IS IT RATIONAL to ride a bike? This question came to mind as Steven Pinker, a cognitive psychologist at Harvard University, published his latest book, Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters.
"Given the value you put on your life and the fact that there's even a very small probability of getting killed," Pinker asks, "does it outweigh the pleasure and health benefits from continuing to ride?" Pinker has been thinking deeply about bikes for as long as he's been riding them. When he was a kid, for example, he couldn't comprehend how people remained upright while cycling. Credit your brain's relationship with Newton's first law of motion: "With the right feedback loop involving the brain and the bike, any tendency to fall over can be compensated by steering the bike in the same direction as the bike is falling," he says.
This story is from the September/October 2022 edition of Bicycling South Africa.
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This story is from the September/October 2022 edition of Bicycling South Africa.
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