You Are Not So Smart

Our guest for this episode, Will Storr, wrote a book called The Unpersuadables: Adventures with the Enemies of Science. In that book, Storr spends time with Holocaust deniers, young Earth creationists, people who believe they’ve lived past lives as famous figures, people who believe they’ve been abducted by aliens, people who stake their lives on the power of homeopathy, and many more – people who believe things that most of us do not. Storr explains in the book that after spending so much time with these people it started to become clear to him that it all goes back to that model of reality we all are forced to generate and then interact with. We are all forced to believe what that model tells us, and it is no different for people who are convinced that dinosaurs and human beings used to live together, or that you can be cured of an illness by an incantation delivered over the telephone. For some people, that lines up with their models of reality in a way that’s good enough. It’s a best guess.Storr proposes

In this episode of the YANSS Podcast, we sit down with legendary science historian James Burke.For much of his career, Burke has been creating documentaries and writing books aimed at helping us to make better sense of the enormous amount of information that he predicted would one day be at our fingertips.In Connections, he offered an “alternate view of history” in which great insights took place because of anomalies and mistakes, because people were pursuing one thing, but it lead somewhere surprising or was combined with some other object or idea they could never have imagined by themselves. Innovation took place in the spaces between disciplines, when people outside of intellectual and professional silos, unrestrained by categorical and linear views, synthesized the work of people still trapped in those institutions, who, because of those institutions, had no idea what each other was up to and therefore couldn’t predict the trajectory of even their own disciplines, much less history itself.In The Day the U

In this episode we interview Dean Burnett, author of "Idiot Brain: What Your Brain is Really Up To." Burnett's book is a guide to the neuroscience behind the things that our amazing brains do poorly.In the interview we discuss motion sickness, the pain of breakups, why criticisms are more powerful than compliments, the imposter syndrome, anti-intellectualism, irrational fears, and more. Burnett also explains how the brain is kinda sorta like a computer, but a really bad one that messes with your files, rewrites your documents, and edits your photos when you aren't around.Dean Burnett is a neuroscientist who lectures at Cardiff University and writes about brain stuff over at his blog, Brain Flapping hosted by The Guardian.- Show notes at: www.youarenotsosmart.com- Become a patron at: www.patreon.com/youarenotsosmartSPONSORS• The Great Courses: Free month at www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/smart• Squarespace: Use the offer code SOSMART at www.squarespace.com for 10 percent off your first purchase.Patreon:

Have you ever questioned the nature of your reality? For our guest in this episode, cognitive psychologist Donald Hoffman, that's his day job.Hoffman has developed a new theory of consciousness that, should it prove true, may rearrange our understanding of reality itself.- Show notes at: www.youarenotsosmart.com- Become a patron at: www.patreon.com/youarenotsosmartSPONSORS• The Great Courses: Free month at www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/smart• Squarespace: Use the offer code SOSMART at www.squarespace.com for 10 percent off your first purchase.Patreon: http://patreon.com/youarenotsosmart

We've transferred our biases to artificial intelligence, and now those machine minds are creating the futures they predict. But there's a way to stop it.In this episode we explore how machine learning is biased, sexist, racist, and prejudiced all around, and we meet the people who can explain why, and are going to try and fix it.Patreon: http://patreon.com/youarenotsosmart

In this divisive and polarized era how do you bridge the political divide between left and right? How do you persuade the people on the other side to see things your way?New research by sociologist Robb Willer and psychologist Matthew Feinberg suggests that the answer is in learning how to cross something they call the empathy gap.When we produce arguments, we do so from within our own moral framework and in the language of our moral values. Those values rest on top of a set of psychological tendencies influenced by our genetic predispositions and shaped by our cultural exposure that blind us to alternate viewpoints. Because of this, we find it very difficult to construct an argument with the same facts, but framed in a different morality. Willer’s work suggests that if we did that, we would find it a much more successful route to persuading people we usually think of as unreachable.- Show notes at: www.youarenotsosmart.com- Become a patron at: www.patreon.com/youarenotsosmartSPONSORS• The Great Courses: Free

One of the most effective ways to change people’s minds is to put your argument into a narrative format, a story, but not just any story. The most persuasive narratives are those that transport us. Once departed from normal reality into the imagined world of the story we become highly susceptible to belief and attitude change.In this episode, you’ll learn from psychologist Melanie C. Greene the four secrets to creating the most persuasive narratives possible.- Show notes at: www.youarenotsosmart.com- Become a patron at: www.patreon.com/youarenotsosmartSPONSORS• The Great Courses: Free month at www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/smart• Casper Mattresses: $50 off at www.Casper.com/SOSMART offer code: SOMARTPatreon: http://patreon.com/youarenotsosmart

For computer scientist Chenhao Tan and his team, the internet community called Change My View offered something amazing, a ready-made natural experiment that had been running for years.All they had to do was feed it into the programs they had designed to understand the back-and-forth between human beings and then analyze the patterns the emerged. When they did that, they discovered two things: what kind of arguments are most likely to change people’s minds, and what kinds of minds are most likely to be changed.Patreon: http://patreon.com/youarenotsosmart

If you wanted to build a team in such a way that you maximized its overall intelligence, how would you do it? Would you stack it with high-IQ brainiacs? Would you populate it with natural leaders? Would you find experts on a wide range of topics? Well, those all sound like great ideas, but the latest research into collective intelligence suggests that none of them would work.To create a team that is collectively intelligent, you likely need to focus on three specific factors that psychologist Christopher Chabris and his colleagues recently identified in their research, and in this episode of the You Are Not So Smart podcast, he will tell you all about them and why they seem to matter more than anything else.- Show notes at: www.youarenotsosmart.com- Become a patron at: www.patreon.com/youarenotsosmartSPONSORS• The Great Courses: Free month at www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/smart• Bombfell: $25 off at www.bombfell.com/yanssPatreon: http://patreon.com/youarenotsosmart

If you could compare the person you were before you became sleep deprived to the person after, you’d find you’ve definitely become...lesser than. When it comes to sleep deprivation, you can’t trust yourself to know just how much it is affecting you. You feel fine, maybe a bit drowsy, but your body is stressed in ways that diminish your health and slow your mind. In this episode, we sit down with two researchers whose latest work suggests sleep deprivation also affects how you see other people. In tests of implicit bias, negative associations with certain religious and cultural categories emerged after people started falling behind on rest.- Show notes at: www.youarenotsosmart.com- Become a patron at: www.patreon.com/youarenotsosmartSPONSORS• The Great Courses: Free month at www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/smart• Squarespace: 10 percent off with the code SOSMARTPatreon: http://patreon.com/youarenotsosmart

What effect does Google have on your brain? Here's an even weirder question: what effect does knowing that you have access to Google have on your brain?In this episode we explore what happens when a human mind becomes aware that it can instantly, on-command, at any time, search for the answer to any question, and then, most of time, find it.According to researcher Matthew Fisher, one of the strange side effects is an inflated sense of internal knowledge. In other words, as we use search engines, over time we grow to mistakenly believe we know more than we actually do even when we no longer have access to the internet.- Show notes at: www.youarenotsosmart.com- Become a patron at: www.patreon.com/youarenotsosmartSPONSORS• The Great Courses: Free month at www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/smart• Casper: $50 off at www.casper.com/sosmart and use offer codesosmartPatreon: http://patreon.com/youarenotsosmart

The facts don't speak for themselves. Someone always speaks for them. From the opioid crisis to the widespread use of lobotomies to quiet problem patients, celebrity scientists and charismatic doctors have made tremendous mistakes, but thanks to their fame, they escaped the corrective mechanisms of science itself. Science always corrects the problem, but before it does, many people can be harmed, and society can suffer. In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Paul Offit to discuss how we can get better at catching those mistakes before they happen and mitigating the harm once Pandora's Lab has been opened.- Show notes at: www.youarenotsosmart.com- Become a patron at: www.patreon.com/youarenotsosmartSPONSORS• The Great Courses: www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/smart• Blue Apron: www.blueapron.com/yanssPatreon: http://patreon.com/youarenotsosmart

In late 2014 and early 2015, the city of Starkville, Mississippi, passed an anti-discrimination measure that lead to a series of public debates about an issue that people there had never discussed openly.In this episode, we spend time in Starkville exploring the value of argumentation and debate in the process of change, progress, and understanding our basic humanity.- Show notes at: www.youarenotsosmart.com- Become a patron at: www.patreon.com/youarenotsosmartSPONSORS• The Great Courses: www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/smart• Squarespace: www.squarespace.com/sosmart• ZipRecruiter: www.ziprecruiter.com/notsosmartPatreon: http://patreon.com/youarenotsosmart

In this episode, psychologist Per Espen Stoknes discusses his book: What We Think About When We Try Not to Think About Global Warming.Stoknes has developed a strategy for science communicators who find themselves confronted with climate change deniers who aren’t swayed by facts and charts. His book presents a series of psychology-based steps designed to painlessly change people’s minds and avoid the common mistakes scientists tend to make when explaining climate change to laypeople.Sponsors:-- The Great Courses: www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/smart --||| Show Notes at YouAreNotSoSmart.com |||Patreon: http://patreon.com/youarenotsosmart

In this episode, Tali Sharot, a cognitive neuroscientist and psychologist at University College London, explains our' innate optimism bias. When the brain estimates the outcome of future events, it tends to reduce the probability of negative outcomes for itself, but not so much for other people. In other words, if you are a smoker, everyone else is going to get cancer. The odds of success for a new restaurant change depending on who starts that venture, you or someone else. Sharot explains why and details how we can use our knowledge of this mental quirk to our advantage both personally and institutionally.More about Tali Sharot and her book The Optimism Bias here: http://theoptimismbias.blogspot.com/Sponsors:-- • The Great Courses: www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/smart ---- • Dignity Health: www.dignityhealth.org/taketwomins ---- • Blue Apron: www.blueapron.com/yanss --||| Show Notes at YouAreNotSoSmart.com |||Patreon: http://patreon.com/youarenotsosmart

We are each born labeled. In moments of ambiguity, those labels can change the way people make decisions about us. As a cognitive process, it is invisible, involuntary, and unconscious – and that’s why psychology is working so hard to understand it.Our guest for this episode is Adam Alter, a psychologist who studies marketing and communication, and his New York Times bestselling book is titled Drunk Tank Pink after the color used to paint the walls of police holding cells after research suggested it lessened the urge to fight.- Show notes at: www.youarenotsosmart.com- Become a patron at: www.patreon.com/youarenotsosmartSPONSORS• The Great Courses: www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/smart• Dignity Health: www.dignityhealth.org/taketwomins• ZipRecruiter: www.ziprecruiter.com/notsosmartPatreon: http://patreon.com/youarenotsosmart

Confirmation bias is our tendency to seek evidence that supports our beliefs and confirms our assumptions when we could just as well seek disconfirmation of those beliefs and assumptions instead.This is such a prevalent feature of human cognition, that until recently a second bias has been hidden in plain sight. Our past beliefs and future desires usually match up. Desirability is often twisted into confirmation like a single psychological braid - but recent research suggests that something called desirability bias may be just as prevalent in our thinking. When future desires and past beliefs are incongruent, desire wins out.- Show notes at: www.youarenotsosmart.com- Become a patron at: www.patreon.com/youarenotsosmartPatreon: http://patreon.com/youarenotsosmart

Is psychology too WEIRD? That's what this episode's guest, psychologist Steven J. Heine suggested when he and his colleagues published a paper suggesting that psychology wasn't the study of the human mind, but the study of one kind of human mind, the sort generated by the kinds of brains that happen to be conveniently located near the places where research is usually conducted - North American college undergraduates. They called them the WEIRDest people in the world, short for Western, Education, Industrial, Rich, and Democratic - the kind of people who make up less than 15 percent of the world's population. In this episode, you'll learn why it took so long to figure out it was studying outliers, and what it means for the future of psychology.- Show notes at: www.youarenotsosmart.com- Become a patron at: www.patreon.com/youarenotsosmartSPONSORS• The Great Courses: www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/smart• Squarespace: www.squarespace.com | Offer Code = sosmartPatreon: http://patreon.com/youarenotsosmart

In psychology, they call it naive realism, the tendency to believe that the other side is wrong because they are misinformed, that if they knew what you knew, they would change their minds to match yours.According to Lee Ross, co-author of the new book, The Wisest One in the Room, this is the default position most humans take when processing a political opinion. When confronted with people who disagree, you tend to assume there must be a rational explanation. What we don't think, however, is maybe WE are the ones who are wrong. We never go into the debate hoping to be enlightened, only to crush our opponents.Listen in this episode as legendary psychologist Lee Ross explains how to identify, avoid, and combat this most pernicious of cognitive mistakes.- Show notes at: www.youarenotsosmart.com- Become a patron at: www.patreon.com/youarenotsosmartSPONSORS• The Great Courses: www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/smart• Casper www.casper.com/sosmart - offer code is SOSMARTPatreon: http://patreon.com/youarenotsosmart

"Science is wrong about everything, but you can trust it more than anything."That's the assertion of psychologist Brian Nosek, director of the Center for Open Science, who is working to correct what he sees as the temporarily wayward path of psychology. Currently, psychology is facing what some are calling a replication crisis. Much of the most headline-producing research in the last 20 years isn't standing up to attempts to reproduce its findings. Nosek wants to clean up the processes that have lead to this situation, and in this episode, you'll learn how.- Show notes at: www.youarenotsosmart.com- Become a patron at: www.patreon.com/youarenotsosmartSPONSORS• The Great Courses: www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/smart• Squarespace: www.squarespace.com | Offer Code = sosmartPatreon: http://patreon.com/youarenotsosmart