Members in the Media
From: The New York Times

Seeing, and Thinking, Like Sherlock

The New York Times:

Arthur Conan Doyle’s novels and short stories about the incomparable detective Sherlock Holmes have never been out of print since their first publication in 1887. Holmes collections abound, as do movies, TV series, video games, hats, pipes, T-shirts and calendars, not to mention nonfiction books dissecting the Holmesian method.

And now here come two more, one of them, of all things, a Sherlock Holmes self-help book. Maria Konnikova’s “Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes” may not make you a master detective, as the publisher notes, but it will teach you how to “observe, not merely see,” a prerequisite to thinking like the great man. As Holmes himself says in “The Adventure of the Copper Beeches,” his work centers on “those faculties of deduction and of logical synthesis which I have made my special province.”

If deduction and synthesis are a challenge, learning to observe may be even harder. Ms. Konnikova, a science writer based in New York, distinguishes between the Watson system (the natural tendency to believe what we see and hear) and the Holmes system. Teaching the Holmes system is the object of this book.

The first step is to question everything. Citing the psychologist Daniel Gilbert, Ms. Konnikova points out that for our brains to process something, we must initially, momentarily, believe it. If you hear the term “pink elephant,” you picture a pink elephant for a split second before you “effortfully engage in disbelieving” it.

Read the whole story: The New York Times

More of our Members in the Media >


APS regularly opens certain online articles for discussion on our website. Effective February 2021, you must be a logged-in APS member to post comments. By posting a comment, you agree to our Community Guidelines and the display of your profile information, including your name and affiliation. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations present in article comments are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the views of APS or the article’s author. For more information, please see our Community Guidelines.

Please login with your APS account to comment.