Do you have strong views on climate change, taxes, health care, or gun control? Do you think the evidence and reason support your side of the debate? How do you know you’re right? David and Tamler discuss a recent paper by Dan Kahan and colleagues showing how prone people are to make errors in processing information to favor positions they are predisposed to believe. And even more shocking: the higher your numeracy skills, the more prone you are to fall prey to this bias. So how do we correct for this? Can we know anything at all with any confidence? Could it be that 'Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret' in not in fact a completely accurate depiction of how young girls think about puberty? Plus, we decide whether to join Neil deGrasse Tyson as a citizen of Rationalia. To paraphrase Mr. T, I pity the newscasters!
LinksSupport Very Bad Wizards
Episode 285: On Culture and Agriculture
Episode 284: Reel Choices
Episode 283: When Elephants Podcast
Episode 282: Fearful Symmetry (Borges' "Death and the Compass")
Episode 281: Choose Your Fighter
Episode 280: Mad Masque (with Phil Ford and J.F. Martel)
Episode 279: The Greenhouses We Burned Along the Way (Lee Chang-dong's "Burning" Pt. 2)
Episode 278: Schrödinger's Everything (Lee Chang-dong's "Burning" Pt. 1)
Episode 277: The Merits of Buggery (Nagel's "Sexual Perversion")
Episode 276: Attention Please
Episode 275: The Ineffable Center (Borges' "The Aleph")
Episode 274: Can I Get a Kidney Voucher? (with Vlad Chituc)
Episode 273: Ah. Ah. (Miyazaki's "Spirited Away")
Episode 272: Neigh Means Yay
Episode 271: Concept-Con 2023
Episode 270: Take Me to the River (Blood Meridian, Pt. 3)
Episode 269: Death Hilarious (Blood Meridian, Pt. 2)
Episode 268: Blood Meridian, Part 1
Episode 267: The Thickness of Reality
Episode 266: I Want to Half-Believe
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
The Modern West
강유원의 책담화冊談話
The Art of Manliness
A Catholic Commentary on the Chosen
Conversations With Coleman
Dear Hank & John