David Livingstone Smith, Ph.D.

My book Why We Lie: The Evolutionary Roots of Deception and the Unconscious Mind was published in 2004 by St. Martins Press.  It has been translated into Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese and Korean.  The paperback edition will become available in August, 2007. Both are available from Amazon.

“David Smith has pulled off a beaut. Freud, Darwin, Machiavelli (and, oh yes, Liz Smith) meet around the poker table of life. Why We Lie is a wonderfully blended cluster of arguments to support the painful truth that we are a species whose skills at deceiving others is matched only by our ability to deceive ourselves.” –Arthur S. Reber, Ph.D., author of The Penguin Dictionary of Psychology and The New Gambler’s Bible

“Why We Lie is written with snap, panache, and the sort of insights that stop you in your tracks. Its subject–deception, trickery, pulling a fast one, conning other humans and conning ourselves–is critical to understanding the evolution of the human mind. Getting a handle on deception is crucial to understanding the self with which you and I live from second to second every minute of our conscious and our dreaming lives.”– Howard Bloom, author of Global Brain and The Lucifer Principle

“A whole new perspective on deception, and how we fool ourselves into thinking we don’t lie.” — Stephen Pincock, The Financial Times

“Self-deception is one of the most powerful ideas in psychology, indeed, in human affairs, and David Smith’s Why We Lie is an excellent synthesis of this crucial topic. The biology is up-to-date and accurate, the psychological implications are clearly worked out, and the writing is inviting and accessible.” — Steven Pinker, Ph.D., best-selling author of The Blank Slate and The Language Instinct

“Perhaps the best recent work on deception and self-deception”– Daniel J. Dwyer, Ph.D., Xavier University

“David Livingstone Smith charts a universe that is ambiguous, unstable, duplicitous, and downright deceitful. It’s as if every move we made were, on some level, false, “redeemed” only by what we might reveal, poker-style, by way of a “tell.” — Ezrha Jean Black, Los Angeles CityBeat

“This is a book with attitude. And more than a little swagger.” — Jessica Warner, The Globe and Mail

“Why We Lie is a fascinating book about a fascinating subject….rich with stories, anecdotes, and psychological as well as sociological analyses.” — Tamar Frankel, S.J.D., The Human Nature Review

“Dr. Smith’s fascinating book — which is filled with historical, literary and cultural references, from the Trojan Horse through Mark Twain to the Easter Bunny — indicates that just as we overestimated the physical possibilities of robots by a failure to understand the complexity of our motor functions, so we underestimate even more the stunning complexity of our conscious and unconscious minds.” — Peter Foster, The National Post

“Smith combines philosophy, psychology and biology to argue for the importance of deception to our identity as human beings.” — Scientists’ Bookshelf Monthly

“I strongly recommend this book, without prevarication…” — Ann L. Botsford, Scientific Films and Books

“It isn’t until you start to read this fascinating book that you realise how important lying is….Very readable and works both on the level of getting a better understanding of why we lie (to others and to ourselves) and of deception’s fundamental position as part of nature and human society.” — Brian Clegg, Ph.D., bestselling author of Infinity, Light Years and The First Scientist

“Intriguing” — Psychology Today

“Smith presents a lively survey of the many forms of deception practiced by plants, insects, and animals. He then turns to Homo sapiens and offers cogent and provocative analysis of the link between increasingly complex societies, the evolution of the brain, and the need for ’social lies’ in the interest of civility…With an ‘aha!’ moment on every page, Smith’s inquiry is stimulating and unsettling” — Booklist

“Smith draws on Darwin’s theory of natural selection, kin altruism, and the basics of sociobiology….Presenting an intriguing theory with skill and imagination” – Library Journal

“David Livingstone Smith unearths the roots of self-deception.” — Seed Magazine

“A leap beyond mainstream science proposes how the unconscious mind could drive our everyday mastery of the art of deceit, both of others and ourselves. . . . Deliciously tantalizing, with morality as the Grandest Deceit of them all.” — Kirkus Reviews

“David Smith has thoroughly documented and analyzed the ubiquitous human characteristics of deception and self-deception, drawing from the fields of evolutionary biology, ethology, social psychology and cognitive science and bringing the Freudian concept of the unconscious into the behavioral science of the 21st century. This is an engaging, erudite and powerful book, comprehensible to the layperson as well as the academic, and requisite reading for anyone with a serious interest in human nature.” — Irwin Silverman, Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Senior Scholar, York University.

“This book is an exemplar of interdisciplinary research-drawing on evolutionary biology, cognitive science, philosophy, and history of science.” — Ronald F. White, Ph.D., Choice Magazine