James Owen Weatherall

A young scholar tells the story of the physicists and mathematicians who created the models that have become the basis of modern finance and argues that these models are the "solution" to--not the source of--our current economic woes.

Why should we care about having true beliefs? And why do demonstrably false beliefs persist and spread despite consequences for the people who hold them? Philosophers of science Cailin O'Connor and James Weatherall argue that social factors, rather than individual psychology, are what's essential to understanding the spread and persistence of false belief. It might seem that there's an obvious reason that true beliefs matter: false beliefs will hurt...