The Importance of Transparency in Government

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People from both parties increasingly dislike each other in the U.S., says David Frum. Social media can amplify the problem partly because it tends to show you the most extreme versions of the other side, he adds. People are more exposed to cross-cutting information on social media than in real life but that doesn't mean they have a distorted view of their own party's policies - Frum. The solutions aren't going to be easy as we know it's not just social media, said Frum.

Here at the Mindscape Podcast, we are firmly pro-reason. But what does that mean, fundamentally and in practice? How did humanity come into the idea of not just doing things, but doing things for reasons? In this episode we talk with cognitive scientist Hugo Mercier about these issues. He is the co-author (with Dan Sperber) of The Enigma of Reason, about how the notion of reason came to be, and more recently author of Not Born Yesterday, about who we trust and what we believe. He argues that our main shortcoming is not being insufficiently skeptical of radical claims, but of being too skeptical of claims that don't fit our views.

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Hugo Mercier received a Ph.D. in cognitive sciences from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. He is currently a Permanent CNRS Research Scientist at the Institut Jean Nicod, Paris. Among his awards are the Prime d’excellence from the CNRS.

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