Think It Through: the Clearer Thinking Podcast

Send us a textIn this episode, April discusses why fallacies are so powerful and persuasive, and gives examples of some common ones to show how prevalent they are in our lives. She talks to Stephanie Willes, who teaches COM and rhetoric at UNLV and is researching how online anti-vaccine communities use fallacies in their arguments to recruit and keep followers. Follow COMteacherapril on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/COMteacheraprilEpisode 3 Show Notes:Why fallacies are effective: http://jmbeach.blogspot.com/2012/03/power-and-danger-of-fallacies-double-ad.html Explanation of validity and soundness in deductive arguments: https://iep.utm.edu/ded-ind/A long, long, long list of fallacies: https://iep.utm.edu/fallacy/ An explanation of the appeal to authority (false authority): http://www.nizkor.com/features/fallacies/appeal-to-authority.html An explanation of the post hoc fallacy that mistakes correlation for causation: https://www.thoughtco.com/post-hoc-fallacy-1691650 Don’t let all the stupid pop-up ads on this page dissuade you from reading this very good article about how fallacies make us wrong and why we stick with them: https://www.cracked.com/article_19468_5-logical-fallacies-that-make-you-wrong-more-than-you-think.html Here’s the latest incarnation of the Media Bias chart: https://www.adfontesmedia.com/intro-to-the-media-bias-chart/ Here is the list of Twitter accounts that Stephanie follows: @APFactCheck@factcheckdotorg@ddale8 @jenmercieca (she is a rhetoric professor)@thereal_truther 

Send us a textApril explains one of the reasons why arguments can go "off the rails"--because the people involved are either unintentionally or deliberately arguing past each other. This happens when people think they are arguing about the same thing, but they are actually arguing different issues related to the topic.  April's Show Notes for Episode 2: Here's a basic explanation of formal argument and how it differs from informal argument: https://dlc.dcccd.edu/english2-2/formal-arguments This article from Harvard Business Review explains some of the reasons why we fail to see that we aren't "on the same page" with others, and gives some good tips to make sure everyone is listening and correctly interpreting what the issues are: https://hbr.org/2012/12/why-youre-talking-past-each-other-and This is the story of the mother and daughter who were arguing based on different definitions of the term "socialism:" https://thevoice.us/instead-of-talking-past-each-other-find-common-ground/ A good article about how those involved in national discourse often talk past each other: https://novellearning.blog/2017/10/12/how-we-argue-talking-past-each-other/ This is a great article that explains why paraphrasing is so effective when you're in the middle of an argument: https://www.whatcomdrc.org/news/2018/3/30/the-power-of-paraphrasing"Pivoting" is a common way politicians avoid answering questions they don't like, and often the audience doesn't realize they're being played. Here's how they exploit our "cognitive limitations:" https://www.npr.org/2012/10/03/162103368/how-politicians-get-away-with-dodging-the-question 

Send us a textIn the premiere episode, April begins by NOT talking about critical thinking at all! Instead, she discusses some of the reasons why clear thinking is so difficult. Topics include:Feelings as a prelude to thoughtsHow our brains utilize heuristics, and how they sometimes don't work in our favorCognitive biases that lead us to incorrect conclusions about the worldUsing deliberative thinking to monitor our heuristics and biasesApril's Show Notes for Episode 1Here are the links to articles, websites, and other resources listed in the order in which they are referred to in the episode. Whenever possible I try to find good, solid information from credible sources that can be easily accessed by the public.In this blog post by Dr. Mark Solmes, he explains the difference between thinking and feeling: https://www.futurelearn.com/info/blog/thinking-and-feeling-whats-the-differenceThis article from the psychology website verywellmind.com explains the link between heuristics and cognitive biases: https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-heuristic-2795235Intellligent Speculation is a website devoted to teaching about critical thinking. One article discusses “motivated reasoning” and how it is related to confirmation bias; the other is a look at some common cognitive biases: https://www.intelligentspeculation.com/blog/confirmation-bias-amp-motivated-reasoninghttps://www.intelligentspeculation.com/blog/top-10-cognitive-biases-to-look-out-for?utm_source=Intelligent+Speculation&utm_campaign=5d85990ec1-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_07_29_04_40&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c6ebd538ff-5d85990ec1-403863798This YouTube video is a Ted Talk by Hans and Ola Rosling, “How Not to be Ignorant About the World,” that lets us know how little we actually know about the world, and how intuition and the negativity bias often works against us. It also gives us some hope for the future, as well as some tips about how to be “smarter than chimps.” https://youtu.be/Sm5xF-UYgdgI don’t have a link to the paper by Dunning and Kruger, but here’s the citation: @article{Kruger1999UnskilledAU, title={Unskilled and unaware of it: how difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments.},author={Justin Kruger and David Dunning}, journal={Journal of personality and social psychology},year={1999}, volume={77 6}, pages={1121-34}}Here's the You Are Not So Smart website. David McRaney also wrote a book and hosts a podcast with the same name. I highly recommend those as well: https://youarenotsosmart.com/Here are the two Forbes articles about reducing cognitive bias: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2019/04/17/cognitive-bias-human-brains-are-only-human/#23a21d0777behttps://www.forbes.com/sites/hecparis/2019/10/08/new-evidence-reveals-training-can-reduce-cognitive-bias--and-improve-de

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