Episode 1: Feelings Come First

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In the premiere episode, April begins by NOT talking about critical thinking at all! Instead, she discusses some of the reasons why clear thinking is so difficult. Topics include:

• Feelings as a prelude to thoughts
• How our brains utilize heuristics, and how they sometimes don't work in our favor
• Cognitive biases that lead us to incorrect conclusions about the world
• Using deliberative thinking to monitor our heuristics and biases

April's Show Notes for Episode 1
Here are the links to articles, websites, and other resources listed in the order in which they are referred to in the episode. Whenever possible I try to find good, solid information from credible sources that can be easily accessed by the public.
In this blog post by Dr. Mark Solmes, he explains the difference between thinking and feeling: https://www.futurelearn.com/info/blog/thinking-and-feeling-whats-the-difference
This article from the psychology website verywellmind.com explains the link between heuristics and cognitive biases: https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-heuristic-2795235
Intellligent Speculation is a website devoted to teaching about critical thinking. One article discusses “motivated reasoning” and how it is related to confirmation bias; the other is a look at some common cognitive biases: https://www.intelligentspeculation.com/blog/confirmation-bias-amp-motivated-reasoning
https://www.intelligentspeculation.com/blog/top-10-cognitive-biases-to-look-out-for?utm_source=Intelligent+Speculation&utm_campaign=5d85990ec1-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_07_29_04_40&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c6ebd538ff-5d85990ec1-403863798
This YouTube video is a Ted Talk by Hans and Ola Rosling, “How Not to be Ignorant About the World,” that lets us know how little we actually know about the world, and how intuition and the negativity bias often works against us. It also gives us some hope for the future, as well as some tips about how to be “smarter than chimps.” https://youtu.be/Sm5xF-UYgdg
I don’t have a link to the paper by Dunning and Kruger, but here’s the citation: @article{Kruger1999UnskilledAU, title={Unskilled and unaware of it: how difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments.},author={Justin Kruger and David Dunning}, journal={Journal of personality and social psychology},year={1999}, volume={77 6}, pages={1121-34}}
Here's the You Are Not So Smart website. David McRaney also wrote a book and hosts a podcast with the same name. I highly recommend those as well: https://youarenotsosmart.com/
Here are the two Forbes articles about reducing cognitive bias: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2019/04/17/cognitive-bias-human-brains-are-only-human/#23a21d0777be
https://www.forbes.com/sites/hecparis/2019/10/08/new-evidence-reveals-training-can-reduce-cognitive-bias--and-improve-decis