Lies we tell ourselves

摘要

Nature is filled with exquisite examples of deception. Fireflies mimic the flashes of others to attract and eat them; birds make fake alarm calls to scare competitors away from their lunch; male fish mimic females so that they can sneak sex while avoiding the wrath of larger males. In Deceit and Self-Deception (US title The Folly of Fools), Robert Trivers, one of the most influential evolutionary biologists since Charles Darwin, invites us to look closer to home to find a more surprising form of deception — one in which we fool ourselves.