Steven Newton – Bay Area Skeptics

Steven Newton
12 February 2025

Superbowl number … I’m going to say, XYXX? No. NXIVM? No, that’s something different. Does anyone still know Roman numerals? Let’s just call it Superb Owl 2025. In any event, it’s a big deal, with about 120 million people watching. Depending on your Roman numeral mathematical skills, that may or may not compare to the 1.5 billion people who watched the World Cup Final in 2022.

Carl Sagan posited that sports could be a great way to connect scientific ideas to everyone. Critical sports analysis could also help foster skeptical thinking by demolishing myths, such as the idea that a baseball player who hasn’t scored a hit in a long time is “due” a run.

So when Superb Owl 2025 commences wit

Skeptics in the Pub / Cantina

WHAT: Real & Virtual Skeptics in the Pub

This is a casual night of socializing with fellow skeptics in the lower level of Masa Tamales & Taqueria in Pt. Richmond and with others inhabiting our oblate spherical planet.

Please join us! This is a free event brought to you by Bay Area Skeptics. All are welcome.

WHEN: Wednesday February 26, 7-9pm Pacific (GMT-8)

HOW: In person and online HERE. Passcode: 1023

SkepTalk

Gordon Pennycook, Ph.D.

Deliberation corrects: The case of conspiracy theories

Motivated reasoning – confirmation bias, disconfirmation bias, and related concepts – can get in the way of making well-reasoned decisions. And people certainly are capable of poor reasoning, especially when it comes to conspiracy theories. Psychologists debate whether mistaken ideas are the result of “information deficit”, and even whether it’s counterproductive to provide corrective information. Does providing corrective information push people to dig in rather than change their views? Our research suggests that we needn’t be pessimistic: that providing accurate information can modify views, and that relatively brief evidence-based dialogues with artificial intelligence can change conspiracy theorists’ minds.

PRESENTER: Gordon Pennycook is a Himan Brown Faculty Fellow and Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Cornell University. After obtaining his PhD in Cognitive Psychology at the University of Waterloo in 2016, he held a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship at Yale University. His expertise is human reasoning and decision-making and he has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles, including in journals such as Nature, Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Nature Human Behavior, Trends in Cognitive Science, and Psychological Science. He has received several awards, such as the Governor General’s Gold Medal, Poynter Institute’s International Fact-Checking Network “Researcher of the Year”, Vincent Di Lollo Early Career Achievement Award from the Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour, and Cognitive Science, the Psychonomic Society’s Early Career Award, and the Association for Psychological Sciences “Rising Star” award. He was elected to the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists in 2020.

WHEN: Thursday 13 March 6:30 PM PT (GMT-8)

HOW: Click HERE