Last week I discussed Philip Tetlock’s work that revealed the utter meaninglessness of punditry in The Illusion of Punditry. It is important to note that although professional pundits, on average, were less accurate than random chance, a few outliers actually performed well above average. Tetlock closely examined the variables associated with the distribution of accuracy …
Read more “Are You a Hedgehog or a Fox?”
For nearly as long as humans have been thinking about thinking, one of the most intriguing issues has been the interplay of reason and emotion. For the greatest thinkers throughout recorded history, reason has reigned supreme. The traditional paradigm has been one of a dichotomy where refined and uniquely human REASON pitches an ongoing battle …
Read more “What Plato, Descartes, and Kant Got Wrong: Reason Does not Rule.”
“I saw it with my own two eyes!” Does this argument suffice? As it turns out – “NO!” that’s not quite good enough. Seeing should not necessarily conclude in believing. Need proof? Play the video below. As should be evident as a result of this video, what we perceive, can’t necessarily be fully …
Read more “You Can’t Trust What You See”
There is a learning curve to the application of Skeptism. Raw, unchecked challenges to other’s beliefs, in a social context, are not well tolerated. People tend to find such notions rather offputting. In fact, as I have certainly encountered, it elicits defensiveness and sometimes hurt feelings. People often own their ideas and beliefs in a …
Read more “The Social Costs of Skepticism”
What is Intuitive Thought? I have devoted numerous posts to a general category of cognitive errors and biases that are broadly lumped into errors associated with the intuitive mind. The lay notions of intuition are often referred to as gut instincts and they are generally considered emotional and irrational responses. It is in this …
Historically, morality has not been considered a topic of discussion within the domain of science. Instead, this issue has almost exclusively been within the purview of religion. Increasingly, however, concepts such as moral instinct have gained legitimacy as discussed by scientists such as Steven Pinker and Jonathon Haidt, who argue that there are neurological factors …
Read more “Can Science Offer Moral Guidance?”
Nature is harsh. This reality is evidenced with potential discomfort to those who care to open their eyes to what goes on around us. Most living creatures struggle to survive, facing either limited resources or predation on a continual basis. In most developed nations many humans escape this reality, but not too long ago even …
Read more “Nonmoral Nature, It is what it is.”