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Category: fact-based reasoning

The evolutionary and present significance of reading

The evolutionary and present significance of reading

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In her new book, Reader Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World, author Maryanne Wolf explores how reading affects the brain and mind. What different effects result from consuming digital media rather than print media and long forms rather than tweets, posts, and other microcontent? In her excellent recent article, she says, Will new readers develop the more time-demanding cognitive processes nurtured by print-based mediums as they absorb and acquire new cognitive capacities emphasized by digital media? For example, will…

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Seeing my blindfold

Seeing my blindfold

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I’ve found some thought-provoking answers on the Q&A social media site, Quora. Follow the link to a perceptive and helpful answer to, “Can a person be able to objectively identify exactly when and how their thinking processes are being affected by cognitive biases?” The author provides some practical (if exhausting) recommendations that, if even partly followed by a third-to-half of people (my guestimate), would possibly collapse the adversarial culture in our country.

The religious brain and atheism

The religious brain and atheism

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As much of the world settles into the spectacle and cozy embrace of culturally reinforced magical thinking, New Scientist has several interesting recent articles about the evolved intuitive nature of religious thinking as a cognitive by-product (of the value of assuming agency in environmental phenomena, for example) and delving into how atheism is and is not like religious thinking. I find the point interesting that religion and atheism (or any ism), as social constructs, cannot be studied and compared in the…

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Liberals and conservatives are not equivalently biased

Liberals and conservatives are not equivalently biased

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Here is a meta-analysis called “Ideological asymmetries and the essence of political psychology” by John T. Jost, Political Psychology, Vol. 38, No. 2, 2017. This is in part a response to a previous meta-analysis posted on this blog that found both liberal and conservatives equally biased. It’s interesting how liberals, when basing their so-called biases on science and facts, are declared equivalently biased to those whose biases are based on factors other than the foregoing, including authoritarianism and fear responses. …

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Real and false reason

Real and false reason

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Some liberals (and scientists) still think that reason is somehow above and beyond emotion. When I suggest framing in emotional terms they say sure, but that works only for emotional issues as if reason is something beyond emotion. So here’s a reminder from  this Lakoff classic: “It is a basic principle of false reason that every human being has the same reason governed by logic — and that if you just tell people the truth, they will reason to the…

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It takes more than facts

It takes more than facts

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Excellent article by George Monbiot. He’s right to assert that one’s worldview narrative trumps all other considerations, like facts. Such stories organize how we see everything through their lenses. Monbiot notes that the two major narratives of our time are social democracy and neoliberalism. While having different means and goals they both have the same narrative structure: “Disorder afflicts the land, caused by powerful and nefarious forces working against the interests of humanity. The hero – who might be one…

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How to deprogram Trump voters

How to deprogram Trump voters

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Good article by a brain scientist on the topic. Numerous reliable fact check orgs have proven without doubt that Dump is by far the Biggest Liar. So why do Dumpsters believe him and how do we deprogram that false belief? The scientist said supporters are manipulated by the  “illusory truth effect, a thinking error in our minds that happens when false statements are repeated many times and we begin to see them as true. In other words, just because something…

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Illusory Pattern Perception

Illusory Pattern Perception

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This article discusses a new paper in the European Journal of Social Psychology that shows our brain’s penchant for seeing patterns can go awry. Illusory pattern perception is displayed for example in climate science denial, 9/11 truthers, Pizzagate etc. This phenomenon correlates with irrational beliefs that connect dots that aren’t there. We all have this tendency to confirm our biases. However training in critical thinking can reduce the effects of this syndrome.

Are We Racists?

Are We Racists?

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BMAI friends. The following ramble is my first cut at making sense of the grave role racial (and other) bias is playing in the world today. This was prompted by comments I see daily from my family and friends on social media. Thinking about the great lack of self- and group-awareness many of the commenters display, I turned my scope inward. How do my own innate, evolved biases slant me to take my group’s and my own privileges for granted and…

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