PODCAST · society
Thinking Clearly
by Bob Froehlich-Retired Chemist, Counselor, Psychology Professor and Julia Mi
In this age of fake news, alternative facts and information overload, this podcast offers cognitive self-defense strategies and topics that will help you understand and master critical thinking in forming your claims beliefs and opinions.
Episodes
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#114-Major Themes in Thinking Clearly-with Bob And Julia
After almost 10 years of broadcasting and podcasting Thinking Clearly, a series of life events has caused Bob and Julia to say "adieu" to this labor of love. In this final episode they share their thoughts and feelings about what this project has meant to them, as they summarize and discuss some…
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#113-Recalling Defeating Disinformation and Protecting Democracy-with guest Lee McIntyre
Listen to the explanation at the beginning of this episode to understand why you will be hearing a replay of episode #86. The danger of disinformation to our social fabric, and to our democracy, are the focus of this discussion with philosopher, educator and author, Lee McIntyre. Lee holds a…
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#112-Bob and Julia Unleashed
Bob and Julia interview each other and discuss a number of topics related to critical thinking that have been on their minds for years, including: What does our show's name ("Thinking Clearly") mean to you, and how does that name represent our show? Should beliefs and opinions meet the same...
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#111-AI-Assisted Tools in Education and How AI Might Assist our Critical Thinking-with guest Kyle Falbo
Our discussion with Kyle Falbo—Math and Computer Science Lecturer and Educational Technology Application Expert at Sonoma State University—focuses on how AI-enhanced teaching and learning tools (ChatGPT, Google NotebookLM, Khanmigo and others) are being explored and implemented at SSU. Our...
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#110-The Role of Emotions in Thinking and Learning-with guest Mary Helen Immordino-Yang
Emotions are often viewed as interfering with clear, objective, evidence-based reasoning; in fact, "appeal to emotion" is considered to be a logical fallacy. However, our guest, Mary Helen Immordino-Yang—professor of education, psychology, and neuroscience at the University of Southern California...
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#109-The Moves that Matter in Crafting Persuasive Arguments and Communicating them Effectively-with guests Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein-Graff
Coauthors of the widely acclaimed book, They Say/I Say-The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing, explore how to craft persuasive arguments and communicate them effectively. Topics discussed include: the connection between thinking and writing; the nature of academic writing; the concept of...
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#108-Teaching Critical Thinking to Kids-with guest Stephanie Simoes
With a Bachelor's Degree in Biology, a Master's Degree in Philosophy, and experience as a teacher, our guest for this episode, Stephanie Simoes, developed Critikid, a website for kids, teens, teachers and others. Critikid offers instruction in: emotional intelligence (Learning to recognize,...
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#107-How Institutionalizing Deliberative Political Processes Can Lead to Deliberative Democracy and Reduce Polarization-with guest Jim Fishkin
James Fishkin, Stanford University Professor (and Director of the Stanford Deliberative Democracy Lab) discusses his extensive research and development focused on the process of "Deliberative Polling" and clarifies its relationship to Deliberative Democracy—a form of democracy in which…
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#106- The Role of Logic in Acquiring Knowledge and Forming Beliefs-with guest Patrick Hurley
Patrick Hurley, Philosophy Professor Emeritus at University of San Diego and author of the widely acclaimed textbook: A Concise Introduction to Logic, joins us to discuss: the role of logic in acquiring knowledge and forming beliefs; the most important aspects of logic for critical thinkers to...
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#105-The Epidemic of Political Lying and the Importance of Fact-checking-with guest Bill Adair
Early in his career our guest, Bill Adair, worked as a journalist, author, and later founded the fact-checking organization Politifact. And in 2013 he accepted a position at Duke University as the Knight Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy, where he now teaches journalism in...
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#104-The Importance of Trust in Information and Institutions-revisited
Untrue information is called misinformation, and intentionally spread misinformation is known as disinformation. When one uses disinformation to further one's own agenda, especially in the political realm, then the information has been weaponized. And the continued acceleration of weaponized...
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#103-Worldview-The Elephant in the Room of Critical Thinking-updated for 2025
This episode looks back to the previous episode: # 22- Worldview-The Elephant in the Room of Critical Thinking, and updates it from the perspective of 2025.
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#102-Worldviews and How they Guide our Beliefs-with guest Annick de Witt
This episode takes a deep dive into the concept of "worldview", based on the research and work done by Annick de Witt: researcher, writer, teacher, and founder of the organization Worldview Journeys. Topics discussed include: conceptualizing the idea of worldview; how our worldview might affect…
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#101-The Virtues of Evidence-Based Policy Making-with guest Robert MacCoun
Even though they affect all of our lives, most of us know almost nothing about how policies are made, especially policy made by our state and federal governments. So, Julia and Bob learned a lot from this conversation with guest: Robert MacCoun, Law Professor at Stanford University. With a...
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#100-Foundations and Future of Critical Thinking-with guest Kevin deLaplante
This discussion with philosopher, former tenured professor at Iowa State University, and now independent critical thinking educator and consultant, Kevin deLaplante, revisits the importance and benefits of critical thinking in today's post-truth world, reviews the basic skills involved with...
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#99-How internet influencers, algorithms and crowds are altering our politics, our society and our very relationship to reality-with guest Renée DiResta.mp3
Researcher, author and former Research Manager of the Stanford Internet Observatory, Renée DiResta, discusses how numerous internet-savvy individuals (influencers) are causing a profound shift in power and influence over our politics, beliefs and behavior, as outlined in her recent book…
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#98-The Nature of Curiosity and it's implications for Critical Thinking-with guest Jacqueline Gottlieb
Professor Jacqueline Gottlieb, Principal Investigator at Columbia University's Zuckerman Institute and former head of the Research Cluster on Curiosity at Columbia University's Center for Science and Society, brings her research experience and deep thinking about the human brain's higher…
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#97-How to Navigate the Challenges of Living in a Divided Nation-with guest Tania Israel
Second time Thinking Clearly guest, Tania Israel, Professor of Counseling Psychology at UC Santa Barbara, guides us through how to overcome the toxic effects of consuming politicized news and social media in this current, highly polarized American environment and discusses how to more effectively...
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#96-Using practices and tools from science while also learning how to weave together facts and values to rebuild trust and cooperation-with guest Robert MacCoun
Calling on his experience in evidence-based policy making, teaching a course at UC Berkeley called Sense and Sensibility and Science, and coauthoring the book Third Millennium Thinking-Creating Sense in a World of Nonsense, social scientist and law Professor at Stanford University, Robert…
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#95-Critical Thinking and the Nature of Human Consciousness-with guest Anil Seth
Research and current theories about the nature of human consciousness are explored with guest Anil Seth, Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex. Topics include: how human consciousness can be thought of as controlled hallucination, the relationship of...
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#94-The Essence of Critical Thinking and Demonstrations of How to Have Civil Dialogues
Thinking Clearly hosts Bob and Julia review their definition of critical thinking, discuss how doing a show about critical thinking has changed them, and do several demonstrations of best practices (using the LAP-EFI method) for having productive, civil dialogues with people who have different...
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#93-Critical Thinking Fundamentals and how to find truth in all the noise-with guest Dr. Seema Yasmin
Dr. Seema Yasmin, professor at Stanford University School of Medicine and the Anderson School of Management at UCLA, discusses: information disorder and its treatment, common techniques used for pushing lies, the use of narrative in communicating, the history and current state of journalism in...
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#92-Election 2024 Preparation 4-Teaching Critical Thinking to American Military Future Leaders-with Guest Stephen Gerras
In this fourth in a series of Thinking Clearly episodes—offered in the hope of fostering critical thinking and civil dialogue as we approach our 2024 Presidential Election in America—we are replaying core episodes with those themes. In this edition, you'll hear a previous episode that we recorded...
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#91-How artificial intelligence can help us understand human cognition-with guest Leslie Valiant
The development of artificial intelligence naturally leads us to deeply explore what intelligence, reasoning and knowledge are; the processes required to achieve them; and the implications that has for human thought, belief and decision making—all topics that have been deeply thought about by our...
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#90-Election 2024 Preparation 3-Hidden Tribes and the Perception Gap-with guest Stephen Hawkins
In this third in a series of Thinking Clearly episodes—offered in the hope of fostering critical thinking and civil dialogue as we approach our 2024 presidential election in America—we are replaying core episodes with those themes. In this edition, you'll hear an episode that we recorded with...
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#89-Election 2024 Preparation 2-Political Depolarization and the Work of Braver Angels-with guest Ciaran O'Connor
As we head into the US 2024 Presidential Election with the knowledge that America is now as polarized as it has been since the civil war and that this amount of polarization drastically impairs our democratic process, we revisit the organization Braver Angels, which was founded "to bring…
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#88-What's new in teaching critical thinking and advances in the mental immunity approach for combating misinformation with guest Melanie Trecek-King
Second time guest, Professor Melanie Trecek-King, updates us on what's new in teaching critical thinking and new on her website resources at: Thinking Is Power. She also discusses Inoculation Theory as a foundation for recent work being done to combat mis- and disinformation by the Mental…
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#87-Election 2024 Preparation—The Importance of Critical Thinking to Democracy, with guest Timothy Redmond
In the spirit of promoting citizenship in our democracy, during this time as the 2024 presidential election begins to ramp up, every once in a while Julia and I will replay one of our previous episodes—an episode that reminds us of how important critical thinking is to our democracy. So, here's…
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#86-Disinformation-its creators, amplifiers and believers-and how to fight for truth and protect democracy with guest Lee McIntyre
Disinformation and its danger to our social fabric and democracy are the focus of this discussion with philosopher, educator and author, Lee McIntyre. Lee holds a Ph.D. in philosophy and is currently a Research Fellow at the Center for Philosophy and History of Science at Boston University. His...
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#85-Critical thinking in health and medicine and the importance of critical thinking in pandemics and other national and international health crises
Jonathan Howard, MD joins hosts Bob and Julia to discuss the role of critical thinking in health and medicine and how critical thinking is especially important in crisis management such as the COVID pandemic. Dr. Howard is currently an associate professor of neurology and psychiatry at New York...
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# 84-Top pick episode after seven years-Johnathan Rauch and the Constitution of Knowledge
On this the 84th episode of Thinking Clearly, hosts Bob and Julia got the seven year itch to look back and pick one episode that they thought deserved replay in its entirety. Their pick encapsulates one of the main themes of Thinking Clearly and focuses on the importance of having a universal...
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#83-Bob and Julia discuss Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been impacting our lives in a variety of ways including our web searches, social medial experiences and even our telephone conversations with customer service representatives, and that impact will likely be accelerating at an exponential rate. This episode invites...
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#82-Teaching and Learning Critical Thinking and Recognizing Unsubstantiated Claims-with guest Alan Bensley
Alan Bensley, Psychology Professor and author of two textbooks on critical thinking: "Critical Thinking in Psychology: a unified skills approach" and "Critical Thinking in Psychology and Everyday Life"—from Frostburg State University—joins Bob and Julia to discuss: the most effective ways to…
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#81-Actively Open-minded Thinking-with guest Emlen Metz
Psychologist Emlen Metz discusses her research on Actively Open-minded Thinking and her current work at the Lawrence Hall of Science at U.C. Berkeley developing curricula on scientific-critical-thinking for high school and undergraduate classrooms and her work on a project called Public Editor,...
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#80- Virtues, Benefits and Joy of Critical Thinking and Science Appreciation-with Guy Harrison
Journalist, author and public speaker Guy Harrison— a longtime advocate for skepticism, critical thinking and science appreciation—discusses the virtues, benefits and joy of critical thinking and how understanding core ideas in science can add value to all of our lives. Guy has authored eight...
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#79-How critical thinking can make us better citizens and cure our ailing democracy-with guest Timothy Redmond
Thinking Clearly guest, political scientist, author and educator Timothy Redmond, discusses the toxic effects of extreme political tribalism on our democratic institutions and offers hope and solutions—as detailed in his recent book: Political Tribalism in America: How Hyper-Partisanship Dumbs…
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#78-Celebrating Skilled Intuition-a second look at Naturalistic Decision Making with guest Gary Klein
Psychologist, author and entrepreneur, Gary Klein, joins us a second time to take a closer look at experts, skilled intuition and many of the other topics associated with Naturalistic Decision Making—a process of understanding how people make decisions and perform cognitively complex functions in...
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#77-The journey from the world of magicians and psychics to becoming a skeptical activist who promotes science and critical thinking-with guest Mark Edward
Mark Edward tells the story of his journey from the world of magicians and psychics to becoming a skeptical activist who promotes science and critical thinking. As a skilled practitioner of mentalism, Mark has authored a number of books on magic, mentalism, and séance production, including his...
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#76-How mathematics can improve our lives and make us better critical thinkers-with guest John Allen Paulos
The conjunction fallacy, base rate neglect and the Monty Hall Problem are some of the topics discussed as guest John Allen Paulos from Temple University offers up a host of essential critical thinking tools relating to understanding probability and other statistical concepts. Professor Paulos...
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#75-How to Get Real by Mastering and Using Critical Thinking-with guest Jon Guy
Under very unusual conditions, Jon Guy made a transition from one who never thought much about skepticism, the nature of science and critical thinking to learning and mastering those topics and writing the excellent and comprehensive book: Think Straight—An Owner's Manual for the Mind—described…
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#74-Teaching and Learning Critical Thinking—back to the basics—with Melanie Trecek-King
Our guest, Melanie Trecek-King, Associate Professor of Biology at Massasoit Community College, became dissatisfied with students mindlessly memorizing facts about biology, so she designed a general-education science course that puts less emphasis on facts and more on science and information...
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#73-Back to the Nuts and Bolts of Critical Thinking-with guest James Zimring
Dr. James Zimring, professor, medical researcher and author of the books What Science Is And How It Works and Partial Truths-How Fractions Distort Our Thinking, describes how the form of a simple fraction can be used as a conceptual framework to understand errors that we commonly make in our...
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#72-Trust and the Semantic Pointer Theory of Cognition-with Paul Thagard
Dr. Paul Thagard is our guest on this final episode of a three-part series on The Nature of Trust. Paul is a philosopher, cognitive scientist, author and Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Philosophy from the University of Waterloo. As described in his 3-book Treatise on Mind and Society, he...
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#71-The Nature of Trust in this age of Polarization-with guest Kevin Vallier
This second edition in a three-part series on The Nature of Trust features guest Dr. Kevin Vallier, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Bowling Green State University and author of the books: Must Politics Be War? and Trust in a Polarized Age. Topics discussed include the importance of social…
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#70-The Nature of Trust
In this episode of Thinking Clearly, Bob and Julia introduce the issue of trust. They examine what it is, give a sampling of some of the extensive research on trust, present results from survey information on trust and discuss how trust relates to critical thinking. In this episode, you'll also...
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#69-Strategies for Constructive Conversations-with guest Tania Israel
Thinking Clearly guest, Dr. Tania Israel, Professor in the Department of Counseling, Clinical, and School Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara—author of the book: Beyond Your Bubble: How to Connect Across the Political Divide—discusses the importance of (and how to learn)...
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#68-Hidden Tribes and the Perception Gap-with guest Stephen Hawkins
Guest Stephen Hawkins is the director of research at More in Common—a non-profit organization focused on understanding the forces driving us apart and working to bring us together to tackle our shared challenges. The discussion focuses on research findings revealing a number of hidden political...
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#67-Street Epistemology-with guest Anthony Magnabosco
Street Epistemology is a conversational tool that helps people reflect on the quality of their reasons and the reliability of the methods they have used to form their deeply-held beliefs and to clarify the degree of confidence they have in those beliefs. Anthony Magnabosco, co founder and…
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#66-Political Depolarization and the Work of Braver Angels-with guest Ciaran O'Connor
With the view that America is now as polarized as it has been since the civil war, and that this amount of polarization drastically impairs our democratic process, the organization Braver Angels was founded "to bring Americans together to bridge the partisan divide and strengthen our democratic...
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#65-Considering Risks and Benefits of our Actions and Beliefs-with guest David Ropeik
When making a judgment about what to do or believe—when there are risks involved—it becomes important to look at the consequences of our choices, and this involves accurately assessing both the risks and benefits of those choices. With the help of guest David Ropeik, who coined the term…
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
In this age of fake news, alternative facts and information overload, this podcast offers cognitive self-defense strategies and topics that will help you understand and master critical thinking in forming your claims beliefs and opinions.
HOSTED BY
Bob Froehlich-Retired Chemist, Counselor, Psychology Professor and Julia Mi
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Thinking Clearly have?
Thinking Clearly currently has 100 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Thinking Clearly about?
In this age of fake news, alternative facts and information overload, this podcast offers cognitive self-defense strategies and topics that will help you understand and master critical thinking in forming your claims beliefs and opinions.
How often does Thinking Clearly release new episodes?
Thinking Clearly has 100 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Thinking Clearly?
You can listen to Thinking Clearly on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Thinking Clearly?
Thinking Clearly is created and hosted by Bob Froehlich-Retired Chemist, Counselor, Psychology Professor and Julia Mi.
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