Your Deceptive Mind: A Scientific Guide to Critical Thinking Skills
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Your Deceptive Mind: A Scientific Guide to Critical Thinking Skills Audible Audiobook – Original recording

Steven Novella (Narrator, Author), The Great Courses (Author, Publisher)
4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 44 ratings
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No skill is more important in today's world than being able to think about, understand, and act on information in an effective and responsible way. What's more, at no point in human history have we had access to so much information, with such relative ease, as we do in the 21st century. But because misinformation out there has increased as well, critical thinking is more important than ever.

These 24 rewarding lectures equip you with the knowledge and techniques you need to become a savvier, sharper critical thinker in your professional and personal life. By immersing yourself in the science of cognitive biases and critical thinking, and by learning how to think about thinking (a practice known as metacognition), you'll gain concrete lessons for doing so more critically, more intelligently, and more successfully.

The key to successful critical thinking lies in understanding the neuroscience behind how our thinking works - and goes wrong; avoiding common pitfalls and errors in thinking, such as logical fallacies and biases; and knowing how to distinguish good science from pseudoscience. Professor Novella tackles these issues and more, exploring how the (often unfamiliar) ways in which our brains are hardwired can distract and prevent us from getting to the truth of a particular matter.

Along the way, he provides you with a critical toolbox that you can use to better assess the quality of information. Even though the world is becoming more and more saturated information, you can take the initiative and become better prepared to make sense of it all with this intriguing course.

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  1. Listening Length
    12 hours and 39 minutes
  2. Author
    Steven Novella, see all
  3. Narrator
    Steven Novella
  4. Audible release date
    July 8, 2013
  5. Language
    English
  6. Publisher
    The Great Courses
  7. ASIN
    B00DTNWF2Q
  8. Version
    Original recording
  9. Program Type
    Audiobook
  10. See all details
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Product details

Listening Length 12 hours and 39 minutes
Author Steven Novella, The Great Courses
Narrator Steven Novella
Audible.com Release Date July 08, 2013
Publisher The Great Courses
Program Type Audiobook
Version Original recording
Language English
ASIN B00DTNWF2Q
Best Sellers Rank #25,126 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals)
#178 in Medical General Psychology
#734 in Psychology (Audible Books & Originals)
#1,978 in Psychology & Counseling

Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
4.1 out of 5
44 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

I. Soliman
5.0 out of 5 stars Memory is not a tape of life.
Reviewed in the United States on July 25, 2020
Verified Purchase
Fascinating should be read especially if you think your past is not influencing your present. Memory is not like many believe an actual recoding of events. Jurors Judges and this testifying should read this. Unfortunately criminal attorneys will never be interested because they know everything.
4 people found this helpful
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Rashida L
5.0 out of 5 stars Probably the best audio book I've ever listened to!
Reviewed in the United States on October 14, 2013
Verified Purchase
Professor Steven Novella does a great job of narrating this material. He's a delight to listen to and I found myself excitedly looking forward to each new chapter. His material on this subject is insightful and comprehensive. This really should be part of every high school curriculum. It's that important!
28 people found this helpful
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Kindle Customer - Chayabd
3.0 out of 5 stars That we don't know
Reviewed in the United States on April 2, 2020
We still don-t know much about the brain, it can be deceptive too
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Elisabeth Carey
4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting if a bit dogmatic
Reviewed in the United States on January 21, 2021
This is a good, fairly interesting look at the ways our minds play tricks on us, both in the limitations of our physical anatomy (our eyes have a blind spot in the center, and our brains fill that in with what's around it, which can sometimes be wrong) and the biases built into our brains due to the fact that we evolved in situations where snap decisions on limited information could save lives.

Novella talks about conspiracy theories, the dangers of believing your own theories on too little evidence, confirmation bias, and other ways our brains lead us astray. At times he gets overly dogmatic and repetitive, but it's mostly interesting and useful look at the ways we need to be aware of our own brains' ability to deceive us.

I bought this audiobook.
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C. T. Baker
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on July 4, 2016
Verified Purchase
Excellent
4 people found this helpful
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Joseph Pedersen
5.0 out of 5 stars How to think, not what to think
Reviewed in the United States on August 22, 2016
This comment is mostly a rebuttal to the one about acupuncture and PSI. That comment claimed that the author was biased, and fell prey to the very logical fallacies he presents in the course. I almost didn't buy this book because of that comment, but I'm very glad that I did. I think it's great, so much that I'm buying another copy for a friend.

I just finished listening to the audiobook today. I've been listening to it over the last two weeks. I do not recall the author ever definitively stating that any field was pseudoscience or that any theory was a conspiracy theory. In fact, he said that there is a continuum between science and pseudoscience, not a sharp border. He did raise concerns about many fields and theories, like PSI and acupuncture.

The main point of the whole lecture was to learn how to think, not what to think. In fact, he even states at the end that ironically you must remain skeptical about even what he presented in the course.

If you're looking for an in depth examination of acupuncture, PSI, or UFO's, this isn't the book for you. He gives examples of those topics and many others, and describes how to think critically about them. He doesn't give an in depth treatment of any of those topics in an effort to defend a position on them.

He does give an in depth treatment on critical thinking. If you're looking for a book on that topic, this one is GREAT!
34 people found this helpful
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L.J
1.0 out of 5 stars A black eye for rational skepticism
Reviewed in the United States on June 30, 2015
This course was a great disservice to the cause of rational scientific skepticism.

Blinded by cognitive and emotional biases, and motivated by an almost religious fervor, the author set out to delineate the pitfalls of the deceptive mind and debunk the misuse of critical thinking by his ideological opponents. Along the way he fell prey to the very pitfalls he so articulately described.

Professor Novella discussed the logical fallacy of “poisoning the well" in which an argument is refuted not by examination of its merit but rather by associating the argument with an unsavory individual or idea. His used the example of discrediting a position by merely saying " Adolf Hitler believed the same thing”. in a subsequent lecture he disgraced the practice of iridology in great detail and then proceeded to debunk acupuncture by claiming it was a similar modality to iridology. He made no attempt to establish the ways in which acupuncture it was similar iridology, nor or did he engage in any critical analysis of acupuncture itself; he merely employed logical fallacy of "Poisoning the well” to make his case.

I believe this was intellectually dishonest and I feel cheated as a reader. I know very little about acupuncture and would have benefited greatly from a genuine analysis by a qualified medical practitioner.

The professor went into great detail to explain the logical fallacy of creating a “strawman”. In this fallacy the opponent’s position is replaced with an argument the opponent does not make or an argument not critical to the opponents position. The “strawman” is then shown to be false or untenable.

The professor fell prey to this trap by refuting the “pseudoscience” (remember the “poisoning the well” fallacy) of PSI research by creating a “strawman” of methodologies that were used 60 years ago in PSI research. He then proceeded to find fault with those outdated methodologies. Attacking the “strawman" he avoided legitimate discussion and critical analysis of methodologies presently used in contemporary PSI research. Again, he cheats the reader. I would have appreciated the opportunity for an intellectually honest and unbiased analysis of PSI research as it is practiced today.

Similarly he articulately describes the "False dilemma" logical fallacy. In this fallacy an individual finds holes in his opponents position and then makes an illogical leap of concluding that since the opponents position is untrue then his position is the only possible alternative.

In the process of debunking the rather implausible theory of a government cover up of an alleged UFO crash in Roswell New Mexico, the professor resorted to the "false dilemma" logical fallacy. He stated that because the UFO theory is unproven his personal theory must be correct. He believes that the cover-up was actually the cover-up of a Cold War Era spy plane. This is absurd, his theory does not become automatically correct because he can find fault with a competing theory. He offered no proof to support his pet theory and ignored the possibility of other theories which might account for the events in question.

This was not the work of an open-minded skeptic. It was an intellectually dishonest tirade more reminiscent of the Salem witch hunts than of legitimate scientific inquiry. I believe that scientific rational skepticism has rightfully made great headways in the past few decades and I personally consider these lectures a significant setback.
44 people found this helpful
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JH
5.0 out of 5 stars Starts off laboriously, but builds great momentum towards an awesome finish.
Reviewed in the United States on February 15, 2022
As a scientist for 40 years, this course reiterates all the key lessons I have (re-)discovered along my own journey throughout my career. It is a great reminder what to pay attention to in our daily lives. You do not have to be a scientist to listen to this course, only a sentient human being that has decided not to be taken advantage off by con-artists and who wants to maintain or acquire the skills necessary these days for not being taken to the cleaners by the increasingly polarized and sound-bite driven popular press.
5 people found this helpful
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