by J. Jerrald Hayes | Apr 15, 2017 | Critical Thinking, Pseudoscience, The Media
Doctors have decades of experience fighting “fake news.” Here’s how they win. Some lessons from the health community’s long battle with...
by J. Jerrald Hayes | Apr 3, 2017 | • Politics, Critical Thinking, The Democrats
Arguably the words we choose to use matter more than any logical argument we use in discussing a topic. Elizabeth Parker write —”If we on the Left want to start winning again, we need to study how conservatives have mastered politics and language, and start...
by J. Jerrald Hayes | Mar 22, 2017 | Critical Thinking, Science
Lawrence Krauss: Stop Validating Ignorance – Video Lawrence Krauss: It amazes me that people have pre-existing notions that defy the evidence of reality. But that they hold onto them so...
by J. Jerrald Hayes | Mar 12, 2017 | Critical Thinking
A philosopher’s 350-year-old trick to get people to change their minds is now backed up by psychologists The 17th century philosopher Blaise Pascal is perhaps best known for Pascal’s Wager which, in the first formal use of decision theory, argued that...
by J. Jerrald Hayes | Mar 9, 2017 | Brain Science, Cognitive Bias
Bias can contaminate eyewitness testimony, which is the biggest contributor to wrongful convictions in the United...
by J. Jerrald Hayes | Mar 3, 2017 | Critical Thinking, Skepticism
See how to debunk viral photos in seconds using image search Back in August I wrote about how Google Image Search and other reverse image search engines are a valuable tool to debunk viral hoaxes. Last week yet another example popped up that shows just how easy these...
by J. Jerrald Hayes | Feb 22, 2017 | Cognitive Bias, Critical Thinking, Irrational Thinking
Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds In 1975, researchers at Stanford invited a group of undergraduates to take part in a study about suicide. They were presented with pairs of suicide notes. In each pair, one note had been composed by a random individual, the other...
by J. Jerrald Hayes | Feb 15, 2017 | • Politics, Critical Thinking, Psychology
Most of the time changing someone minds is a fruitless waste of time but that is often because we actually have no idea of how to approach it correctly. We often think that if we can ‘win the argument’ they’ll be convinced and change their minds when...
by J. Jerrald Hayes | Feb 14, 2017 | Critical Thinking
Found on FaceBook via TheMadVirologist… Guides: Evaluating Information: Propaganda vs. Misinformation Propaganda is a commonly misused term. Because of its historical use, such as in the name of the infamous “National Ministry for Public Enlightenment and...
by J. Jerrald Hayes | Feb 10, 2017 | Critical Thinking
Albert Einstein: Truth is Revealed When Authority is Questioned Albert Einstein (1879-1955) was one of the most respected scientists who ever lived. A theoretical physicist and philosopher of science, Einstein developed the special and general theories of relativity,...
by J. Jerrald Hayes | Feb 10, 2017 | Critical Thinking
If you ever watch Fox News this should come in handy. While I am sure all the everyone is guilty at some point of manipulating how data is displayed Fox New makes it a regular practice. How to Spot Visualization Lies Keep your eyes open. It used to be that we’d...
by J. Jerrald Hayes | Feb 7, 2017 | • Politics, Cognitive Bias, Critical Thinking
Cognitive dissonance is the psychological theory developed by social psychologist Leon Festinger that describes how and why people to dig in their heels and hold on to their beliefs even when faced with overwhelming evidence to the contrary. In fact the more people...
