Episode 182: Melanie Trecek-King – Charlatans Exposed: On the Art of Deception
From STM: On episode 182 of the Seize the Moment Podcast, we welcome Melanie Trecek-King to discuss the power of critical thinking, how she transformed her science-based curriculum into one more focused on teaching thinking tools, beliefs in witchcraft and how experiential beliefs tend to mislead us, leaving religion, the importance of learning how to argue for and understand your opponents’ perspectives, the theory of mental immunity, why anyone of us can be duped by charlatans, our minds’ preference for simplistic and and logical stories and our failure to account for what we don’t know, how to effectively challenge conspiracy theories, and the various ways we tend to fool ourselves.
Melanie Trecek-King is the creator of Thinking is Power and an Associate Professor of Biology at Massasoit Community College, where she teaches a general-education science course designed to equip students with empowering critical thinking, information literacy, and science literacy skills. Melanie is also the Education Director for the Mental Immunity Project and CIRCE (Cognitive Immunology Research Collaborative), which aim to advance and apply the science of mental immunity to inoculate minds against misinformation.
Watch
Listen
Links from the show
Teach Skills, Not Facts
Mental Immunity Project
Stay Afloat in a Sea of Misinformation (FLOATER Toolkit)
How to Inoculate Yourself Against Misinformation
How to Sell Pseudoscience
Please Don’t Fail Me and Cranky Uncle