Unlearning, laser eyes, and reptilian false flags

In this episode of the You Are Not so Smart Podcast you will hear an excerpt from a lecture I gave at DragonCon2014 all about unlearning, superseded scientific theories, post-hoc rationalization, just-so stories, laser eyes, goose trees, spanking and more.

The Topics: Just-So Stories and Conspiracy Theories

The Guest: Steven Novella

The Episode: Download – iTunes – Stitcher – RSS – Soundcloud

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After that segment, you’ll hear a rebroadcast of an interview from episode 016 with Steven Novella who is the host of The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe, and an academic clinical neurologist at Yale University School of Medicine. He blogs at Neurologica, Skepticblog, and Science-Based Medicine. Listen as he explains why we love conspiracy theories, how they flourish, how they harm, and what they say about our culture.

Next episode, Jon Ronson discusses his new book, “So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed.”

Links and Sources

Download – iTunes – Stitcher – RSS – Soundcloud

Previous Episodes

Boing Boing Podcasts

Cookie Recipes

Damasio, Antonio R. Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain. New York: Putnam, 1994. Print.

Grabmeier, Jeff. Does Something Leave Our Eyes During Vision? Many Adults Say Yes. http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/eyerays.htm

Gross, C. G. “The Fire That Comes from the Eye.” The Neuroscientist 5.1 (1999): 58-64. https://www.princeton.edu/~cggross/neuroscientist_5_99_fire.pdf

Mercier, H, and D Sperber. Why Do Humans Reason? Arguments for an Argumentative Theory. The Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 34.2 (2011): 57-74.http://www.dan.sperber.fr/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/MercierSperberWhydohumansreason.pdf

Rusbult, Craig. Extramission Theory of Vision is a Misconception about Vision. American Scientific Affiliation. 2007.http://www.asa3.org/ASA/education/views/extramission.htm

TV Tropes. Eye Beams: Folklore.

Winer, Gerald A, and Jane E. Cottrell. Does Anything Leave the Eye When We See? Extramission Beliefs of Children and Adults. Current Directions in Psychological Science. 5.5 (1996): 137-142. Web.http://cdp.sagepub.com/content/5/5/137.full.pdf

Zaidel, E., Zaidel, D. W., & Bogen, J. E. The split brain. In G. Adelman & B. Smith (Eds.) Encyclopedia of Neuroscience, 1999; 2nd Ed. : 1027-1032.http://www.its.caltech.edu/~jbogen/text/ref130.htm