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

Worth the listen

Where does Your Deceptive Mind: A Scientific Guide to Critical Thinking Skills rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

There are tidbits in here for everyone, if you have the mind to listen.

Which scene was your favorite?

I love learning about the brain, there are so many aspects that can be surprising.

Excellent course!

I recommend it to everyone interested in thinking about thinking and critically review information that come your way.

Explains the problems we have in America.

This series of lectures explains the critical thinking skills that less and less American's use today.

For the intellectual

You must be acquainted with the truth of yourself in order to handle the precepts laid down in these lectures. It is a hard thing to handle, knowing we can be our own worst enemies, but understand that is what creates the foundation of better communication in your relationships.

Understanding Biases

Great course. Professor Novella is an excellent lecturer. Now I question everything! Looking forward to other courses.

Excellent presentation.

Presenter was articulate and engaging. Content was interesting and useful. Will listen to again in the future.

highly recommend

I thought these set of lectures was really interesting and well laid out. I highly recommend.

A fan of critical thinking and a humble world view

The course is beneficial to anyone with an imperfect human brain (all of us). I have enjoyed Steven Novella's input on the Skeptics Guide To The Universe podcast for years, and he has done a great job here in clarifying and organizing many of the ideas from the critical thinking community.

I feel it is also important to point out that a person of religion would enjoy this as well and gain helpful insight into the minds of their skeptic friends and family.

Think about what you Think

Very interesting lectures, they give me the necessary information to understand the Critical Thinking Skill and how to use it, without doubt is one of the most important skills nowadays.

Well worth it.

Listen to the whole thing without getting offended and you'll learn tons. The first lecture is polemic and it sounds like he intends to attack beliefs he dislikes but that isn't the point, so just get past it and you'll get a lot out of it. Would like to put him and Rupert Sheldrake in a room together.