The Unpersuadables: Adventures with the Enemies of Science [9781468310108]

Compelling, unsettling, and often darkly funny, The Unpersuadables is a profound exploration of belief in an age of polarization. It challenges readers to reconsider not only why others believe what they do, but how easily any of us can become prisoners of the stories we tell ourselves.

Why don’t facts change minds? In The Unpersuadables, award‑winning journalist Will Storr sets out to answer one of the most urgent questions of modern life: why intelligent, rational people can hold beliefs that fly in the face of overwhelming evidence.

What begins as a single encounter with a committed creationist becomes a globe‑spanning investigation into the psychology of belief. Storr travels from Texas to Eastern Europe and the Scottish islands, immersing himself in the worlds of Holocaust deniers, climate‑change skeptics, conspiracy theorists, and believers in past‑life regression and satanic ritual abuse.

Blending investigative journalism with memoir and cutting‑edge research from neuroscience and experimental psychology, Storr reveals how human beings construct meaning through stories—and how those stories can harden into identities that resist all contradiction. At the heart of the book is the brain’s “hero‑making” impulse, a deeply human drive that can foster conviction, belonging, and purpose, but also denial, tribalism, and hostility to evidence.

Praised by Slate as “A tour de force . . . [Storr's] dogged approach to nailing many of the most celebrated skeptics in lies and misrepresentations is welcome.”