INTERVIEW: Chris Chabris and Dan Simons on Why We Get Taken In and What We Can Do about It

Issue 76: Psychologist Christopher Chabris discusses his new book NOBODY'S FOOL on why people get taken in by hucksters, scam artists, and misinformation.

From phishing scams to Ponzi schemes, fraudulent science to fake art, chess cheaters to crypto hucksters, and marketers to magicians, our world brims with deception. In NOBODY’S FOOL: Why We Get Taken In and What We Can Do about It, psychologists Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris have a new book explaining how to avoid being taken in. They describe the key habits of thinking and reasoning that serve us well most of the time but make us vulnerable—like our tendency to accept what we see, stick to our commitments, and overvalue precision and consistency.

Each chapter in their book illustrates their new take on the science of deception, describing scams you’ve never heard of and shedding new light on some you have. Daniel and Christopher provide memorable maxims and practical tools you can use to spot deception before it’s too late. It also seem useful since Jay has been suckered into a Ponzi scheme as a teenage, lost $100 playing three-card monte in Stockholm, and accidentally share…