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1:54

terms apply. This is

1:56

an interesting moment in true crime.

1:58

More and more people seem to

2:00

be trying. to spread elaborate conspiracy

2:03

theories in an attempt to explain

2:05

the world or try to diminish

2:07

a favored defendant's guilt. We've begun

2:09

to see this again and again

2:11

in case after case. And

2:14

let's be clear, this wild talk is not

2:16

just about true crime, and it is not

2:18

just people in the audience who believe it.

2:21

You may recall something we recently reported

2:23

concerning Kara Wienicke, an attorney closely linked

2:25

to the defense in the Richard Allen

2:27

case. Ms. Wienicke has stated

2:30

that she doesn't believe we landed on the moon.

2:32

We laughed about that a bit on the program,

2:34

but let's be honest. It is

2:37

not funny when seemingly educated people

2:39

believe and spread ridiculous nonsense. Let

2:42

me make just one more point about

2:44

that. When someone says that we didn't

2:46

land on the moon, it is easy

2:48

for most of us to immediately recognize

2:50

that that person doesn't know what they

2:52

are talking about. But

2:55

the problem is that most nonsense

2:57

and lies are not as

2:59

easy to spot as that. So

3:01

how can we, as consumers of true

3:03

crime, identify what is true

3:06

and what is not? For that

3:08

to happen, we all need to brush

3:10

up on our critical thinking skills. And

3:13

we definitely include ourselves in that because as

3:15

you'll hear in this episode, there have certainly

3:17

been times when the two of us have

3:19

failed its critical thinkers. To get some

3:21

help with all of this, we decided to turn

3:23

to someone whose work has taught me a great

3:25

deal over the years. Dr.

3:28

Steven Novella is an academic clinical

3:30

neurologist at the Yale University School

3:32

of Medicine, but I've come

3:34

to know him best through his work

3:36

in movements associated with skepticism and critical

3:38

thinking. He hosts and produces the

3:41

podcast, The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe,

3:43

and he's also written a book of that same name. We

3:46

highly recommend both. He

3:48

also is, you will soon hear, an

3:50

articulate and witty speaker. Critical thinking

3:53

is a lifelong process, and frankly it

3:55

isn't always easy. But it is

3:57

better than the alternative. When we don't do

3:59

it, we make it easy for people to

4:01

fool us and take advantage of us. Looking

4:04

at it that way, you can almost

4:06

imagine critical thinking as a shield which

4:08

can guard us against nonsense and lies.

4:11

It is time we started brandishing that

4:13

shield as we consume content around true

4:15

crime. My name

4:17

is Anya Cain. I'm a journalist. And

4:20

I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney. And

4:22

this is The Murder Sheet. We're a

4:24

true crime podcast focused on original reporting,

4:27

interviews, and deep dives into murder

4:29

cases. We're The Murder Sheet. And

4:32

this is The Skeptic's Guide to

4:35

True Crime with Dr. Stephen Novella.

5:22

Well, let's start by asking an obvious

5:24

first question. Can you tell us a little bit about

5:26

yourself? Yeah, so

5:28

I'm Stephen Novella. I am the host

5:31

and producer of a podcast called The

5:33

Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. We're

5:36

in our 20th year actually. So we've been doing that

5:38

for quite a bit of time. And we

5:40

talk about everything to do

5:43

with science, with critical thinking,

5:45

with pseudoscience, skepticism, weird fringe

5:47

beliefs, conspiracy theories, all that

5:49

stuff. You mentioned skeptics.

5:51

What is a skeptic? So we

5:55

use the term skeptic to refer to scientific

5:58

skeptics, which is a term

6:00

that was popularized by Carl

6:03

Sagan and others, you know,

6:05

of his ilk. So the idea is

6:07

that, you know, we want

6:09

to believe what's true, what's actually

6:12

verifiably true. We follow

6:14

the epistemology of science, you know, we

6:16

think that science is the best way

6:18

to figure things out. And

6:20

we promote not only scientific literacy and

6:23

a scientific worldview, but also critical thinking.

6:25

You have to understand something about how

6:27

our brains work. And,

6:31

and how we deceive ourselves how

6:33

others can deceive us to understanding

6:35

critical thinking is critical as well.

6:37

And also media savvy, we live

6:39

in a, you know, multimedia universe

6:41

now. So you have to understand

6:44

how to access information, how to evaluate

6:46

and assess information in order

6:48

to get to some

6:50

belief that's more likely to be true than not

6:52

to be true. You know, that's the ultimate goal

6:54

of things is to believe things as probably true

6:56

only when they ask for information. And

6:59

I think that's what we actually are. Yeah, we, we, we

7:01

obviously are a true crime podcast. And

7:03

right now in the true crime world,

7:06

there's a lot of talk about

7:08

elaborate conspiracies. In one of the

7:10

cases we're covering some defense

7:12

attorneys are saying that the murder was

7:14

actually committed not by their client, but

7:17

like a religious cult of odeness. And

7:20

it's really interesting to me that there are some

7:22

things that are going on in the conspiracy, other

7:24

sorts of conspiracies raised in the Karen Reed case.

7:26

What is it about people that draws us to

7:29

these conspiracy theories? And

7:40

I think that there's a little conspiracy there. It's

7:42

in all of us, right? There are some basic,

7:45

just human psychological elements

7:47

that do attract us

7:49

to conspiracy theories. And

7:52

a big one is something that

7:54

psychologists call apophenia, which is basically

7:56

a technical term for we see

7:59

patterns, right? We you

8:01

know, we our brains function

8:03

basically by noticing and picking

8:05

out patterns Our brains

8:07

also have another function though I mean

8:10

literally this is parts of your brain

8:12

that do this So we are constantly

8:14

sifting through all of the data out

8:16

there in the universe and this could

8:18

be visual It could be auditory could

8:21

just be ideas abstract whatever events connecting

8:23

the dots, you know Our brains really

8:25

good at that, but we

8:27

also have a reality testing filter So

8:30

it seems you know as best

8:32

as we can Neuroscientists think

8:35

that our brains are

8:37

designed are evolved to like really

8:40

Oversee patterns we see patterns

8:42

everywhere. So we have a

8:44

very sensitive pattern recognition It's

8:47

meant to to see patterns that

8:50

aren't even there and

8:52

then we filter out the ones that are probably

8:54

not true with the reality testing

8:56

circuitry in our brain so

9:00

conspiracy thinking part of it is Again,

9:03

and this is actually a big research

9:06

question. Do people who tend to believe

9:08

in conspiracy theories? Are they overseeing patterns

9:10

or are they under filtering them? Right

9:13

at what end is the problem? Occurring

9:17

I don't know that there's a definitive answer to that

9:19

It kind of depends on your research paradigm and how

9:21

you look at it But it does seem that it's

9:24

there's some preliminary evidence suggests. It's probably

9:26

an under filtering pattern They don't

9:29

we all see lots of patterns, but they

9:31

they don't filter out the not real ones

9:33

So like you might notice of

9:35

some bizarro coincidence. I've seen

9:37

the number seven so many times today

9:40

I'm what people will recognize that as

9:42

just a coincidence But

9:45

some people will be like the universe is speaking

9:47

to me, you know There's some magical thing going

9:49

on because it can't be in coincidence I see

9:52

this pattern and the pattern speaks

9:54

to me at a primal level, you know

9:56

And so I think that's kind of

9:58

how we're conspiracy theories come from. The

10:01

truth will set you free. We live by

10:03

that on the murder sheet. We're always looking to

10:05

get at the truth when we cover criminal cases,

10:07

when we're parsing through legal documents

10:10

and stories from survivors and detectives and

10:12

attorneys just trying to get the full

10:14

picture. So you can imagine why

10:16

we love to listen to Britney Arred's Quest

10:19

for the Truth on the new podcast, you

10:21

probably think the story's about you. Brit

10:23

is all about getting an answer

10:25

to a deeply personal question. What

10:28

if the person you thought was

10:30

your soulmate never really existed? After

10:33

a chance meeting on the Hinge

10:35

Dating App, a man named Kanan

10:37

stole Brit's heart. She felt hard

10:39

for him, but he ended up dragging

10:41

her into a web of lies. The

10:44

Kanan she came to love was an invention,

10:46

a ghost. Brit's journey to piece

10:48

together this disturbing mystery isn't just

10:50

compelling. It's a raw look at

10:52

self-discovery and the power of coming

10:55

together to form a community through

10:57

shared grief and trauma. Listen

10:59

and follow, you probably think this

11:01

story's about you, wherever you listen

11:03

to podcasts. But there's

11:05

a number of other psychological sort of self-reinforcing aspects

11:07

to it as well. You

11:10

know, conspiracy theories perpetuate

11:12

themselves because by

11:15

design they are insulated from

11:17

disprove, right? So once

11:19

you're inside a conspiracy, any

11:22

bit of evidence that contradicts the

11:24

conspiracy, well that was planted,

11:26

right? That's a false flag

11:28

operation. And any

11:30

bit of evidence that's missing, well

11:33

that's a cover-up. So there's

11:36

literally no way you can get out

11:38

of the conspiracy theory once you're fully

11:40

in it. It's an insulated

11:44

belief system. You know, that's why they

11:46

tend to perpetuate, like why do people still

11:48

believe we never landed on the moon when

11:50

the evidence is overwhelming? I mean it's overwhelming

11:52

that we landed on the moon. And

11:54

then, you know, you ask,

11:57

well, you know, try to just come up with a

11:59

coherent explanation for how how it all happened. And

12:01

they really can't. It's just they do a couple of

12:03

things. They do what we call anomaly hunting, right? So

12:05

they look for things that are weird. And

12:08

then they just weave some

12:11

sinister story around

12:13

these apparent anomalies. Why

12:16

isn't the flag waving? Whatever, just, you know, they, or

12:18

whatever they come up with. And

12:21

then they, again, that's where the apophilia then

12:23

comes in where they connect those dots. Then

12:25

you have your conspiracy theory. And then once

12:27

they're inside the conspiracy theory, they're done, right?

12:29

Then there's no way out. Yeah,

12:31

we've actually seen instances of cases where people

12:34

say the evidence here is too good. It

12:36

has to be a framed job. It

12:39

definitely seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy for some

12:41

of these folks. But I'm curious, you know,

12:43

broadly speaking, you've been part of the sort

12:45

of skeptical world for years. In

12:48

your kind of general view, do you

12:50

feel that people are becoming more skeptical

12:52

or less skeptical? Yes. I

12:56

do think it's both at the same time. There's

12:59

objective evidence to back that up. I mean, if you

13:01

look at, you know, at any

13:03

component of skepticism, scientific

13:05

literacy, people are actually getting

13:07

more scientifically literate. It's

13:09

still bad. I'm not telling you that, I'm not saying it's good, but it's

13:12

like, oh, we've gone from 18% to 24% of people in

13:15

this specific test of scientific

13:18

literacy that was done over 20 years. So

13:20

it's incrementally getting a little

13:22

bit better. People's IQs

13:24

are actually been increasing by about

13:27

three points per decade for the

13:29

last 60 years, as long as we've been measuring

13:31

them. Not even sure why that is,

13:33

but, you know, but

13:35

that's happening as well. I think people

13:38

have a lot more information, right?

13:40

We process a lot more information. And

13:42

so people, you know, I think are

13:44

generally more savvy, but at

13:46

the same time, the forces

13:48

that are trying to deceive us are also

13:51

getting better, getting really

13:53

good at creating

13:55

a narrative and

13:57

then fine tuning that narrative. So... It

14:00

pushes all of our emotional buttons and

14:03

then creating an information

14:05

ecosystem that

14:07

locks people into those

14:10

narratives. You

14:12

get to the point where you don't even realize

14:14

that the information that

14:16

you consume is being curated

14:19

for you by

14:22

massive organizations that people, it sounds like

14:25

a conspiracy theory, that this is actually

14:27

happening because the market

14:29

forces and media forces are real.

14:32

I don't think it's one guy in

14:34

a room doing all this. Some of

14:36

it is organic. Some of it is just this is

14:38

what market forces do. But sometimes,

14:41

you do have the head of Fox

14:44

News who has a very specific editorial

14:46

policy that has a very specific purpose

14:48

behind it and literally

14:50

curating the news for

14:53

an audience and for a narrative.

14:56

If you're not aware of that, you think

14:58

it's just the news. You

15:00

don't realize that your reality is being

15:03

created for you. This

15:05

happens in totalitarian countries, obviously, but

15:07

even in an open country like

15:09

the United States or most Western

15:11

countries, we still have people feeding

15:14

us information unless you

15:16

really make an effort to

15:18

get a wide variety of

15:20

sources of information and double, triple, check

15:22

everything. Unless you're really

15:24

actively skeptical of everything you come

15:27

across, chances are you

15:29

are being herded into a certain narrative

15:31

by people who want to sell you

15:34

something, people who want you to vote

15:36

a certain way, people who want you

15:38

to feel or believe a certain way. Again,

15:41

I think a lot of it is

15:43

organic. It just emerges from the culture,

15:45

from society and the institutions and people

15:47

doing their own little thing, but it

15:50

still can be a very powerful force.

15:53

That's where you get to the point, like in the

15:55

United States today, we think things are really polarized. This

15:58

has been, again, well-established. was not just

16:00

my opinion. This has been researched. It's well

16:03

established that people of certain

16:05

political end of the spectrum literally

16:08

consume different information with almost

16:10

no overlap, like no overlap

16:13

compared to people of the opposite

16:16

political persuasion. We're literally consuming two

16:18

completely different subsets of information. So

16:20

of course we're polarized. Neither

16:24

side could understand the other. Both

16:26

sides think the other side's crazy, because how

16:29

could they possibly believe that when there's

16:31

all this information that is

16:34

going in the other

16:36

direction? And they both think that the

16:38

other side's being lied to. I think

16:41

this existed hundreds

16:44

of years before social media, but social

16:46

media ramped it up by an order

16:48

of magnitude. And

16:50

we'll see what happens. I hope things will

16:52

sort themselves out and reach some sort of

16:54

equilibrium point. But nobody knows at this point

16:56

in time. We're just sort of taking it

16:59

as it comes. What

17:01

you say about people subscribing to

17:04

and getting their information from completely

17:06

different sources with different versions of

17:09

reality, we see a lot of that

17:11

in the true crime world as well. And

17:13

I guess I'm curious, with all these

17:15

sources of information people have, how can

17:17

they use critical thinking or the

17:19

principles of skepticism to figure out

17:21

where the truth is? Yeah.

17:24

So I wrote an entire book about

17:26

that. The Skeptics Guide to the Universe

17:29

book is a primer on how to

17:31

do that. How do

17:33

we know what's real in the world today with

17:35

so many sources of information? One

17:37

of my favorite examples is Steve Jobs. One

17:40

of the richest men on the world,

17:42

top of an information company, had every

17:45

resource to everything in the world diagnosed

17:48

with a very treatable, very survivable

17:50

form of cancer, and

17:53

yet made personal health decisions

17:55

based on misinformation and ultimately

17:57

died. Now, we don't know for sure. it

18:00

happened, it maybe wouldn't have made a difference.

18:02

I can't say that that affected the outcome,

18:04

but it absolutely could have. And

18:07

at the very least, we know that he delayed proper

18:10

treatment, science-based treatment, and

18:12

that may have been critical in his

18:15

outcome. How did that happen? How did

18:17

Steve Jobs not have access to the

18:19

right information? And it's because, again,

18:21

we're living in this world of different

18:23

narratives. And once you follow one

18:26

narrative, it

18:28

seems like the truth to you. So there's

18:31

a few good rules of thumb, like if you

18:33

want to be more skeptical. Again, I can't tell

18:35

you in two minutes how to do that. It's

18:37

a lifelong project. But there's a few

18:39

good tips on how to be skeptical, I

18:42

guess. So one is question everything, obviously. I

18:44

don't take anything at face value. If it's

18:46

important, the more important it is, the more

18:48

you should question it. And how

18:50

do you question it? You should

18:53

especially question things that fit

18:55

your narrative. That's the

18:57

thing that people don't do. We

18:59

instinctively believe in acceptings

19:01

that fit our narrative, our

19:04

beliefs, and question things that

19:06

don't fit our beliefs. That's confirmation bias.

19:09

Confirmation bias is powerful, massively

19:11

powerful. It makes us think that there's so

19:13

much evidence to support my view. It's like,

19:15

yeah, that's because you're only looking for and

19:17

accepting the evidence that does, and you're rejecting

19:21

or overlooking or dismissing the evidence

19:23

that doesn't. So do the opposite.

19:25

Be especially skeptical of your own

19:28

beliefs. And when information confirms what

19:30

you believe, that's

19:32

the information you need to be most

19:34

skeptical of. And then in

19:36

terms of sources, again, the big

19:39

rule of thumb is always go

19:41

back to the primary original source.

19:43

Don't accept somebody else's summary of

19:46

what a piece of information is or

19:48

whatever. Go back to the primary source always as

19:50

much as you can. It should be

19:52

a reflex. I hear something in the news. I'm like,

19:55

oh, I wonder where that information came from. You trace

19:57

it back to whatever the original source of the information

19:59

is. You often... find it's something very

20:01

different than the narrative that

20:03

was created for you or

20:05

the way it's being used. It's

20:08

never the same, right? It's always

20:10

different. It's always more complicated. It's

20:12

never as clean or as simple as it's being

20:15

presented. But you'll find that, okay, now I have

20:17

a much clearer idea of what apps is going

20:19

on. I'm seeing where the consensus

20:21

of opinion is, you know, try to get

20:23

to objective sources as much as possible. Find

20:25

out what the other side is saying and

20:28

why and see who has the better evidence,

20:30

the better argument. It's a process. There's no

20:32

one trick to it. It's a process. Again,

20:35

the more important it is to you, the more effort

20:37

you should put into it. If you're making a life

20:39

or death health decision, I would put a lot of

20:41

effort into trying to figure out how

20:44

reliable the information is

20:46

that you're seeing. So if you at least

20:48

have a process, right, don't just go with

20:51

the flow of this is my

20:53

tribe, this is what we believe, this is

20:55

the information that supports what we believe. Everyone

20:57

else is crazy and that's good enough for

20:59

me. You know, chances are you probably not,

21:02

you know, getting to reliable

21:04

conclusions if that's your process, you know, just

21:06

believe whatever the whatever the tribe says,

21:08

whatever the narrative is, probably didn't

21:10

just happen to fall into the one true

21:13

narrative in the world, right? Yeah,

21:15

that would be pretty pretty lucky. And

21:19

one thing you mentioned, I want to go back to

21:21

I thought was really interesting with Steve Jobs, obviously,

21:23

you know, for we kind

21:26

of all regard him as a very smart

21:28

man, a very visionary man with technology business.

21:30

So is being a good critical

21:33

thinker, the same thing as being intelligent and

21:35

smart? Or can you be an intelligent and

21:37

smart person and terrible at critical thinking? Yeah,

21:39

that's a great question. So intelligence is

21:41

many different things. And then

21:43

neuroscientists like college, whatever, don't even like

21:45

to use the term very much. Because

21:48

it's, it's a loaded term,

21:50

like IQ testing, what are you

21:52

actually measuring? What is it? And

21:54

we recognize that there's it's multifaceted.

21:57

And you absolutely could be intelligent in

22:00

one way and not in another,

22:02

because there's different skill sets that we

22:05

would all think of as, quote

22:07

unquote, intelligence. There is, you know, some

22:09

psychologists will use terms like emotional intelligence,

22:11

right, to represent your ability to like

22:13

pick up on social cues and think

22:15

about interpersonal relationships and things like that.

22:18

And certainly there are people who may

22:20

have very high engineering, pragmatic,

22:23

mathematical, whatever intelligence who had

22:25

very low emotional intelligence. And

22:28

I absolutely critical thinking is

22:30

its own skill sets. It

22:32

is a very involved skill

22:34

set. It's not easy. It's very hard to

22:37

do. It takes vigilance. It takes the ability

22:39

to look at your own beliefs and go,

22:41

I could be wrong. I am wrong. I

22:43

know I'm wrong. The question is how, how

22:45

wrong am I? And in what way am

22:47

I wrong? And how can I become a

22:49

little bit less wrong, you know, by trying

22:51

to, you know, be open to

22:54

new perspectives, new information, whatever that

22:56

answer your question? Did? Yeah. Okay.

22:58

It sounds like, and correct me if I'm

23:00

wrong, but it almost sounds like critical thinking

23:02

is a bit like a muscle. If you're

23:05

not using applying it again and again, it

23:07

can atrophy and not be super helpful. It's

23:09

not something where it's something you should be

23:12

applying across your life, which may be hard

23:14

for some people. Yeah, it's a

23:16

pattern of behavior too. It's what we call

23:18

metacognition, right? So you're thinking about your own

23:20

thought process. You're thinking about

23:22

it critically. Like you're always trying to second

23:24

guess yourself and prove yourself wrong in a

23:27

way. And those ideas

23:29

which survive your attempts to

23:31

prove it wrong. All right, that's what

23:33

has some value. You know, I can't immediately disprove

23:36

it. If you really want to go on this

23:38

skeptical journey, it's not, it's not just saying, all

23:40

right, I'm going to be skeptical. I'm going to

23:42

question things. It's like, it's a

23:44

massive skill set. Like psychologists

23:47

have been studying this for 100 years. Neuroscientists

23:49

now, we know a lot more about how

23:51

the brain works. There's a lot

23:53

of literature. You can go deep into

23:55

the weeds just on conspiracy thinking, for

23:58

example, or just on How

24:00

do you tell real science from

24:03

pseudoscience, or what's the actual difference

24:05

about the philosophy of science, neuropsychological

24:07

humility, how your brain

24:09

deceives itself and instructs reality, and

24:11

how your memory is flawed. There's

24:13

so many different sub-areas of information,

24:16

and you could fall victim to

24:18

any one of them. One of

24:20

the things, as skeptics, we remind

24:22

each other and ourselves, the ultimate

24:25

bias, the ultimate way that you

24:27

deceive yourself, is thinking that

24:29

you're a critical thinker, and therefore you

24:31

can't be deceived. Once

24:34

you think, oh, I've arrived, I'm a critical thinker,

24:36

I'm a skeptic, no, you can't fool me, that's

24:39

the easiest person to fool, is the one who

24:41

thinks they can't be fooled. Ask

24:43

any magician that, they will tell you that. The

24:46

person who thinks they're too smart to be fooled, that's

24:48

the easiest person to fool. They

24:50

love scientists as an audience.

24:54

And we see this all the time, where you

24:57

have a scientist who's brilliant, brilliant

24:59

scientist who falls for

25:02

complete chicanery, because

25:04

it's not their skill set. It's a different

25:06

skill set. They're not used to nature

25:09

actively trying to deceive them, so they don't

25:12

know how to deal with that. It's

25:16

100 skill sets, and any one

25:18

of them contribute up, if you're not aware

25:20

of it. Again,

25:23

it's a journey you will never get

25:25

to the destination of. You have to

25:27

constantly be questioning and

25:29

trying to improve how you

25:32

process information, and questioning your own

25:34

biases. Even for somebody who's

25:36

been doing this my entire adult life, there

25:38

are just biases in the way that

25:40

we look at reality, and the value

25:43

judgments that we make, and it's really

25:45

hard to weed that completely out of

25:47

your thought process. We're biased

25:49

in ways we're not even aware of. So

25:52

you always have to just be always

25:55

first and foremost, open to

25:57

the possibility that you're wrong, and just always try

25:59

to get a... be more sophisticated

26:01

version of or nuanced version

26:03

of what you think about things. Obviously

26:07

from what you're saying it's clear that it's

26:09

not easy to be a critical thinker. It's

26:11

a process. It takes a lot of

26:14

hard work. So I'm sure some people

26:16

in our audience might be wondering what

26:18

makes it worth it. What's the

26:20

harm if I want to believe we never went to the

26:22

moon? Yeah, so believing in magic

26:24

is a really dangerous thing, right? So

26:27

one aspect of organized skepticism,

26:30

a massive aspect of it,

26:32

is consumer protection. And

26:34

there's many layers to that as

26:36

well. So ultimately, again, I mentioned

26:38

Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs, you

26:40

know, arguably, died prematurely because

26:43

he fell for this natural is

26:45

better narrative that sounds good superficially.

26:48

But it's total BS when you

26:50

really dig deep into it from

26:52

a scientific and critical thinking perspective.

26:54

But it sounds good. And it's

26:56

very persuasive, pervasive, especially in California.

27:00

So it kind of fit with the culture that he

27:02

was embedded in. So, you know,

27:04

we make decisions individually, as

27:06

a family, as a group,

27:08

as a society, all

27:11

the time informed by sides of

27:13

critical thinking. You know, should

27:15

we be investing in green energy? Or

27:17

is global warming a hoax

27:19

and a conspiracy? Right? You know,

27:22

can I trust institutions? Like, can I

27:25

trust the FDA to evaluate

27:27

medicine? You know, should I take medications or

27:29

not? Or are they all poisons that are

27:31

going to kill me? Because the pharmaceutical industry

27:34

is trying to keep me sick. Which

27:36

one of these things do you believe? So we make, you know,

27:39

these life or death decisions all the time,

27:41

or decisions that have massive effects on our

27:43

life, on our prosperity, on our society,

27:46

that are in where critical

27:48

thinking and scientific literacy is

27:51

absolutely critical. So if

27:54

you are not, so I also, when people

27:56

ask that question, why, what's the harm? So

27:58

what's the alternative to? being a

28:00

critical thinker. It's the opposite

28:02

of being a skeptic being a critical thinker

28:05

is being gullible. But

28:07

nobody will say, yeah, I'm gullible. I'm okay

28:09

with being gullible. But that's really what you're

28:11

saying, right? If you're not a critical thinker,

28:13

you are gullible. That's what the word means.

28:16

And that means you're vulnerable to any con

28:18

artist out there. And there's

28:20

lots of con artists out there. There's 8

28:22

billion people in this world. You

28:25

know, 1% of them are psychopaths, sociopath.

28:28

That's a lot of people. There's a lot

28:30

of people out there that have

28:32

no compunction about stealing all of

28:34

your money. We're swimming in scams

28:36

right now, right? I mean, I

28:39

get scam emails and texts every

28:41

day. It's like everybody does phone

28:43

calls. It's constant, constantly being assailed

28:45

by people attempting to calm me

28:47

in one way or another. You

28:50

have to be skeptical in today's world. You have

28:52

to be. Otherwise, you're vulnerable as

28:54

hell, right? For my

28:56

next question, I'm gonna out us

28:58

our embarrassing critical thinking failures. So

29:00

I know when I

29:02

was we all have them. Yeah, well, I'm gonna

29:04

ask you yours, but I want to do ours first.

29:06

So you don't feel like we got it. So mine

29:09

was I used to when I was just

29:11

a consumer of true crime, I would disagree

29:14

with whatever podcast or documentary I was watching,

29:16

unless it was really egregiously bad. And

29:18

over time, I'm like, I'm just kind

29:21

of taking in this information uncritically. I'm a

29:23

journalist, I'm a history major, I would never

29:25

assess anything like this at work. But it's

29:27

like, I like this podcaster, so they must

29:29

be right. So that's my embarrassment. You want

29:31

to tell me yours? Years ago, I

29:33

used to be I

29:35

felt prey to Kennedy assassination conspiracies. Yeah,

29:37

you waste of time, but analyzing

29:40

them did teach me a lot about critical thinking.

29:42

So I want to ask, is there a time in your

29:44

life where you've kind of failed in the

29:46

critical thinking space? Oh, yeah, when I was younger,

29:48

like before I was

29:52

like teenager in into my 20s,

29:54

I believed in everything. I believe

29:56

in UFOs, Bigfoot, you know, the

29:58

whole thing. Basically, was

30:00

on in search of with Leonard Nimoy,

30:02

I like that. Spock is telling me

30:04

that this is correct. And

30:07

the thing is, like, you know,

30:09

this pseudo doc, I was a

30:11

total science documentary junkie. I watch

30:13

any science show on TV. And

30:15

the pseudo scientific ones were just

30:17

as slick, just as compelling. It

30:19

was adults with some authority

30:21

figure saying these ancient astronauts made

30:23

these lines in the desert, which

30:25

I believed all of it until

30:27

I started to learn not, you

30:30

know, more science and more critical

30:32

thinking. And the first

30:34

one to fall was the whole UFO

30:36

thing, like aliens were visiting the earth.

30:38

And then once the first domino goes,

30:41

and you realize, all right, this is

30:43

bullshit. And yet, there's this

30:45

whole infrastructure, a

30:47

whole ecosystem of belief in it.

30:51

You know, so if that could be a

30:53

lie, right, that could all be just self

30:55

deception and pseudoscience. How do I know that

30:57

any of these other things that I've been

30:59

believing are correct, then you start to examine

31:01

things one by one, and they just, all

31:04

of the pseudoscience, you know, just collapses one after

31:06

the other. But then

31:08

you get to more and more nuanced things, right.

31:11

So we start off as what we

31:13

in the community call Bigfoot skeptics, which

31:15

is meant to be a

31:17

derogatory term, but it's really perfectly legitimate.

31:19

It's just that's kind of where you

31:21

start off, like the low hanging fruit

31:23

is, yeah, there's no breeding

31:25

population of giant primates in North America

31:27

that we that we have not

31:29

been able to find for the last 60 years.

31:32

Like, maybe you had a point when

31:35

it was brought up in the 1960s.

31:38

But I mean, come on, it's like,

31:40

hey, whatever, how many years later, we've,

31:43

there's this seven foot

31:45

primate living in Oregon, and

31:47

we've never, no one's been

31:49

able to find a single piece of

31:51

convincing evidence. It bottles in

31:53

mind, right? There are still

31:56

shows about finding Bigfoot, though. It's amazing. So

31:58

anyway, you start to about things

32:00

like that and you realize

32:03

how deception gets built into

32:05

the culture in so many ways. But those

32:07

were mine. It was a good experience. I

32:10

think I'm better a better skeptic because I was on

32:12

the other side of it at some point. I kind

32:14

of know how people think and how

32:17

they get into that and how

32:19

you sort of cocoon off your

32:21

beliefs and dismiss skepticism

32:23

until you pant anymore. But

32:27

also just the ability. It's very

32:29

liberating. It's very freeing. Once

32:31

you realize, I don't have to believe anything. I

32:34

can decide for myself what to believe

32:36

based upon logic and evidence.

32:39

And in a way, it is extremely

32:41

freeing. You

32:44

use the word pseudoscience in case some

32:46

members of our audience aren't familiar with

32:48

it. What is pseudoscience

32:50

and how is it different from

32:53

science? Yeah, it's another good

32:55

question. First of all, there's what we

32:57

call, what philosophers call, the demarcation problem,

32:59

which is a fancy way of saying

33:01

there's no sharp line between science and

33:04

pseudoscience. It's a continuum. It's

33:07

more like what are the features

33:09

of good science versus pseudoscience. The

33:11

more features of pseudoscience you have,

33:13

the more you are towards that

33:15

end of the spectrum. But sometimes

33:17

even legitimate science will use some

33:19

kind of squirrely techniques. It's

33:23

not these two clean, sharp categories.

33:25

But the features of pseudoscience are basically, they're

33:27

going through the motions, so like pretending to

33:30

do science, but they're not doing the

33:33

real spirit of science. So

33:35

the big thing is that pseudoscience is

33:37

generally start with the conclusion and

33:39

they work back from there. Unfortunately,

33:42

like in the legal system, like the

33:44

true crime area, that's a lawyer's job.

33:46

The lawyer's job is to start with the

33:48

conclusion to work backwards. So

33:50

in a way, like it doesn't surprise me that

33:52

a lawyer is defending a conspiracy theory. They don't

33:54

care. They don't even have to believe it. That's

33:57

not their job. Their job is to make whatever defense.

34:00

They can for their client, right? But

34:02

if you're doing science that you can't do that,

34:05

but you can't start with the conclusion and work

34:07

backwards They do things like they

34:09

only look for evidence that supports their

34:11

hypothesis rather than trying to disprove their

34:13

hypothesis Which is what a legitimate scientist

34:15

would do they do things like dismiss

34:18

Evidence that doesn't support their hypothesis or

34:20

they find reasons to ignore it or dismiss

34:23

it and their methods are terrible Right. They

34:25

just don't use good Double-blind

34:27

controlled methods that you know, they

34:29

will use terms differently in different

34:31

contexts. They won't be measuring things

34:33

properly whatever they speak of they

34:35

make so many mistakes that basically

34:37

their data is meaningless or uninterpretable

34:39

or You know they

34:42

and if they can twist it to

34:45

say whatever they wanted to say, right?

34:47

So they're not really asking questions. They're

34:49

just twisting the

34:52

whole process and the data to fit

34:55

Their conclusion that they want to that they want

34:57

to have I Was

34:59

curious. This is something that sort of

35:02

I think when I look at history

35:04

Sometimes you have, you know instances where

35:06

experts people who are trusted either in

35:08

politics or science or medicine You know

35:11

any field really, you know Do

35:13

betray trust or betray the public's trust or just

35:16

make a bad call, you know Like I think

35:18

of pushing opioids in the early 2000s, right? You

35:21

know, they were kind of a miracle drug and then all of

35:23

a sudden, you know We have a epidemic

35:26

so people I think right

35:28

now Especially are very skeptical or maybe

35:30

skeptical is the wrong word but very

35:32

much dismissive of experts how

35:35

when we're being skeptical when we're applying

35:37

critical thinking can we Hear

35:40

out experts without necessarily dismissing them

35:42

but also leaving room for you

35:44

know, I guess not believing

35:46

everything wholeheartedly I mean, what's the balance? It's kind

35:48

of a big question. I suppose but

35:50

what are your thoughts on that? Yeah, that's that's

35:52

the trick isn't it right is knowing

35:54

how to respect expertise But

35:57

not idolize an individual expert, right? So

36:00

One way is to not

36:02

invest authority in one person,

36:05

right, or one group or one

36:07

institution. You want to,

36:09

as much as possible, rely

36:11

upon a consensus of opinion

36:14

among many different individuals, as

36:17

much as possible, right? So any person

36:19

could be wrong, even any scientist could

36:22

make a bad call, could have a bias,

36:24

you know, could have a conflict of

36:26

interest, could get desperate and cheap because he

36:28

thinks he knows what the answer is, but he's having

36:30

his hard time getting the data

36:33

to do what he wants it

36:35

to do, whatever, it happens. So

36:37

there's never any authority in one

36:39

individual. But if you have

36:41

a broad consensus of many different

36:43

individuals bringing to bear independent lines

36:45

of evidence, right, so like the at the other

36:47

end of the spectrum, right, you have, you

36:50

know, hundreds of experts

36:52

with hundreds of studies, thousands

36:54

of studies, multiple independent lines of evidence,

36:57

all pointing towards the same conclusion, that's pretty

36:59

rock solid, right? That's pretty reliable. And then

37:02

of course, there's everything in between, it's a

37:04

spectrum. And you have to make a decision

37:06

like, what are what are

37:08

people saying about this? How controversial is

37:10

the claim? How politically charged is it,

37:12

right? If it's a pretty mundane claim,

37:15

that's not a political football

37:17

at the moment, and you have

37:19

somebody who is clearly a recognized

37:21

expert who's making pretty ordinary claims

37:23

about something, they're probably independent lines

37:25

of evidence, all pointing towards

37:27

the same conclusion. That's pretty rock solid, right?

37:30

That's pretty reliable. And then of course, there's

37:32

everything in between, it's a spectrum. And you

37:34

have to make a decision like, what

37:37

are what are people saying about this?

37:39

How controversial is the claim? How politically

37:41

charged is it, right? If it's a

37:43

pretty mundane claim, that's not a political

37:46

football at the moment. And you

37:48

have somebody who is clearly a

37:50

recognized expert, who's making pretty ordinary

37:52

claims about something, they're probably accurately

37:55

reflecting the evidence, although even then, you're

37:57

getting their view of the science, right?

38:00

You'd always want to know, do other experts agree

38:02

with you? You know what I

38:04

mean? That could be on

38:06

anything. There's lots of just pure scientific

38:09

controversies that don't deal with pseudoscience

38:11

or anything else. Just did an

38:13

asteroid wipe out the dinosaurs or was it something

38:15

else? There's experts who have the

38:17

minority opinion that, no, it was

38:20

the volcanic eruptions in the Deccan

38:22

traps and the asteroid was

38:25

incidental or whatever. 95%

38:29

of scientists are saying that it was the asteroid.

38:31

So maybe that's probably true. But it's always good

38:33

to know what the minority opinion is and to

38:35

recognize that there is one and there's debate about

38:37

it. So I say it's tricky.

38:39

But again, big rule of thumb is trust

38:42

in consensus more than any individual

38:44

because individual opinions could be quirky,

38:46

they could be biased, they could be

38:48

flawed. Anybody

38:51

could be wrong on any given day and you

38:53

just got to make a judgment call based upon

38:56

that, but also be open to change as the

38:58

data changes, that's expert opinion changes. But

39:01

also avoid the temptation to reject an expert

39:03

because you don't like what they have to

39:05

say because it conflicts with your narrative, your

39:08

tribe, your worldview. Don't cherry

39:11

pick your experts. It's very easy because

39:13

there's so many people out there with

39:15

varying degrees and levels of expertise. You

39:17

can find a quote unquote expert to

39:19

say anything. You

39:23

shouldn't just pick the ones. Don't

39:26

start with the conclusion and then pick your

39:28

expert to support that conclusion. That's

39:31

not going to get you to the right answer. You want to just

39:33

say, start with the experts.

39:35

What are they saying? Is

39:37

there a consensus? How solid is it?

39:39

Who disagrees? Why do they disagree? Maybe

39:43

we just don't know the answer at this point in time.

39:45

But again, there's a process. You

39:47

follow a scientific objective process and

39:50

you're more likely to get to

39:52

an answer than this is what I

39:54

want to believe. This guy over here agrees with me. Well,

39:56

there you go. I have an expert who

39:58

agrees with me, so I'm right. Yeah,

40:00

it's scary because that can lead to

40:03

wrongful convictions. We actually recently covered a

40:05

case of a man who was accused

40:07

of a crime. Prosecutors thought he did

40:09

it. They find an expert to say,

40:12

blood splatter. Turns out it's just total

40:14

pseudoscience. He was eventually acquitted after a

40:16

series of appeals, but it's

40:18

actively dangerous when it gets applied to the

40:20

legal system. I also

40:22

wanted to ask you about something

40:24

else, which is logical fallacies. I

40:26

find it useful in evaluating people's

40:28

argument to look and see if

40:30

they're using any logical fallacies. What

40:33

are some of the logical fallacies that people

40:35

use? Yeah, there's a chapter in our book,

40:37

Just How Logical Fallacies. There's a lot of

40:40

them. We have an article on

40:42

our site, The Top 20 Logical Fallacies, but there's a

40:44

lot of them. And

40:47

there's more or fewer, depending on

40:49

whether you're a lumper or a

40:51

splitter, but there are some basic

40:53

ones. The mother of all logical

40:55

fallacies is the non sequitur, which

40:57

just means that the logic doesn't

40:59

follow. So anytime you make a

41:01

conclusion that does not follow from the premises,

41:04

it's a non sequitur. To

41:06

clarify, these are informal

41:08

logical fallacies. So informal

41:10

logical fallacies mean they don't say anything absolutely

41:12

about the conclusion. It's just a good rule

41:14

of thumb, as opposed

41:16

to the formal logical fallacies where

41:19

they're 100% always incorrect.

41:22

If you say one equals two,

41:24

and two equals three,

41:26

therefore one equals three. That's a formal

41:28

logical fallacy. It's math. It's always wrong.

41:30

But an informal logical fallacy is more

41:33

like a, it's just a clean

41:35

way to think versus a sloppy way to think.

41:39

So if you say, for example, this is

41:41

true because this one expert over here says

41:43

it's true, we call that an argument from

41:45

authority. That one expert could

41:47

be wrong. You can't say it has to

41:49

be true because this one expert says

41:52

it's true. Or you could say, well, this

41:55

may be wrong, but that person's also doing it wrong.

41:57

So it's okay. You know, it's the two quote. very

42:00

logical thought. So you can't say it doesn't, you could

42:02

both be wrong, right? The fact that some other guy's

42:04

doing it wrong doesn't mean that it's it's magically right

42:06

for you to do it. You can

42:08

make what we call an argument from final consequences.

42:10

Like this is wrong because if it were true,

42:13

that would be bad. It's like, well, it could

42:15

be bad, you know, it doesn't mean it's not

42:17

true. So anyway, there's a

42:19

huge list of them. And the

42:21

one thing I always like to remind people of

42:25

about that is the use of

42:27

logical fallacies as a tool, not a

42:29

weapon, right? So when people learn

42:32

the logical fallacies, the first thing you do

42:34

is use them as a weapon against other

42:36

people. But that's not really

42:38

what they're for. They're for you to police your

42:40

own thinking to make sure that you're thinking in

42:42

a clear and logical manner, that you're

42:45

not falling for these mental

42:47

shortcuts that may superficially make

42:50

sense, but are not logically

42:52

valid. Right? So whereas

42:54

that then we actually call there's a fallacy for

42:56

that called the fallacy fallacy. It's like, oh,

42:59

look, I can frame what you said

43:01

as if it was a fallacy, therefore

43:03

you're wrong. It's like, no, you can

43:05

you could twist anything kind of these are informal

43:07

logical fallacy. So you could like I could say,

43:10

well, 90, 97, 98% of scientists think that the

43:15

planet's warming because of manmade release

43:17

of co2. And someone else say

43:19

that's an argument from authority. Well,

43:22

not really. It's the

43:24

scientists are basing their opinion on evidence and

43:26

analysis I'm just telling you what

43:28

all the experts think. But their but their

43:31

thinking is based upon, you know, evidence and

43:33

anyway, so it's that's a

43:36

legitimate reference to authority as opposed

43:38

to an argument from authority fallacy,

43:40

which is this one guy that

43:42

I found agrees with this opinion,

43:44

or an ad hominem, right is another

43:47

logical fallacy where you're

43:49

wrong because your breath smells, whatever

43:51

you but sometimes like saying

43:53

this guy's a convicted con artist is

43:55

a legitimate thing to point out like,

43:57

I wouldn't put any trust in this

43:59

guy. In what he's saying,

44:01

he was convicted of lying to con people

44:03

out of things, but you could

44:05

say that's an ad hominem attack. So

44:08

again, you can frame anything as a

44:12

fallacy if you try hard enough, and

44:14

that's why these are informal logical fallacies.

44:16

It is okay to put history into

44:18

context as long as

44:21

you're not saying he's wrong because

44:23

he's a con artist. You should say

44:25

he's wrong and he's a

44:27

con artist, which is probably why he's saying

44:29

this, but you want to then say, here's

44:31

the reason, the factual reasons why I think

44:33

he's wrong. So logical

44:36

fallacies are tricky to use. They're easy

44:38

to, again, deceive yourself into thinking, I'm

44:40

a critical thinker because I could name

44:42

logical fallacies. The

44:45

best way to approach is to use them as

44:47

tools to help you think more clearly. And

44:50

don't just use it as a weapon because it's

44:52

so easy to abuse. That's

44:55

your only point is I gotcha in a debate.

45:00

One more point on this is that when

45:03

you are having a discussion with somebody about

45:05

something, if you take the debate approach, I'm

45:07

going to prove you wrong, that's

45:09

not really going to get you very far

45:12

because again, if that's your goal, if you're

45:14

going to lawyer the topic, right, if that's

45:16

your goal, you can

45:19

brain everything in a as a fallacy in

45:22

a sinister way, whatever. But

45:24

if your goal is let's both figure

45:27

out what our common ground is, try

45:29

to build what we can, what we

45:31

actually know together, examine both of our

45:33

positions to see where the facts align

45:36

and where maybe we disagree and then

45:39

and then figure out what the right

45:41

answer is not who's right, but what's

45:43

right. It's a much more

45:45

useful approach. I'm

45:48

curious, you mentioned some of the areas where,

45:51

you know, trying to adopt more critical thinking

45:53

could even be a bit of a pitfall

45:55

for some people because they're almost adopting the

45:57

trappings rather than the real core ethos. And

46:00

I'm curious, do you have any tips

46:02

for somebody who wants to get started trying

46:04

to apply more critical thinking in their lives,

46:06

where to begin without falling into those traps? Yeah,

46:09

first you buy my book, it's

46:11

the 17,000 universe, and read it twice. No,

46:14

I mean, it's a primer, it's a primer, that's

46:16

the, we wrote the book because people ask us

46:18

that question, how do I start thinking critically? It's

46:21

like, well, here's your primer. This will lay it

46:23

all out for you. And there's other ones, Demon

46:25

Haunted World was a good one to

46:27

start with. We kind of wrote our

46:29

book as an updated version of the Demon Haunted

46:31

World, Why People Believe Word Things by

46:33

Michael Shermer is still a great sort of primer

46:35

book that was more from the, I think the 90s.

46:39

So, every now and then somebody writes a book about

46:41

this, Nonsense on Stilts

46:43

by Massimo Pilucci. There's a lot of

46:45

great books out there that go over

46:48

science versus pseudoscience, critical thinking skills, basic

46:50

skills, packaged in slightly different ways. They're

46:53

all good, there's many good books out there. So

46:56

that's always a good place to start. There's like a

46:58

book level, here's everything. There's

47:00

a lot of activists, science communicators and

47:03

skeptics out there who are breaking

47:05

down the news

47:07

science, critical thinking, pseudoscience, from

47:11

many different perspectives. So that's

47:13

good. I find it very useful just

47:15

to get into discussions with people, you

47:17

know, and again, but

47:19

with the approach of let's figure

47:22

out what's right. You know, how do we know

47:24

what's right? And let's go through a process and

47:26

try to figure out if we can figure

47:28

that out together, right? You know, especially, I

47:30

especially love talking to people with whom I

47:32

disagree, right? It's kind of boring

47:34

to talk with people that agree with everything

47:36

that I think. So, but

47:38

if I talk with somebody who has a

47:40

completely different viewpoint for me, I want to

47:43

know, why do you think that? What thought

47:45

process led you to that? Why do you

47:47

think I'm wrong? Can

47:49

we make any progress

47:51

sort of figuring, you

47:53

know, resolving our differences? You learn a

47:55

lot. You know, sometimes even if you

47:57

know something is correct. It

48:00

doesn't mean you could defend it against a

48:02

dedicated attack or a dedicated attempt at

48:06

proving it incorrect. Another

48:08

way, knowing the science of something

48:10

doesn't mean you know the pseudoscience

48:12

automatically. So historically,

48:15

a great example of this is

48:18

that creationists made,

48:20

there were several creations, multiple creations, you

48:22

try to make their career debating evolutionary

48:25

biologists about creationism and evolution.

48:28

Duane Gish is the most infamous of

48:30

them. As a debate,

48:32

he tended to kick the rest. The

48:35

scientists lost because they would go into

48:37

it thinking, well, I know way

48:40

more about evolutionary biology than this guy

48:42

does, so I could handle

48:44

anything. But what they didn't know was

48:47

the pseudoscience of creationism. They didn't know

48:49

what arguments were going to be levied

48:51

against them and how facts were going

48:53

to be twisted and how logic was

48:55

going to be subverted. And so

48:57

they weren't prepared for that and they just got overwhelmed

49:00

by that. But

49:03

if you actually get into a conversation

49:06

with them about it, it's almost like

49:08

an investigation onto

49:10

itself, like a forensic examination. Where

49:13

is their thought process going wrong? Or

49:15

where is my thought process going wrong? And

49:18

if that's your approach, you learn a lot

49:20

of critical thinking from doing that. Yeah,

49:24

I love that kind of collaboration. I'll tell

49:26

you, I mean, I've kind

49:28

of distrusted debate ever since I was in

49:30

a college course where you had a

49:32

debate on whether or not, basically

49:34

from the concept of the Byzantine Empire, whether or

49:37

not the art should be destroyed. And we were

49:39

on the anti-art side and it was like, how

49:41

are we going to win this? This is a

49:43

class where we all love Byzantine art. I just

49:45

got in their faces and just started accusing them

49:48

of writing biblical fan fiction and we're all going

49:50

to be punished by God. And we won somehow

49:52

just because of yelling louder. And

49:54

it just kind of underscored, like obviously this,

49:57

you know, basically whoever's louder. Savvy

50:00

or slicker is not necessarily the person

50:02

who's working. Yeah, debate is

50:04

its own skill set. And you could be a really

50:07

good debater, even if

50:09

you don't have facts-illatric on your side.

50:11

It's a performance, you know, more than anything

50:13

else. And the

50:15

courtroom is very much a performance as

50:18

well. I've had many interactions

50:20

with the legal system myself as an expert

50:22

witness. I was sued at one point for

50:24

an article that I wrote. We won. We

50:27

got a judgment against. I

50:29

had to actually pay most of my legal fees. But

50:33

you learn a lot about the legal

50:35

system through those various interactions. And

50:37

the way the legal system is set up, as

50:39

you guys know, right, it's not like, let's all

50:41

figure out together what the truth is. It's an

50:43

adversarial system. You have to do

50:45

everything you can to prove this guy guilty. You

50:47

do everything you can to prove him innocent. There's

50:50

strengths and weaknesses to that system, right? And the

50:52

weakness, I think, is that it sort of encourages

50:55

that approach, this adversarial

50:57

approach. And I've sat

51:00

across from lawyers in

51:02

depositions or whatever where they made arguments like,

51:05

I know you know that that's bullshit, right?

51:07

They don't believe that for a second, but it's the

51:10

argument to make for their side,

51:12

right? So they do it. And

51:15

the way they rationalize that's like, well, it's the

51:17

jury or the judgment, they'll sort it

51:19

out. We're just doing our part. And

51:22

it's true. The system is set up that

51:24

way. And they're not blaming them. That's the system. We

51:27

need to decide if that's the system we want.

51:29

I don't know that that's the optimal system, but

51:32

it's the system we have. So within that system,

51:34

they're playing their role. The good thing about the

51:36

legal system, though, the thing that's really a strong

51:38

point and the reason why it works is

51:41

because there are rules of evidence, right?

51:44

So all the logical fallacies

51:46

that I'm talking about and all the

51:48

evidentiary stuff, there are very strict rules

51:50

of evidence in a courtroom. Again, they

51:53

may not be perfect. They may not

51:55

be complete. I think they have

51:58

a lot of issues with how science to introduce to

52:00

the courtroom. But at

52:02

least there's rules of evidence. You can't

52:04

just bullshit your way through a case,

52:06

right? You have to have sources

52:09

for your claims, whatever. You

52:11

can't introduce ideas that have

52:13

not already been established, whatever.

52:15

There's a lot of shenanigans

52:18

that you cannot do that a competent judge

52:20

would not allow you to get away with

52:22

or a competent attorney

52:24

on the other side will know when to object. Like,

52:26

oh, if they're breaking the rules of evidence, you can't

52:28

do that. So that, I think,

52:30

is the strength of the system. The

52:33

adversarial part is kind of a

52:35

plus-minus. And the relationship

52:38

with science is, I think, weak.

52:40

It needs to be strengthened. I

52:42

want to underscore what you said

52:44

there about attorneys sometimes knowingly making

52:46

arguments they know are false, just

52:50

because that's their job. And I think people

52:52

need to remember that and keep that in

52:54

mind when they hear arguments

52:56

from attorneys. My

52:59

attorney told me that. It's like, I don't

53:01

believe this, but this is the

53:03

point that I need to take. I don't

53:05

have to believe that from a legal ethical

53:08

point of view, I don't have to

53:10

believe it personally in order

53:12

to say it in court. It just has to

53:14

be reasonable. Somebody might

53:17

believe this or this. It's a reasonable

53:19

approach to take. I wouldn't personally

53:21

endorse it. I don't have to. That's not

53:23

my job. That's

53:25

why they could say, even though I think you're guilty,

53:27

it doesn't matter. I'm presenting a case, and it's for

53:29

other people to decide if you're guilty or

53:32

not. Another

53:35

area where people often fall prey

53:37

to things that aren't true,

53:39

probably because of wishful thinking, is in

53:41

areas of health, because we

53:43

all like to believe in miracle

53:45

cures or what have you. And

53:48

it's the leading question, but what

53:50

can people do if they want

53:53

to look and find accurate information

53:55

about scientific-based medicine? Yeah,

53:57

I run a website called Science-Based Medicine. Yeah,

54:00

very leading question. So it's

54:03

tough, there's a very complicated relationship between science

54:05

and the practice of medicine. And that's exactly

54:07

what we could explore, how to optimize that

54:09

relationship, how to make decisions based upon the

54:12

best science and evidence available. It's complicated, you

54:14

know, is the short answer. But

54:16

as a consumer, again, there's sort of

54:18

a process you can go through. And

54:21

unfortunately, you know, you

54:23

have to make health decisions unless you are

54:25

a physician. In

54:27

fact, unless you are an expert in

54:30

whatever the specific field is that's relevant

54:32

to your condition, you have to

54:34

rely on other people who know more than you. That's

54:37

just like these things, right? No

54:40

one is an expert on everything. You drive over

54:43

bridges, did you investigate the

54:45

engineering of that bridge to make sure that

54:47

the ratio of the width and the width

54:49

of all... Of course not, you

54:51

trust that some civic engineer knew what they

54:53

were doing, that the regulatory agency made sure

54:55

that they knew what they were doing before

54:57

they licensed them. And that

55:00

whatever commissioned the bridge made sure that they

55:02

found experts, whatever. You trust,

55:04

you have faith in the process, in

55:07

the transparency and the whatever, in the

55:09

expertise of the people involved. The same

55:11

is true in medicine. There's a process,

55:14

we go to medical school, you get

55:16

licensed, you get board certified, you get

55:18

privileges at a hospital. These are all

55:20

multiple different layers of trying

55:24

to say that, yeah, this person is

55:26

competent, knowledgeable, and ethical, right? Those are

55:28

like the three big things. And

55:30

if you violate that, you can get sued, you can

55:33

get your license taken away by the state. There's

55:35

remedies for people who fall below the standard. So

55:38

as a consumer, you have to have a certain amount of

55:40

faith in that system, right? If you don't have any faith

55:42

in that system, you're living in a very dark world that

55:44

I don't know how you get through your day, right? Again,

55:47

this doesn't mean it's perfect. There

55:49

are clunkers out there, absolutely. But

55:52

at least there's a process. So

55:55

again, how important is the,

55:57

do you have a cold or you

55:59

have. terminal cancer, right? How serious is

56:02

the illness? But really big decisions

56:04

get a second and a third opinion, you

56:06

know, makes be a fine

56:08

you should people should know how

56:10

to evaluate at least

56:12

the background of a physician Are you

56:14

board certified in this specialty? Right?

56:17

That's like a first layer, you know,

56:19

do you have sufficient expertise and

56:21

then if You

56:23

think that there's you don't feel comfortable with

56:26

the decision or you know Whatever you want

56:28

to make sure that it's the of it

56:30

you're making the right decision If there's someone's

56:32

recommending surgery or whatever get a second opinion,

56:34

right or you get a third opinion I

56:37

also tell people if the doctor starts doing crazy

56:39

stuff, you know, you might want to not sometimes

56:42

I think you know, like they're selling homeopathy out

56:44

of their office leave I thought

56:46

not somebody that I would trust go

56:48

through that same kind of process of evaluating

56:50

experts, right? And you can get to

56:53

the point where you like yeah, this is pretty much and everyone's

56:55

telling me the same thing even

56:57

even very credentialed experts, so it's

56:59

probably correct sometimes patients fall into

57:01

this trap of Doctor

57:04

shopping, you know where it's like again

57:06

pick your expert Keep

57:08

going until you find somebody who gives you the

57:10

answer you want if that's your process that answer

57:12

is probably not reliable It's probably

57:14

just what you want to hear and then

57:17

you end up like Steve Jobs, right? Then you end

57:19

up doing the thing that they're telling you because it

57:21

sounds good May not give you

57:23

the best outcome and we can we know this

57:27

Scientifically because you could study it you could say

57:29

wait people do this process What what outcomes do

57:31

they have and the more

57:33

you sort of go outside the lines that the

57:36

the worse your outcome You know, it actually

57:38

does affect the medical outcome. I Want

57:41

to ask you something just because this is

57:44

a term that gets thrown around a lot

57:46

in true crime Especially on that the concept

57:48

of Occam's razor the simplest solution is often

57:50

the best I guess as a

57:52

skeptic as someone who practices critical thinking What

57:55

do you think about Occam's razor? What are the

57:57

flaws or is it a pretty good paradigm? So

58:00

it's a good paradigm, but you misstated

58:02

it because everybody

58:04

misstates it It's not the

58:07

simplest answer is the most likely to be true

58:09

Because sometimes the real answer is very

58:12

complicated and you could invent a simple

58:14

answer. That's Complete horseshit, right?

58:16

So it's lost in translation kind of thing,

58:18

right? So he wasn't lying in English was

58:21

Atlanta the real translation is I'm

58:23

just gonna paraphrase it But the

58:25

answer that introduces the fewest new

58:27

assumptions is more likely to be

58:29

true And that's a

58:31

critical difference Right because

58:34

you could say well aliens did everything that's

58:36

my simple one answer for everything And you're

58:39

coming up with this complicated explanation for

58:41

every different thing Like

58:43

yeah, but you're introducing this massive new assumption

58:46

that there are aliens on earth and I'm

58:48

not introducing any new assumptions I'm just going

58:50

by things that we know exist, you know,

58:52

so That's

58:55

the real way to approach. Are you introducing

58:57

a new? Assumption assuming the

58:59

existence of a new element and

59:02

That's what Occam's razor tells you

59:04

to avoid or to minimize if

59:06

you could explain Something

59:09

using stuff we already know

59:12

It's more likely to be true then

59:14

if you were saying well, maybe there

59:16

was this unknown thing that is happening,

59:18

you know And it's okay to hypothesize

59:20

that but then you've got to test

59:22

it, right? It's okay, you

59:24

know, so maybe there is an unknown

59:27

element and you have you that's now

59:29

a hypothesis But that doesn't become your

59:31

conclusion. You can't skip over the whole

59:33

testing part of it Yeah But just

59:35

because you can weave a narrative that's

59:37

complicated or that introduces random elements ad

59:39

hoc is another good concept ad hoc

59:41

means you're introducing an

59:43

element as needed right or

59:47

Special pleading is another term that we

59:49

use you're making up an Explanation

59:51

ad hoc as needed to explain anything

59:53

that you need to explain. We're really

59:55

good at that. People are really creative

59:57

We're very good at that Again,

1:00:00

if that's your process, you could defend anything. But

1:00:02

outcomes rates are as part of a process saying,

1:00:04

nope, we're going to stick with the evidence

1:00:07

that's been established, facts that are

1:00:09

established, see if we can

1:00:11

explain it without introducing anything too complicated

1:00:13

or anything new, any new

1:00:16

assumptions. And those explanations are more

1:00:18

likely to be true because you're not introducing a

1:00:20

bunch of new stuff. In

1:00:23

medicine, it's the same thing. Can I

1:00:25

explain your symptoms with your no diseases or do

1:00:27

I have to introduce a new disease? Now

1:00:30

maybe they do have a new disease, but what you don't

1:00:32

want to do is

1:00:34

introduce three new rare diseases. You

1:00:36

have three rare diseases. What are

1:00:38

the odds that versus,

1:00:41

well, there's one disease

1:00:43

that could explain everything. It's not

1:00:45

simple, it's just the introducing new

1:00:48

elements. But sometimes patients

1:00:50

do have three diseases, but we know

1:00:52

that they have them or they have

1:00:55

one disease that leads to all the

1:00:57

other ones. We have diabetes, which causes

1:00:59

heart disease and neuropathy. So

1:01:01

I'm not really giving you three things. I'm giving you

1:01:04

one thing, which I know you have, and all of

1:01:06

the complications of that disease. That's

1:01:08

fine. That's outcomes rates is okay with that, even though I'm

1:01:10

giving you multiple explanations for your

1:01:12

symptoms, it all flows from what we

1:01:16

know is happening already without willy-nilly

1:01:19

just throwing in some completely new

1:01:21

random disease that we have no

1:01:23

evidence for. That's what

1:01:25

that means. That makes a lot of

1:01:27

sense. And yeah, thank you for correcting me because I

1:01:30

always heard it the simplest, but I think that

1:01:32

makes even more sense in a true crime setting.

1:01:35

Although, as you said, the evidence has to be

1:01:38

ultimately the end all, I mean, I can think

1:01:40

of one case we did where we interviewed a

1:01:42

couple. They had a crazy story. The

1:01:45

girlfriend was abducted and the man was

1:01:47

told, you're being monitored by this camera.

1:01:49

And it just sounded like something that

1:01:52

was completely made up. It was true,

1:01:54

though, and when police actually invented it,

1:01:56

they found, no, this is exactly what

1:01:58

happened. important to remember that,

1:02:01

you know, obviously in our legal system, the evidence

1:02:03

has to carry things. Yeah, sometimes people

1:02:05

do have rare diseases, not often, by

1:02:08

definition, they're rare, but not

1:02:10

never, right? Sometimes really weird shit

1:02:12

happens. You have to be able

1:02:14

to pick up those cases as

1:02:16

well, because as long as you

1:02:19

have a process, as long as it's like flowing

1:02:21

from the evidence, and it's not just ad

1:02:23

hoc, right? Absolutely. I wanted

1:02:26

to ask you one thing. You

1:02:28

know, I think

1:02:30

I know the answer, but I'd be curious

1:02:32

what your take is. Is being a critical

1:02:34

thinker the same thing as being a cynic,

1:02:36

and are there pitfalls that you could fall

1:02:39

into if you take the cynicism approach to

1:02:41

everything? Yeah, so being a

1:02:43

cynic is actually being anti-critical thinking, right?

1:02:45

Because you're basically rejecting things just

1:02:48

to reject them. That's your

1:02:50

process, right? I don't believe in that because

1:02:52

I don't believe in anything, or whatever. Sometimes

1:02:55

we use the term contrarian. It's like, well,

1:02:58

everybody thinks this, so I think it must not be

1:03:00

true, right? The mainstream media

1:03:02

thinks this, so that's, it's got to

1:03:04

be wrong. It's

1:03:06

like, well, that's sort of the opposite

1:03:09

of the argument from authority, or the

1:03:11

argument, or the ad hominem. It's just

1:03:13

that I reject anything mainstream, or I

1:03:15

reject whatever, anything that's institutional, or if

1:03:18

the government says it, the government lies, therefore everything

1:03:20

they say is a lie. Those

1:03:22

are also logical fallacies, and again,

1:03:24

that's not a skeptical critical thinking process.

1:03:27

It's just a negative process, right?

1:03:29

So skeptics are not cynics.

1:03:32

We are open to anything, whatever

1:03:34

the evidence and logic leads, you know,

1:03:36

wherever it leads, that's where we will follow. Sometimes

1:03:39

the mainstream media is correct. Sometimes the

1:03:42

government's not lying to you, you know,

1:03:44

but by definition, a cynic,

1:03:47

that's a bias, right? That's a

1:03:49

filter, and it's not following

1:03:51

the evidence. It's assuming something

1:03:53

bad about people, or it's to

1:03:55

say that global warming is not

1:03:57

real, but they're both pseudoscience, it's

1:03:59

just indifferent. directions. Sounds

1:04:02

like cynicism and denialism are just gullibility

1:04:04

dressed up in a black leather jacket

1:04:06

with smoking a cigarette. So it looks

1:04:08

cooler, but it's basically the same thing.

1:04:10

Sometimes there's gullibility, people following the narrative

1:04:13

of their tribe, but sometimes it's, it's,

1:04:16

you know, you're the fossil fuel industry, you

1:04:18

have a pretty strong motivation. They're not gullible.

1:04:20

I don't think they're gullible. I think they

1:04:22

know exactly what they're doing. And

1:04:24

if you're selling something, you know,

1:04:27

the contrarian version is just assuming

1:04:29

that whatever is mainstream is wrong.

1:04:32

Same thing with what we would call

1:04:34

denialism, right? So denialism is when it's

1:04:36

pseudo skepticism, just like pseudoscientist

1:04:38

decides denialism is to skepticism.

1:04:40

It's, you're taking

1:04:42

something that you don't like, but sometimes

1:04:45

it's, it's, you know,

1:04:47

you're the fossil fuel industry, you have a

1:04:49

pretty strong motivation. They're not gullible. I don't

1:04:51

think they're gullible. I think they know exactly

1:04:53

what they're doing. And if you're selling something,

1:04:56

it's not necessarily gullibility, right? You have powerful

1:05:00

motivation. And a lot, most people,

1:05:02

I think just like we are

1:05:05

victims and perpetrators at the same time, like, like,

1:05:08

I think anti-vaxxers are sincere, but

1:05:12

they were convinced by a pretty

1:05:14

package and they are passing

1:05:16

it forward, right? So they're now deceiving the

1:05:19

next person down the line in the same

1:05:21

way that they were deceived. But

1:05:23

I don't think there's any cynical,

1:05:26

you know, reason for

1:05:28

it. I think they're sincere. They're just suffering

1:05:30

from misinformation and critical lack

1:05:33

of, again, of

1:05:35

critical thinking. Most con artists

1:05:37

are themselves deceived. And

1:05:40

then in the mix are the real sharks who

1:05:42

are taking advantage of the whole thing to prey

1:05:44

upon people. But most of us

1:05:46

are just paying it forward. You know,

1:05:48

just whatever deceptions we've

1:05:50

been victimized by, we pass on to

1:05:52

other people. This

1:05:55

has been a great conversation. I really want to thank

1:05:57

you for taking the time. Before we go,

1:06:00

want to emphasize how great science-based medicine is

1:06:02

on a personal level. There was a time

1:06:04

in my life when I had a relative

1:06:06

with some pretty serious health problems, and

1:06:09

that was a place to go

1:06:11

to to get clear explanations of

1:06:14

different treatments and stuff. I

1:06:16

believe that there were writers there like David

1:06:18

Gorsky, Harriet Hall, that it was

1:06:20

really very helpful, and so I would

1:06:23

encourage people to check that out. Where

1:06:25

else can people find you in your

1:06:27

work? Yeah, if you just go

1:06:30

to Fimmick it Easy, if you go to

1:06:32

theskepticsguy.org, that's like the portal into everything that

1:06:34

we do. And the last question we always

1:06:36

ask is, is there something we didn't ask

1:06:38

that we should have asked that you wanted

1:06:40

to mention? You guys asked a lot of

1:06:42

great questions. I think we really covered a

1:06:44

lot of territory. Awesome. Thank you so much

1:06:46

Dr. Novella, it was really great talking to you. Yeah,

1:06:48

it's been a lot of fun guys. Thanks for having me. We

1:06:51

would like to close by once again

1:06:53

thanking Dr. Steven Novella for taking the

1:06:55

time to speak with us again. Again,

1:06:57

we highly recommend his podcast and his

1:06:59

book and we will link to both

1:07:01

in our show notes. Thanks

1:07:03

so much for listening to The Murder Sheet. If

1:07:06

you have a tip concerning one of the cases

1:07:08

we cover, please email

1:07:11

us at murdersheet@gmail.com.

1:07:15

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1:07:17

an unsolved crime, please

1:07:19

report it to the appropriate authorities.

1:07:23

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1:07:26

Patreon, that's available at www.patreon.com/murder

1:07:30

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1:07:33

If you want to tip us a bit of money

1:07:35

for records requests, you can do so

1:07:38

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1:07:41

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1:07:44

We very much appreciate any support. Special

1:07:47

thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee who completed the

1:07:49

show.