think they do. We think we see ourselves and the world as they really are, but we’re actually missing a whole lot. Chabris and Simons combine the work of other researchers with their own findings on attention, perception, memory, and reasoning to reveal how faulty intuitions often get us into trouble. In the process, they explain: • Why a company would spend billions to launch a product that its own analysts know will fail• How a police officer could run right past a brutal assault without seeing it• Why award-winning movies are full of editing mistakes• What criminals have in common with chess masters• Why measles and other childhood diseases are making a comeback• Why money managers could learn a lot from weather forecasters Again and again, we think we experience and understand the world as it is, but our thoughts are beset by everyday illusions. We write traffic laws and build criminal cases on the assumption that people will notice when something unusual happens right in front of them. We’re sure we know where we were on 9/11, falsely believing that vivid memories are seared into our minds with perfect fidelity. And as a society, we spend billions on devices to train our brains because we’re continually tempted by the lure of quick fixes and effortless self-improvement. The Invisible Gorilla reveals the myriad ways that our intuitions can deceive us, but it’s much more than a catalog of human failings. Chabris and Simons explain why we succumb to these everyday illusions and what we can do to inoculate ourselves against their effects. Ultimately, the book provides a kind of x-ray vision into our own minds, making it possible to pierce the veil of illusions that clouds our thoughts and to think clearly for perhaps the first time.

"When a risk taker writes a book, read it. In the case of [this author], read it twice. Or, to be safe, three times. This is a classic." - Nassim Taleb

"A landmark book in social thought, in the same league as The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith and The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud." - Nassim Taleb