A collection of examples of how humans aren't actually stupidly gullible, or gullible with caveats, with some theoretical background up front (epistemic aka open vigilance, see Merceir & Sperber, 2011, 2017 and Sperber 2000 (?, i think) for a more formal treatment), and a summary chapter recapping everything last – check that one if you want a quick dive.

Haven't read Steven Pinker's "Better Angels" yet, but I am guessing these two go together in a "humans aren't a lost cause" kind of genre, which I find preferable over doom & gloom lamentation on human imperfections. It's also more helpful, because it focuses on the nuances of when and how people decide what information is true and what to do with it, and makes people with beliefs different from your own (at least as they declare them) seem less insane and more tolerable.

My main gripe with this book is that the theory could benefit from being more specific. Open vigilance by itself is not a proper theory per se, more like a concept that the author applies and uses to interpret inconsistencies in the data on how humans do/not believe certain things. This kind of retrospective application weakens the punch, opening room for just-so-story critiques commonly weighted against evolutionary psychology. From memory of reading some of his & Sperber's previous work, there is some more meat to it, which could have been included. I am guessing from the general vibe of the book that it was trying to tilt more towards 'popular science', which could explain this (although somewhat unexpected, since its a university press).