Thinking Clearly

As part of background research for his new book How to Talk to a Science Denier: Conversations with Flat Earthers, Climate Deniers, and Others Who Defy Reason, philosopher, educator, and author Lee McIntyre attended the 2018 Flat Earth International Conference in Denver Co. In this episode, Professor McIntyre discusses that experience, describes the nature of science denialism, and suggests what to do when we encounter it.

Colonel (retired) Steve Gerras teaches critical thinking at the Army War College. On this edition of Thinking Clearly, he shares his advocacy and passion for the subject, and his experiences of teaching it to future military leaders. Professor Gerras has a Masters Degree and PhD in Industrial and Organizational Psychology from Pennsylvania State University and has authored and coauthored many publications including the widely circulated: "Lying to Ourselves: Dishonesty in the Army Profession."

The term "attention economy" has become a buzzword in our current zeitgeist. But 30 to 40 years ago Michael Goldhaber, who has a PhD in physics coupled with a passionate 1960's brewed concern about social and political justice, began thinking and writing about human attention as a scarce resource and made predictions about how the newly emerging internet would interact with our attention and eventually transition us to an attention economy. His early predictions were then rediscovered and described in a New York Times article published in Feb., 2021. Topics discussed in this episode include: the attention economy, how it contributes to misinformation and what we can all do can do to reduce the pollution in our information environments.

Hosts, Bob Froehlich and Julia Minton, review the Thinking Clearly definition (and longer description) of critical thinking and discuss the importance that genuine curiosity has to the critical thinking process. They then discuss a number of "deep questions" that have grown out of their background research from doing Thinking Clearly for almost five years.

With their guest Andy Norman, Bob and Julia discuss the idea of applying biomedical concepts such as infection, immunity, and inoculation to what happens when humans are exposed to invasive false, misleading and harmful ideas and beliefs. Andy Norman is the author of the recent book: Mental Immunity: Infectious Ideas, Mind-Parasites, and the Search for a Better Way to Think and the founder of CIRCE, The Cognitive Immunology Research Collaborative.

Dr. Bill Doherty, professor in the Department of Family Social Science at the University of Minnesota, joins hosts Bob and Julia to discuss how to best manage those difficult political discussions with family and friends who have viewpoints sharply different from ours. Also discussed is the work of Braver Angels, an organization co-founded by Bill Doherty with a mission to: "bring Americans together to bridge the partisan divide and strengthen our democratic republic."

How do the groups that we belong to affect our feelings, beliefs and behavior? Can we really think critically about issues without being strongly influenced by the norms established by those groups? These and others questions are discussed with Professor Amber Gaffney from Humboldt State University.

Jevin West, Associate Professor at the University of Washington and coauthor of the recent book: Calling Bullshit – the Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World, joins Bob and Julia to discuss the nature of BS, how it has changed with the emergence of the internet and social media, and when and how to challenge it. Other topics include: how to reestablish trust in information and the danger of "predatory publishing."

Flying solo on this episode, Bob discusses three perspectives on how our brains work and then, with the help of prerecorded audio clips, surveys the current state of our information pollution, considers some possible scenarios about our information future, including a possible "infocalypse" created by so-called "deep fakes", and gives ideas and resources for what can be done to clean up the information pollution and restore trust in our abilities to seek the truth of the matter.

There is no end in sight to the amount of misinformation and disinformation that we are currently being exposed to. With a contentious US presidential election and the seasonal spike in COVID-19 pandemic cases, that pollution is on the rise, and information that used to be politically neutral is now being politicized and weaponized. These and other topics, including the Pro-Truth Pledge movement, are discussed with guest, Tim Ward, co- author of the book: Pro Truth: a Practical Plan for Putting Truth Back into Politics.