Promoting Science and Critical Thinking
Francesca Tripodi, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Virginia, has released a report that is quite frankly fascinating. Titled “Searching for Alternative Facts” and released on 16th May, it lays out the results of her research within upper-middle class conservative Christian communities in Virginia in 2017. People who believe and read the bible often tend … Read more
At the recent Google I/O conference there was a demo of Google’s new Duplex AI Assistant. It was quite frankly amazing, so rather than describing it, you can instead see it yourself. Here is that demo … As you listen to it making real calls to book an appointment, you find that not only is … Read more
I thought I was done with posts about the Flat earth conference that took place in the UK, but I find that I’m returned back to it for one more pass. Michael Marshall, who attended has an article in Gizmodo in which he expands upon much of what he saw while there. He also makes a … Read more
People can and do cross the divide. People who once promoted a specific stance will be persuaded that they were wrong and cross over to take a quite different stance. A rather obvious example is religious belief. There are many people who today are atheists but were once deeply religious, so quite clearly they have … Read more
Yesterday I briefly referenced the ABC / Washington Post religious poll that was published on 10th May. I’d like to return to it again today and dig into it in a little bit more and pull out a few trends. Background context to the ongoing decline of religious belief in the US It has been … Read more
A group of researchers from Yale University have published a working paper that discusses two studies that demonstrate that some people have a tendency to be far more prone to an acceptance of Fake News than others. It is entitled “Reduced Analytic and Actively Open-Minded Thinking Help to Explain the Link between Belief in Fake … Read more