39. Dr Bo Bennett on Sharpening Critical Thinking, Logical Fallacies & Persuasive Dialogue

“We need to care more about believing what is true than being right and being proved right.” - Bo Bennet

With outrage-bait, memes and “gotcha” clips swarming every feed, being able to think about our thinking is no longer optional. Social psychologist, entrepreneur and Positive Humanism author Dr Bo Bennett joins host James Hodgson to show why critical thinking is a life skill for everyone, not a luxury for academics. Drawing on decades spent dissecting logical fallacies (plus a generous dose of humour), Bo maps out how we can swap combativeness for curiosity—and outrage for evidence—in our daily conversations.

In this episode

• System 1 vs System 2: knowing when to hit the cognitive brakes
• 25 “greatest-hits” fallacies—from appeal to authority to the straw man
• Aristotle’s trio of logic, emotion & character (and why emotion is only fallacious when it replaces reason)
• The Socratic method for lowering defences and dodging the back-fire effect
• “You need to care more about believing what is true than being right and being proved right.” —Bo
• Expertise-transfer traps: why even humanists can slip up on politics or science
• Handling contrarian takes on settled research: focus on the scientific process
• A practical habit: run emotional posts through AI for a fast, source-linked fact-check before you hit share

Follow Dr Bo Bennett

• Website & books: bobennett.com
• Logical fallacy database: https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertsbennett/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@bobennett7750

Resources

• Logically Fallacious — Dr Bo Bennett
• Thinking, Fast and Slow — Daniel Kahneman

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Chapters

• 0:00 Intro to Dr Bo Bennet
• 1:20 What is Critical Thinking?
• 5:33 Red Flags and Logical Fallacies
• 9:20 Balancing Reason with Emotional Appeal
• 13:30 Building Rapport & Credibility
• 15:28 How to Approach Difficult Conversations
• 17:55 Cultivating a Habit of Thinking Critically
• 21:58 Humanist Rational Blind Spots
• 23:57 Performance as a Barrier to Truth in Debate
• 28:17 Scientific Process vs Cherry-Picking
• 34:47 Find Out More About Bo's Work
• 35:11 Changing Minds on Fact-Checking with AI

Transcript

James Hodgson: 0:01

In an age flooded with information, opinions and viral misinformation, critical thinking has never been more essential or more endangered. It's not just a skill for academics or scientists. It's something we all need to navigate everyday life, make better decisions and engage with the world more thoughtfully, compassionately. But what does it really mean to think critically, and how do we practice and promote critical thinking in a world that often rewards outrage over insight? Today's guest, Dr Bo Bennett, is someone who spent a career thinking about these questions and helping others to think better too. Bo is a social psychologist, entrepreneur, author of over a dozen books, screenwriter, adjunct professor and a long-time advocate of humanism and rational thought. From running internet businesses to hosting podcasts and writing on the science of positive humanism, Bo brings a unique blend of scientific insight, personal integrity and a dash of humor to everything he does. In this episode, we'll explore how we can foster critical thinking in ourselves and others, and why it's more than just identifying fallacies. It's about cultivating intellectual humility, curiosity and care. Dr Bo Bennett, thank you for joining us on Humanism Now.

Dr Bo Bennett: 1:16

Thank you for having me, james.

James Hodgson: 1:17

I appreciate it. So let's start with the basics. What is critical thinking and why does it matter in our everyday lives?

Dr Bo Bennett: 1:25

Critical thinking. You could think of that as taking your thinking to a new level. It's more about active thinking than passive thinking, which is what we often do on a regular basis. Critical thinking is really activating that cognitive ability that we all have, that we choose not to in most cases or we just ignore. It's kind of, in a way, questioning everything that's important to us. And it's important to distinguish the difference between regular day-to-day thought where cognitive like strong cognitive abilities are not that important and critical thinking really isn't that important, like when we go throughout our day, when when we were driving a car, when we're shopping for groceries. This is where we can kind of go into auto mode, let our passive thought and our brain work the way that it wants to work, it wants to conserve energy. But it's important to activate that critical thinking, that next level, that purposeful thought. When we encounter important questions, decisions, when we encounter information that we have to choose to accept or not. That's when we need to activate that critical thinking.

James Hodgson: 2:47

So is this very similar to the idea of system one and system two thinking that was popularized by Kahneman?

Dr Bo Bennett: 2:53

Yes, that's exactly what it is. The system one thinking is the passive. System Two is the active type of thinking and that's where you could find cognitive abilities or critical thinking in that system two. It's just another name for it and, yes, they do a pretty good job in describing that in their book Fast and Slow Thinking.

James Hodgson: 3:11

So what first drew you to the practice of critical thinking?

Dr Bo Bennett: 3:15

I guess going way back well, not too far back, maybe about 20 years or so an associate of mine brought me a book by Lee Strobel called At the Beginning of Faith, the End of Faith. I forgot exactly what it was called, but basically he was a born again Christian and he wanted to introduce me to Jesus. So he gave me this book and I grew up Catholic. So I always kind of like believed in a God but never really thought much about it. I was kind of one of those cultural Catholics like yeah, sure, there's a God, whatever, because that's what I was taught my whole life. But then when I read the book as kind of like a favor to him also, I have to admit that I was curious when he was so passionate about this idea, I started to read it and, boy, there were so many red flags that came up. There were so many red flags that came up and I said something is wrong here. I don't know what, but it sounds good, but there's just something wrong.

Dr Bo Bennett: 4:15

And that kind of sparked this whole path that I went on and it actually that led to me creating an online debate board, because I'm kind of like a programmer by trade and with websites.

Dr Bo Bennett: 4:23

So I created an online debate board, where debate board, where I started talking about God and having people of all different faiths and no faith get together and debate the topic and it was like fascinating reading those posts and I started interacting as well and I realized that there's something going on, because so many people were saying these things that sounded great, like it really sounded convincing, but it couldn't possibly be true because there were so many conflicting ideas going on, like everything couldn't be true.

Dr Bo Bennett: 4:57

You had to take like one or the other, like one person's God was true or another person, but everybody was so convinced. So I knew that something was going on and I wanted to get to the bottom of it, and that really led me down the road of critical thinking and the whole concept of logical fallacies, cognitive biases, how you can manipulate people with language, how you could use language to sell an idea that's completely not true, all the different forms of lying, like purposeful lying. There was a lot of things going on that I wanted to get to the bottom of and that's where the journey began.

James Hodgson: 5:31

Yeah, that's very interesting, and so I know you write a lot about fallacies and faulty reasoning and I wondered what are the most common fallacies that you see and that we should be alert to, particularly in the media or in these debates?

Dr Bo Bennett: 5:47

Sure, yeah, in my book Logically Fallacious I actually have a section on I believe it's a top 25 most common fallacies in language learning. In a sense, when you learn a language, there's a good idea to learn the top 80% of all the words used in the language and you master that and then you're in a good spot. Similarly, with logical fallacies, there are hundreds of them, maybe even thousands if you go into like variations and unnamed fallacies. But if you learn like 25, you're going to know virtually, I would guess, closer to 90% of the fallacies used, because a lot of the main fallacies they have variations that do have their own names, but they're just slightly different for slightly different reasons. I'm going to give you one example.

Dr Bo Bennett: 6:40

One is the appeal to authority. This is a big one. You see this a lot. Somebody will say this person, a doctor, whomever, who has been studying vaccines all his life, says that vaccines cause autism. Therefore it's true. Now, that sounds impressive. Again, that's what fallacies are. They're kind of like tricks. They trick your mind in thinking like oh, this doctor, who's a certified MD, who studies vaccines all his life, says that vaccines cause autism. So therefore it must be true, right? Well, no, because that's not how science works. Science doesn't work with one person's opinion. What's important is what does the accumulation of all of the doctors that study vaccines together? What did they kind of come up with? What is the overall picture? That's what's most important when it comes to science, not the opinion of one. But we hear this all the time and that's what's referred to as the appeal to authority.

Dr Bo Bennett: 7:42

Another common one is the straw man authority, bl2 authority. Another common one is the straw man. That's when somebody will make an argument and then somebody will either rephrase the argument to something that's a lot easier to take down or they will just address the argument as if that person made another argument, like a stupid argument that they wouldn't actually make. So then, if you're not closely paying attention, you don't remember what the other person actually said, what the argument that they made. You think that the person who is responding is actually responding to the argument and like, oh my goodness, this guy destroyed his argument. But that wasn't even the argument. So you have to pay attention to that. That's one that you see all the time.

James Hodgson: 8:27

And it's interesting as well the examples you gave there.

James Hodgson: 8:31

For example, if you were to say what is the general scientific consensus, referring to that rather than the appeal to authority, that does sound less convincing, it's less of a compelling story, and I like your description of these fallacies as tricks, because they are very simple heuristics that we can go okay, this person has an authority, they've said this.

James Hodgson: 8:52

There's the logical fallacy. Therefore, it must be true, taking that time to, as you say, construct something which is more, I guess, less certain in that sense, but also is more based on the broad knowledge that exists. It is difficult to word that in a way that has the same rhetorical appeal to make it sound convincing. And I noticed you mentioned as well when you were reading the book that a lot of these arguments sound great when you hear them, they sound very impressive. So where do you think the balance lies between actually making your arguments sound impressive using compelling language, using shortcuts that cut through to convince someone, versus actually the hard work of doing the research and constructing a much more logically stable arguments that may not be as compelling. So I guess, to summarize the question, how do we make the more reasonable arguments more immediately compelling and convincing, do we?

Dr Bo Bennett: 9:45

make the more reasonable arguments more immediately compelling and convincing? Sure, and this question was answered by Aristotle over 2000 years ago, and he talked about the three different things in order to make a good, convincing argument. One is to have logic on your side and have reason, and I'm paraphrasing here because the language was different, but updating it for today's understanding of what we're talking about. The other one is to use emotion, and as a social psychologist, I can verify this. It is really important, if you're making a strong argument, to make this argument at an emotional level as well. And I can get back into that, because people are going to say well, isn't that the appeal to emotion fallacy? Not quite, and it doesn't have to be. And then the other one is character, basically Like, who is making the argument? Are you trustworthy? Can you build yourself up in a way where people will believe you actually? So it's the character, it's the emotion and the logic. You put the three of those together and you have the formula for what is and can be an extremely strong argument. And this is assuming rationality and the average person. There's a whole nother aspect of it where we could get into cult psychology and how people are manipulated and they're not manipulated by these things, but the appearance of these things, but that's, you know, a whole different podcast. But when we're talking about emotion, I want to get back to that. People will often say, well, you're just appealing to emotion. That's a logical fallacy. It is when you use emotion in place of logic, not when you use it in addition to logic. A good example, I think, is the commercials that you see on TV that get me every single time when I start crying when I see it so I shut it off is the with the pets, the abused pets, the homeless pets. I mean, they make a compelling argument like it is true, and they'll give you a statistic about how many pets are abused and don't have homes and is growing or whatever, and these are actual facts and that's what you want to know. And then they show you pictures of these adorable dogs and cats and it's just so sad. So it gets you on the emotional level as well. So you have the logic, you have the statistics, you have the data, and then they hit you with that emotional appeal, and not the fallacious emotional appeal, the good emotional appeal, one that's consistent with the logic. And then, of course, if it's an organization, like a respectable organization that you've heard of for decades. They've got the character as well. You trust the message where it's coming from the messenger in a sense. So that's like a really good combination.

Dr Bo Bennett: 12:29

It becomes fallacious when you just throw out there, like you show a picture of a dolphin fetus and it looks like a baby human. You've seen that done before, when somebody kind of tricked a pro-life person and showed a picture of a dolphin fetus and said this is a human being, this is something you want to kill. Like, yeah, that's a human being, how could you possibly? And then no, that's not even a human being, that's a dolphin. But the point is they will show you something and there's no argument behind it. There's no argument like a pro-life argument. It's just boom, here's a picture of a fetus. You know, and this is our argument right here, that's the appeal to emotion. When there's no data, there's no argument, there's no logic. You're just trying to get somebody on an emotional level without connecting something that's logical or reasonable or rational along with it.

James Hodgson: 13:23

Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense and it sounds like as well. The order that you presented that was the logic, the emotion and the character. But I imagine the order you want to address those is probably reversed Character, emotion and then go in with the logic. Because I think if you dive straight in with the logic, I think we've all had that experience where- you might lose somebody. Yeah, telling people facts and giving them your reasoning isn't going to appeal to them. So, in terms of the order.

Dr Bo Bennett: 13:49

You are correct about the character.

Dr Bo Bennett: 13:52

For example, like when you introduced me in the podcast, you read my accomplishments. So now hopefully, people will listen to me and they'll say, oh okay, this guy should know what he's talking about, based on what he's done in the past. So you're setting it up there and that's important In terms of what comes first the logic or the emotion? I don't know if I've seen any data on that or studies, but it's probably a good idea to mix it up. You know, get a little bit in there. If you start just by like rambling off like 20 minutes of facts and data, you're going to lose people really quick. A lot of the good speeches that I've heard in the past.

Dr Bo Bennett: 14:26

I'm part of Toastmasters organization. It's kind of a global public speaking and the contest winners they usually do start off with a really good story. So the speaker will come on stage and then they'll say when I was four, and then they go on and tell the story and they capture everybody and everybody's like drawn right in. And then they go on and tell the story and they capture everybody and everybody's like drawn right in, and then they go and start talking about their speech and why it's important for you know whatever to love your parents or whatever, so they kind of attach their message to the end, but they usually finish up with a like an emotional story as well. It's yeah, you don't want to just come onto the gate with logic and reason too much, too hard, too strong, because you will lose people quickly.

James Hodgson: 15:13

Yeah, I think it's that important point of trying to remember that people remember how you make them feel, and so I guess what we're talking about initially is rapport, and I've heard a lot in the more recent research really focus on rapport before you start trying to convince anyone or question their beliefs, and so do you have any tricks which you use or any particular methods or terms of phrase that you find are good for approaching some of these conversations where you might want to address someone's potentially faulty reasoning?

Dr Bo Bennett: 15:40

I guess some general advice try not to do it in a combative way. If you do that, you're automatically putting people on guard and then the backfire effect kicks in, which means they're going to be even more adamant about their position and they're going to defend it even more, despite overwhelming evidence you may throw in their direction. Try to be receptive to what they're saying and just ask them. Try to make it like a conversation and ask a lot of questions. Use what's called Socratic reasoning or the Socratic method when you just ask questions and listen to their answers and be receptive to what they're saying. Once you understand their position and, like you, truly understand it, or at least you feel you know where they're coming from, then you could much better convince them that they're wrong.

Dr Bo Bennett: 16:33

The way to do that usually is not again just to come out of the gate and tell them that they're wrong. Throw an argument at them, but listen to what they have to say and what their objections are or their reasoning is, and then try to address that specifically, and if you could do it in question form, you're going to be even in a better position. So like oh, so you believe that God is the ultimate good and he's perfectly good. Okay, doesn't it say in the Bible that God creates evil? He created evil. And then it starts to ask the question, not in a competitive, sarcastic way, but, like you know, if I recall, in the Bible it does say that God created evil. So what do you make of that? And then get them to think like, oh, I guess he created evil too, and then he could kind of walk down that path. But it's good to ask questions.

James Hodgson: 17:29

Yeah, and it sounds like you're also using their own resources or where they would derive authority from.

Dr Bo Bennett: 17:36

Definitely in terms of Christianity. If you know how they say, like most atheists know the Bible a lot better than Christians, so use that to your advantage?

James Hodgson: 17:43

Yes, I definitely think meeting people where they're at and using to construct an argument from within their own terms makes a lot more sense than just as you say, coming at it from a combative perspective. And how do you personally try to cultivate better critical thinking in your own daily life? Are there any habits or suggestions that you can give for us?

Dr Bo Bennett: 18:04

Yes, definitely being receptive to the conversation that you're having. So, for example, if, going back to this conversation that we're having with the Socratic method, you listen to people, you listen to their arguments and try not to have your argument locked in ready to go because you're not open, then to what they have to say. What if they are right? What if you're wrong? What if you're starting this process saying, oh, I'm going to get them, I'm going to do these rhetorical tricks, I'm going to ask these questions and then I'm going to respond by asking more questions and they're ultimately going to see my side and that's right. It's not a game. Don't think of it as you want to win this argument.

Dr Bo Bennett: 18:48

Whatever the argument may be, think of it as more of a discussion. Think of it as a learning process. Approach it as a scientist, not as a lawyer. You're not arguing your position. You're trying to refine your position and maybe something that they say will help you refine it a little bit more, so it's maybe a little bit more like theirs. So when we're talking about something like the existence of God or something it could be binary, in a way like, look, god either exists or he doesn't exist, but very often that's not what we're really talking about. We're talking about like religion in general if we're talking about religion also like politics or social issues or whatever it may be. But there's a lot of nuance to what's going on. So maybe, for example, somebody can convince you and you might be open to the idea that, okay, maybe there is some kind of higher power. They made a really compelling argument for that. I don't believe the Christian Bible, I don't believe in that part about it, but I am open to maybe a deistic position, and that may come as a result of you having these conversations.

Dr Bo Bennett: 20:00

Same thing with, like a political conversation that you may be having. Don't go into the conversation like firm on your position, your political stance. Listen to what they have to say and you may find, okay, I was way over here to the left. And now, after having this really good conversation and listening to what they have to say, of course I'm going to fact check everything they have to say. But they brought me a little bit more to the center and that's a good thing If that means that center is where the truth actually lies, that's where the most factual information actually lies, because you may not have the most factual information all the time, but that's where you most factual information actually lies, because you may not have the most factual information all the time, but that's where you want to be. So you need to care more about believing what is true than being right and being proved right, and that's kind of the foundation of becoming a critical thinker.

James Hodgson: 20:53

You say it all of the time as well, with political debates or any debate that's on tv now, and I think, especially when you do see the religious debates, when they happen, um, not dialogue, which is a slightly different area, but where it is that debate that people go in, as you say this very binary view, and also unload all their assumptions of the other side immediately and don't actually listen. I think it's such an important practice to really understand what the nuances of someone's opinion and where their position and their levels of certainty. They may not be 100 certain on something. It's sometimes a good practice to put a figure on that.

James Hodgson: 21:28

You know, are you at 100 or are you at 90, that you believe in this position before you go into trying to deconstruct it, because you're right, I mean, you have to um, use the right tools in your tool belts or find the right arguments, depending where they're actually at, rather than what happens a lot of the time is that people are rehashing previous debates that they've had because they assume that their opinion will be the same. So I think that's really interesting and I love as well. It sounds like you've been very much involved in the atheist debates for a long time, but'm wondering. You know, as humanists, we often pride ourselves as being rational, but do you think we sometimes also fall short when it comes to practicing true critical thinking, and are there any particular fallacies that you think you know? Atheists or humanists are potentially more prone to sometimes falling back on.

Dr Bo Bennett: 22:18

Well, I think atheists or humanists, we may think that because we made the right decision about one topic and we really researched one topic and most of us have come out of religion, although there's a small percentage of people who were never religious, out of religion, although there's a small percentage of people who were never religious. But those of us who especially those of us who came out of religion, there was a long journey, usually of critical thinking, in this process, where we found out what was wrong and we made it right and now we're thinking more clearly and thinking better and we have this assumption that, because we did it under the realm of religion, that in every other subject we're right as well. So we think that we did all the work essentially with the topic of religion and we think that all that same work applies to politics and social issues and the fact that it doesn't. And that's a huge mistake and I see this all the time in the humanist community, especially when, all of a sudden, everybody's expert on political issues and social issues and from a scientific perspective, they're very often very wrong and it bothers me and I think that's what everybody needs to understand that if you did all the work in religion, you need to do all the work in social issues and all the work in politics as well. It doesn't carry over. So you're no more clever, smarter, wiser than your religious counterpart on politics or social issues, so don't assume that you are.

Dr Bo Bennett: 23:57

I want to address one other thing, too that we the last question, when we're talking about, like a debating going back and forth that there is a performative issue. There's a performative aspect to this and that gets in the way of critical thinking and that gets in the way of truth. When you see debates on the internet like call-in shows with atheists versus Christian or political shows or whatever, like you turn on Fox News Channel and they bring in a liberal or MSNBC and they bring in a conservative, it doesn't matter, there's a major performative issue here. Like the hosts aren't going to say oh really, I didn't understand that. Okay, I understand your position better now. You're right about that. You're not going to hear that. It's all about gotcha. You know the ratings and the zappy lines that they're going to tweet and they're going to cut and paste and make a five second video and they're going to play it everywhere the viral views.

Dr Bo Bennett: 24:52

That's what it's all about and that annoys me a lot too, because it's people who are into critical thinking and want to know the truth. A lot of times they just want to feel good, they want to get that rush of adrenaline when they own the other side by saying something clever that they think is clever. But that's not the right path to critical thinking. So if you want to be a performer, go ahead and be a performer, but don't think that you're some master at critical thinking.

Dr Bo Bennett: 25:17

The true critical thinkers, the ones who think the best. Most of the time you probably don't even know where they stand on all these issues, because the fact is they're probably moderates in every aspect of life, because that's kind of where the truth tends to be. It tends to be more in the middle. Not everything, of course, like there are issues like slavery, but I don't want to get into that. But for the most part, whenever you hear extreme positions, the truth tends to kind of be somewhere in the middle and most people who are performers, they're not interested in the middle, because that's not where the hits come, that's not where all the clicks come from. They wouldn't want to bring up edges.

James Hodgson: 26:02

Do you think there's a place for that more performative side of debate and, as you say, these short form videos that's just getting across? This is the very headline bullet point description of one side, and here's the bullet point description of the other side, at least to get people engaged with issues, or do you think it really is unhelpful?

Dr Bo Bennett: 26:18

Well, I think you're going to get them engaged, but at what cost? Usually, when you do the bullet points, it's not a nuanced representation of their position. Even in this conversation we're having, I'm sure you could pick out like a couple lines that make me sound like an extremist in some sense. But if you want to do that to get clicks and to get people to watch, you know that's, that's kind of like a marketing strategy. But we need to acknowledge that, whatever I said, those like the couple of things that were extreme weren't representative of our whole conversation.

Dr Bo Bennett: 26:52

And you see that a lot on the internet and like a YouTube videos, like the headline, will be something crazy and you're like, oh, you know, and what this person say. And then you you press play and it's like, well, they didn't say that. I mean, they technically said those words, but that's not what they meant or that's not what the overall message was and that's just like marketing clickbait, you know, and, and whatever your view is on that, it's more of a marketing thing or an ethical thing even. But I think like the important part of critical thinking for that is to understand that when you see the headlines, when you see these 10 second clips or something that you have to understand. That's almost certainly not representative of the actual position that the person holds and I.

James Hodgson: 27:41

You are being exploited as the consumer as well. If they are misquoting someone or just trying to get a reaction out of you, I think, view it as being exploited and then hopefully start to look. They're very effective. Though that's the challenge, I do want to return to one point before you wrap up. Obviously, you mentioned about and I think it's very wise as well to really have that acceptance that you know just because you've done a lot of research in one area doesn't mean that you necessarily have better reasoning or have done the research or are more knowledgeable in every area. There are some things you say where the debate has been won already. You gave the example of slavery.

James Hodgson: 28:15

We don't need to rehash these debates, but that does raise the question for something. Yeah, let's give the example of climate change, or man-made climate change is man-made, where the overwhelming consensus research evidence is that man-made climate change is real and something that needs to be addressed. But what that tends to mean then is, if you want to hold the counter opinion, the average climate change skeptic actually comes with a lot more research. They'll be able to draw more evidence, because they would have had to do the work in order to hold a conversation in this area and for the average person who believes in climate change probably hasn't done that. So actually you come a little bit outgunned to these debates. How would you suggest approaching that, where someone could be maybe a conspiracy theorist, or again someone who's denying something that seems to be pretty well proven? They're coming with lots of supposed facts and studies and papers or again evidence that they can draw on and you don't have those resources. How would you approach that or try to encourage critical thinking in that scenario?

Dr Bo Bennett: 29:17

Well, I would basically talk to them about the scientific process and see if they agree with the scientific process and explain to them how meta-analyses work, how the abundance of data in a certain topic, how that is so much more important than like one or two simple reports. Explain to them, like when people do research, that there are many flaws with individual studies that are usually taken into consideration when you look at the whole body of research. So kind of talk them through the scientific process and see if that's just who they are Like. Why are you believing this 3% instead of the 97? Like, help me understand why you believe this 3% and not the 97%. And then they may go on with something like ah, the 97%, they're all getting paid and they're all being bought by whomever I don't know a granola company, I don't know. And then you get asked this question well, why isn't your 3% being bought? It says right there, sponsored by mobile oil, on one of your 3% and almost certainly it's just because of the argument.

Dr Bo Bennett: 30:35

But you're talking about the scientific process in general and I think that a lot of people have a difficulty with that because they don't trust science. They don't trust scientists to address scientific issues, which raises the question if you don't trust scientists on scientific issues, who do you trust? Who is in a better position to address these concerns and answer these questions than specialists in that scientific field? And they don't quite get that. They're saying well, I believe this politician. Well, I believe this politician. Why in the world would you believe this politician on a scientific issue that they know absolutely nothing about besides the YouTube videos that they watched?

Dr Bo Bennett: 31:33

So try to get them to understand the importance of sources and let them see how they're basically not being reasonable by choosing, picking and selecting a very small percentage of sources as opposed to the full body, and they're not applying the same standards, the critical standards that they apply to the 97%, to their 3%. If you do that, you might not convince them, but at least you're heading in the right direction. And what's best about this is you don't have to know about every single subject. Like you mentioned, they're going to have tons of research at their disposal because they need that in order to make this argument. That goes against the popular understanding of the world, and so the same thing applies not just to climate change, but to flat earthers. They're always going to come up with some kind of incredibly scientific, detailed argument that you probably won't even understand. But you don't have to understand it. You just have to explain to them of basically how science works, and if they accept it, then you've done your job.

James Hodgson: 32:42

And I imagine it's very rare to come away from these conversations having changed someone's mind 180 that they've completely accepted your point of view. What's your advice for how you should aim to respectfully step away from these conversations once you've engaged? What's a good point at which you might say, okay, let's kind of leave it there and let them maybe do some of the self-reflection after that point?

Dr Bo Bennett: 33:03

Yeah, I think you need to be good at reading people and see if you could see the metaphorical gears turning, you know, and if they seem to really be thinking about it and if you seem to have reached them at some level, then it's probably. I mean, that's fantastic. I think that's the best you could hope for. Like you said, you can't expect them to come around and say, oh okay, I get it now.

Dr Bo Bennett: 33:27

I believe in climate change now, or I don't believe in God anymore, or whatever. That's not going to happen. It just doesn't. But if you put some good seeds of thought in their mind, that's a really good start. And also it depends on your ability, or one's ability, to tolerate these kind of conversations.

Dr Bo Bennett: 33:44

My ability to tolerate conversations on certain topics has gone away. Like I cannot have flat earth conversations with anybody, I just can't anymore. There's some topics that are just so foolish that I have no patience. I don't want to engage, I don't want to get started with it, you know, just forget about it. But there are other ones that are much more important. But most of the time, what I like to do personally is talk to people about critical thinking and the thought process, and I like to keep this typically so they could. If they learn how to think correctly and if they understand the importance of critical thinking, they will start to apply that to all areas of their life religious, political and social and that's like the best that you could hope for Not telling people what to think about certain issues, but telling them how to think.

James Hodgson: 34:40

And if our listeners would like to find out more about your work in this area. What's the best place to discover more about your work?

Dr Bo Bennett: 34:49

Go to bobennettcom and that's where you can find all my books. The vast majority of them are non-critical thinking or some aspect of critical thinking. Wonderful.

James Hodgson: 34:59

And just before we go Bo, our standard closing question, which is very apt for you and your line of work what's something which you've changed your mind on recently and what inspired that change?

Dr Bo Bennett: 35:08

I think the best way to answer this. I was thinking about a couple of different things and I could have talked about, like when I changed my mind about religion a while ago, but I think something more interesting is pretty much every day, and I'll tell you what I mean by that. Ever since I've been using chat GPT to fact check things. When I see a post that I agree with because often people don't see posts that they disagree with because most of their feeds have information that they want to see and then they agree with, so it's usually something that aligns with their political, social or religious ideologies. I get these very often. I won't mention any outlets, but just like memes, political memes that come in and when I read them I'm kind of outraged. I'm like, oh my goodness, how could this happen? This is horrible, our country's falling apart. But then I will save the image, I'll upload it to ChatGPT and I usually use the 03 version, which kind of takes like two minutes for deep research, and I just type fact check. So ChatGPT will have a nice page summary of all of the claims made and what's actually the case, and I would say 95% of the time the truth is nowhere near what the meme claims. The meme just tries to enrage you and it's a sort of the truth like, not so it, it's a lie. But it's basically very deceptive in that it leaves out key facts that when you put those facts back in, it's like, oh, this isn't a big deal. I mean, maybe it's disturbing, but it's nowhere near as disturbing the meme initially claimed to be so.

Dr Bo Bennett: 37:03

Essentially, I form an opinion, like everybody does. When they read that, you're like, ah, this is crazy. And then you find out what's actually true and you're like, ooh, okay, and what's great about ChachiBT or virtually any AI is, not only will it tell you this is the way it is or this is the fact, but it will show you all the sources and you could see like the sources are AP news and like very respectable sources. They're could see like the sources are AP news and like very respectable sources. They're not like some crazy right wing or left wing sources. So if you wanted, you could verify everything and it does a really good job and it does it like pretty much either instantly, if you're using one version, or within a couple of minutes. But the point is it's fantastic for fact checking and it's also good to bring the political temperature down, and a lot of us humanists tend to have high political temperature due to a lot of the information that we see very true, and it's nice to hear of a practical and potentially humanistic use of ai.

James Hodgson: 38:02

so thank you very much for sharing and thank you, dr Dr Bo Bennett, for joining us on Humanism Now. Okay, thanks, james.