Will Storr was in the tropical north of Australia excavating fossils with a celebrity creationist when he asked himself a simple question. Why dont facts work? Why that is did the obviously intelligent man beside him sincerely believe in Adam & Eve the Garden of Eden & a six-thous&-year-old Earth in spite of the evidence against them? It was the start of a journey that would lead Storr all over the world -- from Texas to Warsaw to the Outer Hebrides -- meeting an extraordinary cast of modern heretics whom he tries his best to underst&. He goes on a tour of Holocaust sites with David Irving & a band of neo-Nazis experiences his own murder during past life regression hypnosis discusses the looming One World Government with iconic climate sceptic Lord Monckton & investigates the tragic life & death of a woman who believed her parents were high priests in a baby-eating cult. Using a unique mix of highly personal memoir investigative journalism & the latest research from neuroscience & experimental psychology Storr reveals how the stories we tell ourselves about the world invisibly shape our beliefs & how the neurological hero maker inside us all can so easily lead to self-deception toxic partisanship & science denial.