Thinking Clearly

As discussed in his recent book: "The Know-It-All Society", Michael P. Lynch, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Connecticut, helps us take another look at the current state of dialogue in contemporary American culture as we discuss how polarization, conviction and intellectual arrogance has led us to believe that we have nothing to learn from those whose convictions are different from ours and rewards us for displaying emotional outrage, rather than more deliberative, rational thinking.

This episode focuses on the power of understanding statistics and probability, including how avoiding base rate neglect can help you make better decisions. Also discussed are: superforecasting (what it takes to make more accurate predictions of future events) and the power of understanding the statistical principle of regression toward the mean.

In this episode, guest philosopher, educator and author Lee McIntyre discusses his latest book, "The Scientific Attitude", and explains that the concept he calls "the scientific attitude" offers the best way to both describe what is special about science while it also solves the demarcation problem of separating science from non-science and pseudoscience. A host of other topics, including science denialism and the myth of the scientific method, are also discussed.