Thinking Clearly

Our guest, Melanie Trecek-King, Associate Professor of Biology at Massasoit Community College, became dissatisfied with students mindlessly memorizing facts about biology, so she designed a general-education science course that puts less emphasis on facts and more on science and information literacy and critical thinking. Her commitment to these topics also prompted her to create the wonderful teaching and resource-filled website, which can be found on-line at: Thinking Is Power.

Dr. James Zimring, professor, medical researcher and author of the books What Science Is And How It Works and Partial Truths-How Fractions Distort Our Thinking, describes how the form of a simple fraction can be used as a conceptual framework to understand errors that we commonly make in our thinking. Many aspects of critical thinking are discussed, including: heuristics and biases, the advantages and disadvantages of our human tendency to perceive patterns, the primacy effect, the power of disconfirmation and what we can do to minimize errors in our thinking.

Dr. Paul Thagard is our guest on this final episode of a three-part series on The Nature of Trust. Paul is a philosopher, cognitive scientist, author and Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Philosophy from the University of Waterloo. As described in his 3-book Treatise on Mind and Society, he discusses the relatively new approach in cognitive science, called the Semantic Pointer Theory of Cognition and explains how trust can be viewed through that lens. The discussion also includes some of his perspectives on misinformation that will be found in his forthcoming book: Misinformation: How information works, breaks, and mends.

This second edition in a three-part series on The Nature of Trust features guest Dr. Kevin Vallier, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Bowling Green State University and author of the books: Must Politics Be War? and Trust in a Polarized Age. Topics discussed include the importance of social and political trust in our liberal democracy, the relationship between trust and political polarization, possible causes of falling trust levels, how our declining trust levels might be strengthened, the role of cultural change in trust and polarization, whether there are fatal flaws in our democratic system, and the relationship of trust to critical thinking.

In this episode of Thinking Clearly, Bob and Julia introduce the issue of trust. They examine what it is, give a sampling of some of the extensive research on trust, present results from survey information on trust and discuss how trust relates to critical thinking. In this episode, you'll also hear a clip from recent recordings Bob made, with a sampling of people talking about what they trust and what they don't trust.

Thinking Clearly guest, Dr. Tania Israel, Professor in the Department of Counseling, Clinical, and School Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara—author of the book: Beyond Your Bubble: How to Connect Across the Political Divide—discusses the importance of (and how to learn) crucial communication and relationship building skills, including reflective listening and well-crafted questions, to more effectively connect with those whose beliefs are different from ours.

Guest Stephen Hawkins is the director of research at More in Common—a non-profit organization focused on understanding the forces driving us apart and working to bring us together to tackle our shared challenges. The discussion focuses on research findings revealing a number of hidden political "tribes" in America, the lack of accuracy with which opposing partisan groups perceive each other, and ideas for what needs to happen to bring Americans together to tackle our shared challenges.

Street Epistemology is a conversational tool that helps people reflect on the quality of their reasons and the reliability of the methods they have used to form their deeply-held beliefs and to clarify the degree of confidence they have in those beliefs. Anthony Magnabosco, co founder and Executive Director of the nonprofit organization Street Epistemology International, join Bob and Julia to discuss the benefits that come with learning and practicing the technique.

With the view that America is now as polarized as it has been since the civil war, and that this amount of polarization drastically impairs our democratic process, the organization Braver Angels was founded "to bring Americans together to bridge the partisan divide and strengthen our democratic republic." From his experience as head of marketing, digital, and communications strategy for Braver Angels, Ciaran O'Connor discusses political depolarization, the work of Braver Angels, and what people who use the variety of programs offered by Braver Angels can experience and learn.

When making a judgment about what to do or believe—when there are risks involved—it becomes important to look at the consequences of our choices, and this involves accurately assessing both the risks and benefits of those choices. With the help of guest David Ropeik, who coined the term "perception gap" and has authored two books on the subject, Bob and Julia examine risk-benefit as a critical thinking tool.