Your Deceptive Mind: A Scientific Guide to Critical Thinking Skills

By: Steven Novella, The Great Courses

Narrated by: Steven Novella

Length: 12 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

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.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2012 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2012 The Great Courses

What the world needs now.

You probably feel like you don't need this, but even those familiar with the concepts are likely to appreciate such a thorough and well-ordered review. How do we make this a mandatory course in highschools?

Fabulous.

Everyone should listen to it at least once in their lives. Learn to be critical the right (balanced) way. Greatly improves your life skills.

A Clear and Concise summary of critical thinking

Everything you need to know about critical thinking. The organization of the talk and the presentation is clear and concise. Should be required material for every school kid, from kindergarten to college level. I want this in written form to refer to again and again.

Very enlightening!

This course delved deeper into the reasoning for beliefs than I had expected. A truly enlightening journey into your own biases and false reasonings.

A great intro to critical thinking

These lectures really do a fantastic job of introducing you to both critical thinking and the scientific method.

Useful tool

this is a great book if you want to understand the intricacies of our innate bias or the way we communicate and the positions we hold.

Science demystified

a crash course in critical thinking for the modern human who needs to make sense of what's really true in our multimedia saturated world

The Enlightenment

Most interesting book I've read. The intellectual journey of learning and thinking. Forgive humans. Forgive yourself.

This book WILL improve your quality of life

Still not sure about whether this is worth a listen or not?

Don't take my word for it. Find out for yourself, and thank Steven Novella after.

Awesome

This book is worth listening to more than once. What's discussed is very interesting material, makes a lot of sense and also has you questioning your thinking.