How Swedes were fooled by the book “Surrounded by Idiots”
Reading the article, the various comments and the linked &quot;Why We Sleep&quot; criticism, I feel really disillusioned.<p>Honestly, there will always be people who write stuff they have no idea about, or write stuff that are factually wrong.<p>But where does that leave me, and perhaps many other layman readers? I, as a layman in psychology&#x2F;neuroscience&#x2F;&lt;insert field&gt;, do not have the academic qualifications or the time to go through and understand the latest&#x2F;greatest scientific literature of the respective fields, nor am I equipped with the necessary &quot;instincts&quot; to tell the doubtful or suspicious claims apart. Most of the time, all I want is condensed information which is well, from the scientific literature, yet put in one place in a way that laymen in the fields have access to the subject. And to me atleast, books are the best way. But then I find the books I thought were right and did not doubt, had factual errors, or were written by someone who has a possibility of not knowing what they are saying... This is sad.<p>So let me ask the community: what heuristics do you employ when trying to decide whether you can trust a book on what it says or not? Especially if it&#x27;s not your field of expertise?