Circulating Ideas - 9 September 2021
Circulating Ideas facilitates conversations with the innovative people and ideas inspiring libraries to grow and thrive in the 21st century. This newsletter dives deeper into those conversations.
Please let me know if you have suggestions for upcoming guests or for additions or changes to this newsletter. I’d love your feedback!
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Guest hosts have been a lifeline for me many times, and I appreciate all of my librarian friends and colleagues who have pitched in over the years. Since 2017, Troy Swanson has been guest hosting with a focus on misinformation, disinformation, and “fake news.” He has interviewed journalists, information literacy librarians, media scholars, and psychologists. This occasional series explores the ways that librarians can connect within and beyond librarianship to strengthen the ever-evolving information landscape and better serve their communities. He continues his series here in Episode 207.
Are our brains broken? Are humans hopelessly irrational and doomed to fall for misinformation? Cognitive scientist Hugo Mercier says “no!” His work highlights the nuanced ways that our brains successfully navigate our information world. He emphasizes that attempts at mass persuasion largely fail. We are equipped with sophisticated cognitive mechanisms that protect us from lies and cheats.
Listen and learn!
Episode 207
Circulating Ideas 207: Hugo Mercier — circulatingideas.com
Guest host Troy Swanson chats with Dr. Hugo Mercier, research scientist and author of Not Born Yesterday: The Science of Who We Trust and What We Believe, about cognitive science, how humans think they make decisions (and how they actually do), intuition, and why we aren't as easily fooled as we think (...or are we?).
CI207 Transcript — circulatingideas.com
As often as possible, I try to provide a transcript for each episode. A new app I’ve been using has been a big help with this (story for another time).
The Enigma of Reason — Hugo Mercier, Dan Sperber | Harvard University Press — www.hup.harvard.edu If reason is so useful and reliable, why didn't it evolve in other animals and why do humans produce so much thoroughly reasoned nonsense? Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber argue that reason is not geared to solitary use. It evolved to help justify our beliefs to others, evaluate their arguments, and better exploit our uniquely rich social environment.
Not Born Yesterday: The Science of Who We Trust and What We Believe | Princeton University Press — press.princeton.edu Why people are not as gullible as we think
Hugo Mercier’s book Not Born Yesterday explains what humans do and don’t believe - The Washington Post — www.washingtonpost.com
WaPo review of Not Born Yesterday
More About Hugo Mercier
Hugo Mercier (@hugoreasoning) | Twitter — twitter.com
Hugo Mercier - Google Scholar — scholar.google.com
Fake news in the time of coronavirus: how big is the threat? | The Guardian — www.theguardian.com
People assume that we’re vulnerable to false information. But even in times of crisis, common sense usually prevails, says cognitive scientist Hugo Mercier.
Hugo Mercier | Edge.org — www.edge.org
To arrive at the edge of the world's knowledge, seek out the most complex and sophisticated minds, put them in a room together, and have them ask each other the questions they are asking themselves. Edge.org was launched in 1996 as the online version of "The Reality Club" and as a living document on the Web to display the activities of "The Third Culture."
Why do humans reason? Arguments for an argumentative theory.
Recirculated
Troy Swanson – Circulating Ideas — circulatingideas.com
Troy has been on the show several times as a guest and a dozen times as a guest host! Check out this list of all the times he's been on!
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