Neuroscience

There's nothing wrong with aspiring to be perfect. That's how athletes improve at their sport. That's how scientists improve at their research. That's how ordinary people improve at their relationships. But there's a danger lurking in this aspiration: perfectionism. That's a serious psychological malady. It manifests when we are overly attached to the lure of being perfect, lacking the ability to understand that failure and flaws are what make us human. The August 8, 2025 issue of The New Yorker has an article by Leslie Jamison, "The Pain of Perfectionism." It spoke to me because, like most people, I go…

Almost everybody enjoys a good magic show. I sure do. But hardly anyone actually believes in magic. We understand that when a magician does something that appears to violate everyday laws of nature, that trick is based on illusory magic, not genuine magic. An article in the April 12, 2025 issue of New Scientist, "Magicology," talks about how psychologists are looking to magic tricks to better understand how our brains make sense of the world around us. I found this example fascinating. A classic deception known as the “vanishing ball illusion” – already well-known when Binet discussed it in 1894…