For years, when asked to illustrate the difference between the typical Russian and British character I would contrast the English saying “Great minds think alike” with its Russian counterpart, “U durakov misli skhodiatsya” - “Fools think alike.”
Now, having read the latest book by Hannah Critchlow, science outreach fellow at Magdalene College, Cambridge and one of this country’s most prominent young neuroscientists, I will never be tempted to quote that saying again. Why? Because in the excellent ‘Joined-Up Thinking’ (Hodder & Stoughton, £22, ISBN 9781529398397), Critchlow proves beyond doubt that despite appearing to contradict each other, both expressions can be regarded as a manifestation of one and the same growing phenomenon - ‘joined-up thinking’ - whereby an individual’s thinking is replaced with so-called ‘collective intelligence’.
“Scientists are looking at how intelligence arises within the brain-body system as a whole, and between a group...