How to (Really!) Think with Open Eyes and Minds - Peg Tittle

 In the world of health and wellness and performance, there are so much logical fallacies all around us.  In this podcast popular author Peg Tittle will talk with us about critical thinking and how to navigate the increasing dependence on logical fallacies.  Peg shares how to come back to what is the actual evidence and how to think it through starting with the building blocks of a good argument.

Peg Tittle has taught critical thinking and applied ethics at both the university and high school levels.  Along with her book Critical  Thinking: An Appeal to Reason, She is also  the author of What If…Collected Thought Experiments in Philosophy and the editor of Should Parents be Licensed? and Ethical Issues in Business: Enquiries, Cases, and Readings.

 To find out more on the book Critical Thinking: An Appeal to Reason:

https://www.routledge.com/Critical-Thinking-An-Appeal-to-Reason/Tittle/p/book/9780415997140

https://pegtittle.com/books/critical-thinking

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

You are obviously always completely logical in your decision-making, right? It's just your friends, social media, connections, politicians and others who fall short when it comes to critical thinking. Isn't it? Okay. Maybe you're the exception, but what we're seeing logical fallacies are all around us, especially in the areas of health, wellness, and performance. Welcome to the latest episode of the catalyst, health, wellness performance coaching podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Bradford Cooper of the catalyst coaching Institute. And today's guest is pegged at UL. She has taught philosophy at the university college and high school levels and is the author of several books, including in the reason we asked her to join us critical thinking and appeal to reason. And what if collected thought experiments in philosophy? We reached out to her to help us navigate the increasing dependence on logical fallacies. Instead of the evidence that we're trying to integrate here. If you're a coach, there is still time to join us for the event of the year. The Rocky mountain coaching between symposium in gorgeous Estes park called out of the September. And if you're not yet a certified health and wellness coach, there may be a spot or two left on an upcoming MDH, WC approved coaching certification. All the details for both of these are available@catalystcoachinginstitute.com or as always feel free to reach out to us. Anytime we'll set up a time to talk emails, results@catalystcoachinginstitute.com. Now it's only logical for us to listen in to peg tittle on the latest episode of the catalyst, health, wellness, and performance coaching podcast, peg dental. It is a privilege today. I reached out to you about this whole idea of getting into the depths of critical thinking. You're one of the experts in the field in this area. Thank you for joining us today. This is going to be a lot of fun and super intriguing and hopefully gets other people thinking that are listening to this.

Speaker 2: 1:52

Yeah, that would be our goal. Exactly.

Speaker 1: 1:54

Exactly. All right. Let's jump right into that core topic. Logical fallacies. What in the heck is going on in the world that has made, it seems like, has made reason and evidence an optional thing.

Speaker 2: 2:07

Well, yeah, I don't, I don't think it's terribly new. Um, I just happened to be watching a movie last night, uh, about Hannah errand. And I read her work before. Um, she's one of the people who attended the Eichmann trial and, and the movie focused, boiled it down to her insight that there was, but she called it the banality of evil. It's that Eichmann wasn't intentional. He wasn't, you know, some nasty person doing evil. He was just following orders. And I think maybe it was her analysis that sort of gave us that, that common excuse or response. I was just following orders. I was just doing my job now. She attributed it to him being unable to think. I would not say unable, I would say unwilling, but we agree that what's the problem is, is the absence of thinking. And I guess the short answer of your question, you know, how have we gotten to this point where, where people don't think, and it's because it's hard, you know, thinking, using reason, understanding and evaluating evidence, uh, especially in light of, you know, the internet, the past, what two decades, where misinformation is just, oh, out there, you know, and now even we call it fake news, uh, you know, so it's just really hard to understand the evidence and then to evaluate the evidence. And if an argument is being made, it's difficult to follow the premises to the conclusions. So that's kind of a short answer is that it's, it's hard. I would go further and say that, especially in our culture and I'm including the states and Canada in the same culture. I think, uh, I think we very much were the same. I mean, we like to think we're different in some ways, but I don't think we are. I think partly we're dumbed down. I recall reading a novel written by a Norwegian philosopher called Sophie's world. And I was just struck, there was something off about the novel and I quickly put my finger on the issues were what I would call university level philosophy, but the main character was like a 13 year old. And I thought that's just really weird. Then I learned that there they teach philosophy. I starting even in the elementary schools and then in the high school. So those issues that we basically associate with university level was for them high school level. So, you know, so we are, I hate to say it we're, we're kind of we're, we're the dumb kid in the class, us and Canada, I think not only are we dumbed down, but I think we continue with the dumbing down process. I looked at it. I had occasion to compare a grammar textbook from, I think the 1940s or 1950s to a grammar textbook today in elementary school. I didn't even know if there are grammar textbooks anymore. And again, huge eye opener. I mean, it was talking about dangling Martin, uh, Daimler, modifiers, and, you know, participant with participles and stuff that I was having to teach a university. Again, I thinking, you know, where, how did we get there? I know that precis writing isn't taught anymore at the elementary school or the high school level. And I can attest to that because my university students did not know how to condense a whole article into a single paragraph. They just couldn't do it. You know, not why are we so dumbed down and why is there this dumbing down? Well, I've sort of identified to myself, maybe four possibilities, but honestly, I don't know whether their cause or effect now, I don't know whether you want to jump in here and turn a corner, or whether you want me to keep going about these four things,

Speaker 1: 5:52

Pause for a second. Let me just set the table, folks that are listening. The reason everybody that we were doing this topic today, the reason I reached out to peg and said, you're the expert. Can you come on with us and talk us through, this is in the world of health and wellness. There is so many even performance. There is so much baloney. There's so much, and I'll avoid cursing on this one, but it's, it's, it's headlines, it's charismatic people. And what we want to do today is to try to help you come back to what is the actual evidence? How do we seek that out? How do we think this through? So with that table set, yes. Go ahead. And definitely continue through that as we talk this through.

Speaker 2: 6:32

Okay. So I guess, I don't know whether these are causes of the current state of affair or effects of the current state of affairs. Probably a bit of both. Um, but certainly I think our attitude toward education, um, plays a role, you know, uh, in our culture, we think it's a right, not a privilege. Um, you know, I'm here, I'm entitled to pass. I see that a lot with students at all levels. Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's, that's the high school, you know, attendance I'm here. I should pass the university. I thought I would get different better, you know, no, I paid my tuition. I expect my a right. That's one thing, second thing, our attitude toward intellectuals, we don't think very highly of people who can sing. We despise them. I would suggest maybe, you know, the death of expertise is a book well worth reading. And I think that then the flip side of that is we prefer to admire the rich maybe because we're so capitalist the famous, maybe because they're in our face all the time and the athletic, maybe because we're so obsessed with competition and winning and qualitative measure is a lot easier than quantitative is a lot easier than qualitative. But as you say, with the health and wellness field, you know, there's so many charismatic people out there and we get suckered into, you know, the rich, the famous, the attractive, the ones who, you know, sort of, well, I mean, especially for the rich and the famous, they're often in the entertainment field, they're actors. So they know how to convey this charisma. You know, I mean, that's their professional field. I think a third factor. And again, I don't know if there's this cause or effect the rise of religion. It's got an emphasis on faith most of the time, rather than knowledge emotion, rather than reason obedience rather than independent agency. You know, we hear a lot of people who've left their churches. Part of the problem was because they started to think for themselves and often religions, churches, I guess I I'm, I'm painting with a broad brush here, you know, independent thought often is not welcome in such institutions. And then I'm thinking we've got this whole culture of, you know, trust me. I mean, those, those charismatic people that you mentioned, I'll bet you, at least once, trust me, I know what I'm talking about. You know, I, I'm an expert. I mean, I notice the irony when I say I'm an expert, I was talking about those people, not me. And I don't ask your listeners to trust me. You know, I hope that you, with reasons you don't have to trust me that I know what I'm talking about, but that kind of thing happens so often in our personal lives. And also, you know, we hear it from politicians all the time. The flip side of trust me is just do what I say, you know, the following orders. And I don't know whether it's because they don't think we're capable of understanding the reason or the evidence behind it, or whether they're afraid. We do understand it. And then we'll disagree with them and call their bluff and say they are full of crap, or whether it's part of the whole masculine mode dominates. And it's very much a masculine thing, you know, especially to women and children just trust me, I know what I'm talking about and women so easily buy it. And you know, rather than saying, well, sorry, you know, I mean, that's starting to happen different, you know, the whole mansplaining thing, we don't, we don't accept it quite as much anymore, but I think it certainly is in our tradition. So because of those four things, whether they're cause or effect, we haven't had a lot of practice. We don't get a lot of practice at thinking. And that's another reason why we are where we are. Not only is it hard, but we haven't, we haven't practiced it. We haven't developed the skill and it can be developed. I mean, it's not, it's not, yes. It takes a lot of intelligence because it is hard, but I don't think intelligence is innate. You know, it's not our, our IQ can be improved. I can teach people and others can teach people to be smarter. Speaking for myself. I actually ended up having to write the GRE in my thirties rather than my twenties to get into grad school. And I'm absolutely convinced that writing it in my thirties gave me a higher score. I was smarter in my thirties, you know, because I had practiced so much more about thinking. Uh, I had practiced thinking, not practiced about thinking. I have practiced thinking I had done so much reading, writing, thinking, you know, what's your, what's your evidence? Does it follow? What would make it follow? Why doesn't it follow? You know, a lot of practice and it makes such a difference. It can, it can make a difference.

Speaker 1: 11:03

Well, in regardless of our IQ, our inherent IQ, we can learn how to take that next step. We can say, what's the evidence we can dig into. Give me some, I don't know, a link to a literature review that was done or whatever it might be versus just taking it at face value.

Speaker 2: 11:22

Exactly. It's not that difficult. You know? I mean, there is a really a template of like four steps. Yes. You know, if you follow those four steps, I'm not saying the steps are easy, but the process is easy.

Speaker 1: 11:34

All right. Well, let's talk about your book. So for folks that want to really dig into this, your, your book was highly praised. This area's titled critical thinking and appeal to reason. It was written a decade ago. We need it more now than ever are there. And maybe this is your list of three or four things, but key lessons from the book that would help get us back on track that we haven't already talked about here in the first 10 minutes.

Speaker 2: 11:56

Yeah. Yeah. Um, I'll, I'll mention too that I'd made a note, but then I'll, I'll go into those, those four things, which actually might, we might want to circle back to later, but yeah. Um, think before you speak, I think would be one thing. I think that's part of the problem is that so many people out there speak without thinking, and that's why we have so much misinformation and so much crap out there to Wade through. And if you don't have any reasons for your claims, if you don't have any evidence or support, then be quiet. You know, it's funny if we had replaced hate speech with negligent speech, I E you know, if we had said, look, you've got to provide your reason and your evidence for what you say. And if you speak with Nope, providing reason there evidence that's negligent, speak speech. I mean, I think that would be a preferable approach to legislation. Then, you know, if everyone were forced to actually give their reasons for what they were about to say, ah, you know,

Speaker 1: 12:59

Yes, I love that subtle, but huge

Speaker 2: 13:02

It's subtle, but huge. Absolutely. You know, and people can apply that in their own lives and maybe they can call other people on it. You know, it's too bad that we regard silences as some kind of indication of stupidity rather than I'm busy thinking. Not because I'm, didn't have nothing to say, but because I didn't want to open my mouth.

Speaker 1: 13:24

Well, you reminded me of that old quote. Why open your mouth or no, no, no. It's better to be silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

Speaker 2: 13:34

Yes. Yes. I love that. It's so it's so true. And it's too bad. Like I say, if more people applied that to themselves and maybe called others on it, what you're saying might be valid, but please take a minute and get all your ducks in a row, all your reasons and evidence, and then open your mouth then, you know, until then don't confuse the issue. Don't try to manipulate me just, you know, whatever. But the four steps that's, I mean, it's really easy as, and when I am teaching it, this is, this is sort of my, my, my short version. And it's just, what's your point. So you first have to identify the claim that the person's making, and sometimes that's harder than you think, because they're, they're, they're not clear, right. You know, they're not, most people are not clear, concise, and coherent. There are all over the place that you feel you have to dig to sort of get to. What is your point? You know, uh, often the person doesn't even know, right? They're just, they're just flapping their gums.

Speaker 1: 14:31

Let's pause on that one for a minute, because I think that everybody, I don't want you to just gloss over this first one, because when we, when people that are listening, you've had these conversations. I just had one with someone a couple of weeks ago, where we had this really long conversation and I never did a good job initially of saying, what are we actually hate to use the word debating? But what are we actually debating? What is the point of this conversation? What are we trying to, because this person went all around all these different topics and an hour later, we're no further than we were initially. That's on me. That's my fault. It's not his fault. It's my fault for not clarifying. This is what we're trying to figure out. So you're your question of number one, what's your point? What's the purposes conversation, this debate, this, whatever that is critical. So excellent starting point. What's the next one.

Speaker 2: 15:23

What's your reason for saying that? What's your evidence? What's, what's your support? Why do you say what you just said? You know, what, what, what, what's the backup for the point? Excellent. And so right there, you know, often people, if pushed, you know, well, I mean, yeah, they don't know, right?

Speaker 1: 15:39

Oh, I've always ended that way. Or somebody else told me that or, yeah, exactly. It's an endless loop at that point.

Speaker 2: 15:46

And then step three, does it follow meaning? Does their point follow from what they're telling you as the evidence? The reason that often and most often right there, you can say, no, it doesn't follow. So

Speaker 1: 16:01

Basically number one.

Speaker 2: 16:03

Yeah. And there's, there's three, three separate things that usually are responsible for you saying it doesn't follow one. What you've given me as evidence, as reason, it's just not true. And so, yeah, no conclusion can follow from evidence that, that is mistaken, you know, from knowledge. That is not true. Second. It's just not relevant. I mean, I can make a claim that my dog is cute and my reason is she's brown and you're, well, hang on. What does that have to do with cuteness?

Speaker 1: 16:35

Well, she's my dog. So she's obviously cute.

Speaker 2: 16:38

And then what? Yeah, but even there, well, my unstated premise has to be everything that's, mine is cute and

Speaker 1: 16:45

Not

Speaker 2: 16:45

Defensible. That's not the festival. Um, and the third thing is, is it sufficient? You know, I mean, what the person is saying might be true and it might be relevant, but it still might not be enough to get them to the conclusion. And that I think happens a lot in health and wellness. Yes. Um, you know, because it takes a lot more than just one thing, you know? Um, I didn't know, something simple, like, uh, taking vitamin C to get rid of a cold. Yes. Um, you know, there, there might be truth to that and there might be, you know, it's relevant, but it might not be enough to actually support your claim that vitamin C will make your cold go away, you know, because there's a whole bunch of other things. And the core is simply if it doesn't follow, what would make it follow? And that's incredibly hard. Well, actually step three and step four are really hard, you know, figuring out whether it does follow and then figuring out what other information do you need? Why isn't it sufficient? What would make that, whatever you're saying true. You know, what kind of study do we need? What kind of research do we need? So, like I said, the process is simple, but yeah, really difficult, especially when you're getting to step three and step four, right?

Speaker 1: 17:57

Let's chase a quick rabbit trail here. So someone's having conversation or it's an online conversation, whatever, and the person goes through and they present some evidence, but the evidence with, you know, you can Google whatever. So you're, you're going to get access in your, in quotes evidence of, uh, the, the person that just popped a video up, no background, no research history hasn't provided any, uh, links to actual credible studies. They're just saying this, how can the person who's listening, who this is somewhat new to distinguish between the credible evidence and the fake evidence, if you will.

Speaker 2: 18:40

Yeah. And that, that's hard because, you know, how can we be knowledgeable about everything we can't, we can be knowledgeable about a lot. And certainly we can choose what's most important to us and become knowledgeable about it. And that's why the people with more knowledge are actually better thinkers because we are better able to answer. Is it true? Is it relevant? Is it sufficient? And that's why, I guess I asked, that's why I think I got a higher score, you know, in my thirties and twenties, because I was more knowledgeable and all that kind of stuff. When push comes to shove, obviously, I guess you have to make an appeal to an expert, you know, to one authority. I don't know anything about black holes. So I somehow have to figure out who does know something about black holes or colds or cancer or depression or trauma syndrome or whatever, find the expert, and then, you know, listen to them, read. And how do you determine that? Well, I think certainly education is a big role. Um, you know, if they don't have a PhD in, in, uh, trauma medicine or whatever, you've got to figure out what their PhD needs to be in. Um, someone with a PhD in philosophy, it should not be listened to, you know, when talking about trauma medicine or whatever and experience, certainly, you know, if they've been working in the field for 20 years, uh, still have their, their medical license, et cetera, et cetera. So, yes. I mean, again, build that that's the hard, right? That takes work even to figure out what would be an appropriate expert authority and what would be, not an expert authority, because of course the people you're talking about is saying, oh yeah, listen to me. I am an authority,

Speaker 1: 20:19

But I wanna encourage folks. It's not these days. That's not as hard as we might think it might've been harder 20 years ago, but what peg saying now, w you can literally Google her or me or whomever and find out where they went to school, what books they've written, uh, what literature they've published or did they just go to a weekend class somewhere and hold themselves out as the expert in, like you say, black holes or whatever it might be. So, okay. Well, let's talk inherent biases, inherent biases a little bit. We just released a video, I don't know, a few weeks ago about several of the most common biases and, and how you can be aware of those. But could you talk us through that in terms of how those limit, our critical thinking? Are there a couple that rise to the top that maybe folks need to be a little bit more aware of than others?

Speaker 2: 21:09

I think so. I don't know that I would call them inherit just more than, you know, they're there, they're out there calm. And a lot of us have, I think a lot of the biases that we might identify really reduced to one and that's confirmation bias, which simply means you believe what you want to believe. Yes. You know, we pay attention to the evidence that supports what we already think on the issue. And we dismiss or ignore or discredit, maybe discounted is too strong. We don't pay as much attention to the evidence that challenges our beliefs. And that I think covers a lot of subordinate ones that we might, you know, say sexism, racism, or whatever, you know, conservative bias and all that kind of stuff. I think it often just boils down to, you know, yeah. Confirmation bias. We like what confirms what we already believe. Another one that I hear a lot it's called the fallacy is called correlation to causation. And that's a mistake just because something just because a happens at the same time as B or even more accounting a happens before B doesn't mean that a causes B there's several possible relationships between a and B. It could be just coincidence. Yes. It could be that a causes B, but it could be that B causes a, or it could be that some other elements C costs both a and B um, very simple example. Let's say you're sick and you're tired. Well, it could be just a coincidence could be that being sick has caused you to be tired, but it could be that being tired has caused you to be sick, or it could be, you've got some genetic condition that causes independently, both being sick and being tired. So the easy way is just to, you know, a cath and before B therefore a muster caused it. Micah that's out there everywhere all

Speaker 1: 23:02

The time,

Speaker 2: 23:03

But it's not that easy. There's complicating factors. There's a whole bunch of stuff you need to consider before you conclude a cost be.

Speaker 1: 23:13

So with either one of these biases or, or any of them suggestions for is the answers, the wrong word, but is one solution, one step to minimizing the impact of those, uh, simply awareness, almost like the alcoholics anonymous, you know, I'm Brad Cooper, I'm an alcoholic, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Puts it out there is, is the first step I am, you know, I'm Brad Cooper. And, you know, I have a bias for wanting to confirm the things I already believe is that the first step, or are there other things we can do to become more aware of and then have them not impact us?

Speaker 2: 23:51

It certainly that would help. And I, and I don't want to be so simplistic as to say it all boils down to be open-minded, um, you know, everything, you know, what's the name, what's the reasoning, blah, blah, blah. Right. But yeah, uh, that certainly that would be a good thing. Yeah. If you're, if you're aware of what it is that you want to believe, then, then you are more able to protect yourself against confirmation bias. You know, if, you know, I mean, I know myself, my tendency is to believe the stuff that confirms climate change. Once I realized that, then, you know, maybe I can consciously give more attention to evidence that would, uh, you know, be to the

Speaker 1: 24:29

Contrary right. Challenge where you're thinking. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 24:33

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 24:33

Okay. So I'm going to ask for your advice on this one, but if you're talking to somebody who like, they just, they're not seeing their own logical fallacies at all. And obviously we always see that in other people more than ourselves, but, but let's just say that you're, you're talking to somebody and they are just completely missing the boat in terms of any of this critical thinking elements that they're pushing back against your four points, et cetera, et cetera. Is there, have you found anything to be helpful in that situation or is that just a losing battle? You just need to walk away from,

Speaker 2: 25:05

I hate to say it.

Speaker 1: 25:07

No.

Speaker 2: 25:08

Well, you know, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it think

Speaker 1: 25:13

That you can make it thirsty though. Right?

Speaker 2: 25:15

Well, I don't know. I guess you can. Yeah. People don't like to be corrected people don't like to be challenged. Um, I find it particularly difficult personally because philosophers are not well-regarded, you know, the attitude in, in our culture toward philosophers is, you know, it's trivial, it's useless. Um, I have a horror story about losing a business ethics course to, uh, somebody in the business faculty, which you know, is horrible because ethics that's, that's in philosophy's wheelhouse. So, you know, yeah. Also I'm a woman which in our culture does not bode well for someone with authority to be listened to personally in my life, I'm basically been treated like a teenager my entire life, because I don't have the standard badges of adulthood, marriage, kids, and full-time career. So I must still be sort of, you know, trying to find myself and I am so tired of that. Yeah. And especially people don't like YouTube, they don't like to be corrected or challenged on things that they're quite convinced they can already do. And people think they can think people already think they can think, right. I mean, everyone can think, right. It's like, well, I had a horrible experience trying for five years, I was serving on the ethics committee of a hospital and the same kind of thing. You know, adults think they already know right from wrong. If something we learned when we're children, they not receptive at all to being taught how to determine right. From wrong, especially from a woman and especially from a philosopher, you know, and especially from someone who, you know, is still really just a teenager. So yeah. I have had a lot of trouble when it's selective student, I have had a lot of success, you know, when the horse comes to me and says, you know, could you please give me a drink or could you please teach me to think, yeah. Then it's amazing. I mean, I've had people say, you know, I've changed their lives, you know, so, but yeah, you got it. You gotta want to do it. That's been my experience. Um, it's funny that you mentioned you can make it thirsty. You see that, that didn't even occur to me. I'm so non-strategic, I'm so non-manipulative, it didn't even occur to me.

Speaker 1: 27:34

Well, that's the world we live in with that. That's the health and wellness coaching world is we don't try to tell people anything. We don't tell them what to eat. We don't tell them how to exercise. We don't tell them how to sleep or reduce their stress. We talk through what matters to them. Why does that matter? How does that go about how does that come about? And then from there, we're there to help them with that next step that you just talked about. So you're probably doing that already, maybe just in a different depth of phrase, because that's, that's the whole goal of health and wellness coaching is help people think through what matters to them and then be there to help them successfully

Speaker 2: 28:11

Do it. Philosophical counseling,

Speaker 1: 28:14

Motivational interviewing intrinsic motivation, philosophic, counseling, all those things overlap. No question.

Speaker 2: 28:20

When I got my grad degree thinking about to becoming a, you know, hanging on my shingle for a philosophical counselor. Um, and then just realize that, uh, I don't like people, so we have,

Speaker 1: 28:33

Yeah. That's kind of important. Um, all right. Let's pop over the next one. You, you, you talk about the subtleties of verbal and visual language in your book. Can you, can you talk us through some of the keys around those two elements?

Speaker 2: 28:45

When you say verbal, do you mean like out loud speech? Or do you mean verbal? You using words?

Speaker 1: 28:50

Probably

Speaker 2: 28:51

Both. Okay. Uh, verbal out loud speech. Yeah. There's a lot of manipulation there. You know, I mean, we, we normally come across it in, I guess, news anchors. That's where it was most obvious, you know, cause they were always male voices and the deep pitched ones and the ones where the gravity and the pauses and certainly in the charismatic people, you know, they've got a whole lot of manipulation going on with their speech patterns and their inflections and, and all that kind of stuff as well, even the way they move, you know, as they walk across the stage and you know, all this kind of stuff. So yeah, that's pretty much out there and I don't really have too much to add to that. I think probably most people are aware of that even though they still get suckered in by it.

Speaker 1: 29:33

Well, but I like what you just said, there just the awareness of all those things, you just listed the, where they're walking, they're holding themselves, what are the shoulder positions, the tone of voice, et cetera, just by you saying that, I think that clicks into people's minds. Like, oh yeah, I know about those things.

Speaker 2: 29:47

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I mean, and that's why there was resistance for so long about making news anchors women, because they knew well that people don't regard women as authorities, you know, we have a higher pitch and a whole bunch of other stuff. So in terms of in the print and by the way, that's a, that's another thing, um, I would love to see is court proceedings. I don't think they should be in person. I would like it to see all in text because then we wouldn't be manipulated by the way the lawyer is prance around room and, and, and you know, which lawyer looks more authoritative and sounds more authoritative and all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1: 30:24

So that let's, let's stay on that rabbit trail for a second. That's very interesting. I've never heard anybody suggest that before. Is that happening anywhere? Are they trying that even globally? Are they doing anything with that? Cause it's a,

Speaker 2: 30:36

Um, not that I'm aware of. I thought that maybe with the pandemic, it would get in that direction, but instead they just went visual online. Right?

Speaker 1: 30:44

Because there is the research about timing of the day that the closer you are to the lunch hour and the blood sugar of the judge being reduced, the more likely you are to be found guilty. So that's interesting. Very interesting. Okay. Sorry.

Speaker 2: 30:57

Uh, government proceedings, uh, when I was younger, I read a copy of, uh, the Hansard, uh, which in Canada is basically the written text of parliamentary hearings. Um, and I don't know, I imagine it's pretty much the same in the states, but if you were to watch the house of commons, the parliamentary proceedings, the words animal house would come to mind. I mean, it's just, it's, it's shameful. It's our high school student council did a better job now. And I'm thinking, reading the Hansard, you really, really realize more that nothing is getting done. Nothing is getting said, when you see it, it's just, it's sheer entertainment. So yeah, I, I very much like to see what happens to her outcomes if it were just, you know, written texts. Now, mind you, of course, written text has problems too. Um, you know, in terms of loaded language, uh, definitely, uh, you know, even phrasing, uh, the debate, you know, a common example is pro-life, pro-choice bad words from the get-go. If we had called that compulsory pregnancy and voluntary pregnancy, the debate would have been framed way differently, but pro-choice, and pro-life, they're not opposites, you know, they're not two sides of the debate. You can be pro-life and pro-choice, you know,

Speaker 1: 32:15

Which is true for any number of issues. I mean, it's chosen for that purpose.

Speaker 2: 32:21

Exactly. So there's, you know, the manipulation and the, the poor choice of words, whether it's sloppy or, or, or intentionally manipulative, um, chairman moral majority, I mean, there's just so many phrases out there that the choice of the word, you know, it's not, it's not neutral and it frames the frames, the debate, correct? Yeah, yeah. A visual, well, there's a lot of, uh, obviously fake stuff out there and Photoshopping, you know, and, um, there's a lot of things that, you know, you can, you can figure out in terms of perspective and you know, what's in the picture anomaly that shouldn't be a nuclear picture of some historic event. You realize that they're wearing a wristwatch that wasn't invented, you know, uh, so there's, there's a lot of stuff there that probably is fairly easy. I think there's a lot of sites out there that debunk and call call on the Photoshopping. There's more subtle things too, that I think one needs to be aware of. So what's outside the frame, both spatially and temporally facially, for example, you know, you see a picture of someone what's outside the frame. I mean, someone could be holding a gun to their head. I will like to mention if I'm okay to mention you can stop me porn. And I want to mention it because apparently so many men buy it. And I use that in both the double meaning without seeming to realize that outside the frame, you know, they're acting, there's someone directing them there, many women threatened do this, or whatever, any women driven by need. They've got kids that they were forced to have that they don't really want, that they have to support. They're driven by their addiction. There's so many things outside the frame that I hope if men knew about it, it wouldn't be a range perspective. Yeah. It wouldn't, they wouldn't keep going there, you know, but they do. So either they're awful people and are aroused by such things or they don't know it, you know, and we want them to be critical about it. And then temporarily, you know, what happened before the frame? What happened after the frame? You know, visual is all about selection. And so you have to ask what, what was selected and why. So that was, I guess, would be the top things that I would mention about verbal visual. Okay.

Speaker 1: 34:37

Okay. Let's shift a little bit here. We're, we're spending obviously most of our time talking about the lack of critical thinking, but, and you can say, you know what, Brad, I don't know that that fits here, but what about the person who swung too far to the other side of the person that is so focused on logical and critical thinking? They miss out because we're human beings, we're not computers, we're not algorithms. Theoretically. We are human beings. Living lives that have more than just logic involved with them. Any suggestions having lived in that world and taught in that world and help people with that world, for the ones that maybe you've gone too far and could use a little more tuning into the emotions and the, the feelings and those kinds of things.

Speaker 2: 35:19

I think that the way you're framing the question suggests a misunderstanding and a very common misunderstanding, which is why I address it in the first chapter of my book. Excellent. Logical thinking does not preclude feelings and emotions. You just, you just have to use it as a premise. Like there's nothing wrong with saying, I feel blah, blah, you're I am afraid, or I love such and such. Yeah. Make that part of your reasoning to get to your conclusion, make that one of your, one of your premises. So it's not that you don't, it's not that you ignore any of those things it's that you use them well. Um, and even if you want, I mean, then we can still come back to the four things.

Speaker 1: 36:09

So as part of the evidence,

Speaker 2: 36:11

Exactly. And then you still ask your question. Well, does your conclusion follow from that? Is it sufficient? Is your love for something sufficient for your conclusion, right. I'm going to do whatever. So it's not a matter of ignoring emotion and feeling. It's a matter of making it part of the argument and still then evaluating. Is it relevant your feelings most of the time? Yes. But sometimes no. Sure. And is it true? Well, most of the times, yes, but sometimes no, sometimes we kind of lie to ourselves about our feelings. And is it sufficient? Is it adequate? Is that feeling enough to base, to justify your conclusion, whatever it is, you know, I'm going to do this, or I'm not going to do this, or I'm going to believe this, or I'm not gonna, you know, it's still there. So a lot of it does not preclude the most.

Speaker 1: 37:05

I love that. I think that was maybe my favorite part of a conversation. It's. So, as I was looking at the notes that are written down, as you were talking, that, that question that you just said, is it sufficient? Don't ignore it. It's a piece of it. Is it sufficient? So wow.

Speaker 2: 37:20

And some, sometimes it might be, and sometimes it might not be, I mean, rental love might be sufficient for absolutely. I think, you know, I would disagree, but thank God. I'm not a parent. Probably one of the reasons I chose not to be a parent. Um, but yeah, uh, often it's not sufficient often you might need a few other things, you know? Um, my fear might be sufficient for some behavior along with another premise. Um, I don't have any other options or something, something, but yeah, you still have to it's all in there. It doesn't. Right.

Speaker 1: 37:54

All right. So final question is we may hang on this one for a little while, cause there's quite a bit to it, but for the person who's listening to says, okay, I really like this. Like pegs, really speaking to me, I do want to use more critical thinking and reasoning what I'm doing in my life and decisions I'm making and that kind of thing. You talk about some different exercises to develop that in your book, you have a lot of practical recommendations. You've shared a number of them with us right here. Uh, are there a couple you'd like to leave with us to really kind of drill down for that person says, okay, I'm ready. I like, this is important. I want to do more of this in my life. Where, where would you take us with that?

Speaker 2: 38:33

Well, if you're really, really want to do more, then get yourself a book like mine, um, you know, with a bunch of exercises and work your way through it. I mean, then you will have the advantage of, um, people who have had a year long course on critical thinking. There's nothing wrong with doing that. And I mean, you can do it on your own. There's many books out there. I'm not necessarily pedaling my own. Um, you know, that have a lot of practical exercises, make sure about that. And hopefully that have answers, explanations and analyses. So you can sort of check yourself, well, why didn't that conclusion fall? I thought it followed. And then you can, you know, read the, the analysis. That's just well known. Doesn't follow because blah, blah, blah. So that would absolutely be best because then you would cover all the fallacies and I mean, there's, there's like dozens and you would get like really deep into this whole thing about truth and relevance and sufficiency that we've talked about. I would actually recommend that another thing after that, or maybe instead of that, or when you're halfway through that, I remember an assignment that my, uh, critical thinking professor gave, and this is like we're talking decades ago. Um,

Speaker 1: 39:42

He asked me,

Speaker 2: 39:44

Okay, we want to do that. Um, he asked it, one of our assignments was to submit a crap book, not a scrap book, but a crap book. We had to identify 10 instances of crap.

Speaker 1: 39:56

Wow.

Speaker 2: 39:58

I like it too. It probably made me, uh, choose critical thinking as my, uh, my life's work. We had to identify 10 instances of crap, you know, from the newspaper or TV or whatever, you know, song lyrics. And we had to explain why they were crap. Literally. That was probably a life. The thanks, Dr. Fred little, um, it was probably a life changing experience for me to, to do that assignment. And I'm sure it influenced the rest of my life in terms of, you know, getting involved with critical thinking and seeing the need for the difficulty of it and all that kind of stuff. So even if you don't want to go through the whole course and the whole book, if you take a crap book approach to life that might set the stage for awareness, but of course, you're still gonna have to develop the skills that will make you able to identify when something is crap and why it is crap.

Speaker 1: 40:49

I'm just seeing that so perfect for health and wellness. Like if folks are sitting out there, maybe she can be part of our certification. I don't know, but if people are out there, like, yeah, no, there's, there's not that much stuff to start looking. It will only take you a few minutes to find 10 things that would fit into this crap book out of health, wellness performance. There's just so much baloney. But then that awareness opened your eyes to, as you said, taking a whole career path along these lines, but I like that. That's really powerful.

Speaker 2: 41:18

Yeah. Those are the, those are the only two things I can think of there apart from, you know, coming back to, um, what we talked about with those, with those four steps. Now there is another thing, argument, chess. I can talk about that I was teaching. And I much to my horror realized that what I was doing was way over their heads. I, I, I was, I was expecting a lot there. My students starting point was not where I expected. Right. And so I, I did a whole lot of, you know, analysis of frigging, you know, how, so one of the primary rules in teaching, and it sounds like coaching as well, of course, because it's very similar. You start to where that you start at, where the person is. And so what I came up with was this thing, I called argument chess, and I basically had everyone get twos and they were basically to play argument chess with each other. So one person starts, they open the move by making a claim, and then the other person asks what your reason. And then, you know, the person has to give their, their reason. And then the other person does, you know, the next step doesn't follow and they, you know, figure out, is it relevant? Is it true? Is it sufficient? And they go back and forth. And then the second person after they hear the first person is premise. And maybe then, you know, figure this out, does the analysis about relevance, truth and sufficiency. They either reject the premise or accept it. And if they reject the premise, then I guess they can right away reject the conclusion or they could make a counter move, you know, and say, well, I reject your premise, but I still accept your conclusion because of this other premise, you know, there's, I think there is evidence for that conclusion that is sufficient true and relevant, just not the evidence you've given. And so it becomes a dialogue rather than just a blatant competition, like chess. And it just, they develop toward, you know, if they both agree on the conclusion, but then they, you know, for different reasons or if it was that I accept premise one and premise two, but I don't think it's sufficient for your conclusion. Let me propose that we add premise three and then, you know, then it goes back to the other person. Well then I, I accept your premise three and so on. And so on, or another move that can be made is basically a counter-argument, you know, I reject all of your premises and I can't think of any others that would support your conclusion. So I reject you conclusion, but now I want to present a counter argument and then they present the, you know, an alternative claim and then you basically start over. Yeah. So it, it worked, it actually, it, yeah, I guess it does work because it really, you, you then have a dialogue because also one of the reasons I developed that exercise is because as you, I think intimated at the beginning with that discussion that you had an hour goes by and you, you, you're not even on the same page. Right. And I found that happened so often in class. I mean, you know, someone would sort of gush out this can of worms on the desk and expect me to do all the heavy lifting of teasing out all the worms, you know, like or spaghetti or whatever, you know. Well, this is the premise, this is a premise. This is a conclusion. Are you thinking these, do things support this thing? Are you thinking this supports that? And I've been, oh, it's been half an hour just sort of trying to organize this can of worms. And you know, me doing all the heavy lifting and I was exhausted and I thought, okay, they're not learning anything by me doing it. I've got to put them in the driver's seat. You know, as you, you're probably aware of that experiment, where they had the, the, the cart and the two cats and the one cat was in the driver's seat. And the other cat was the passenger and the cat that figured out how to get out on the maze was the one in the driver's seat, not the one in the passenger seat. It does make perfect sense. So I started after about a week of me, you know, I thought I was teaching by a modeling, um, you know, being an exemplar of how do you untangle all this stuff? I basically said, Nope, you're, you're going to do it. And every class I would appoint, you know, a certain person to be the one to untangle the worms. And of course couldn't, and they were frustrated after two minutes. And then they started to realize, yeah, I guess the onus is on me when I opened my mouth, I need to be very clear. This is my point. These are my reasons, you know, blah, blah, blah. You don't force the other person to do your thinking for you. Yeah. So that's, that's that's I guess another thing, you know, so yeah, it's, it's the matter of argument, chess, which basically makes you realize that you are responsible for your own thinking and don't, don't, don't expect somebody else to connect the dots. You know, you've got to connect your own dots for them, because if you just put all your dots on the page and expect them to connect the dots, they might not connect them the way you intended them to be connected, and then they need to understand you. And then you've got an hour going by and no one knows what

Speaker 1: 46:24

We haven't gotten any further. Yeah, exactly. That's beautiful. Peg really, really appreciate this. This is an important topic in this profession. It's an important topic beyond this profession, and I appreciate you taking the time to share this with us, give us some practical stuff and really hopefully get us critically thinking about what you've shared today.

Speaker 2: 46:44

Well, I appreciate that you contacted me to, uh, to do this with you. This is, uh, this is very valuable, so thank you. Yeah,

Speaker 1: 46:50

Absolutely. This is great. Thank you very much. All right. You cut all that. No more logical fallacies, right? We're going to move forward. We're going to think it through. We're going to look at the evidence not going to fall forward anymore, or at least we're going to get a running start in that direction. Thanks again to peg tittle for joining us great insights. Thanks to you for tuning into the number one podcast for health and wellness coaching. Next week's guest is Dr. Christopher Lowery, who has spent decades studying the connection between our gut biome and our mental health, including anxiety, depression, and PTSD. I just finished recording this interview. And while I expect it to be in string, based on what I'd seen with him before it went far beyond just interesting. If you need anything on the coaching front, whether considering pursuing your MBA, HWC approved certification attending this falls, Rocky mountain coaching retreat and symposium, or you just curious how to integrate the personally board certified health and wellness coaching into your organization. Feel free to reach out to us anytime results@catalystcoachinginstitutedotcomortapintoallkindsofotherresourcesonthenewwebsiteatcatalystcoachinginstitute.com. Now it's time to be a catalyst, the chance to make a positive difference in the world while simultaneously improving our own lives, which is the essence of being a catalyst. This is Dr. Bradford Cooper of the catalyst coaching Institute. Make it a great rest of your week. And I'll speak with you soon on the next episode of the catalyst health wireless performance coaching podcast, or maybe over a YouTube.