The Science of Reasoning

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Tom Stafford: I used to think that we are flawed and irrational when it comes to reasoning. But new research suggests all of this frustration might not be with the actual process of reasoning itself so much as in the context in which we employ that reasoning, he says. He explains why Tom Stafford has so much to say about this fascination with irrationality. It's an admission of how wrong I was about something that drove my own reasoning for years, writes Stafford.

Deliberation. Debate. Conversation. Though it can feel like that’s what we are doing online as we trade arguments back and forth, most of the places where we currently gather make it much easier to produce arguments in isolation rather than evaluate them together in groups. The latest research suggests we will need much more of the latter if we hope to create a new, modern, functioning marketplace of ideas. In this episode, psychologist Tom Stafford takes us through his research into how to do just that.

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