I just read a review, written by the renowned physicist Freeman Dyson, of Daniel Kahneman’s book Thinking, Fast and Slow. Titled “How to Dispel Your Illusions,” it appeared in The New York Review of Books several months ago. (I’d been out of the country since December and it’s taking me a while to catch up.) Dyson is one of the NYRB’s regular go-to guys about all things scientific, and although I don’t always agree with what he has to say (in particular, he’s a dyed-in-the-wool technophile, much too inclined, in my opinion, to admire high-tech solutions to such problems as global climate disruption), I’m also prone to give him the benefit of the doubt, especially on matters involving “hard science,” since Mr. Dyson is—after all—one of the acknowledged greats of contemporary physics.

I found Dyson’s review mildly disappointing, since he didn’t really engage…

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