Pittsburgh Freethought Community
Promoting Science, Reason and Secular Humanist Values
in the Greater Pittsburgh area.

Back

Andy Norman: What to Do About Mass Irrationality? Applications of the Emerging Science of Mental Immunity

When
Wednesday, May 12, 2021
7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Location
Virtual

Registration is closed

Why are ideologies poisoning public discourse? Why is extremism on the rise? How did we get here, and what can we do about it?

It turns out some influential assumptions are suppressing our culture’s “immune response” to dangerous ideas. These assumptions prevent us from normalizing critical thinking, and leave us vulnerable to epidemics of unreason.

In this talk, Andy will discuss practical ways to inoculate minds against infectious ideas.

Andy Norman directs the Humanism Initiative at Carnegie Mellon University and studies how ideologies short-circuit minds. Then he develops tools that help people reason together in more fruitful ways. In his book Mental Immunity, he lays out the conceptual foundations of cognitive immunology—the emerging science of mental immune health. He’s currently testing a “mind vaccine”—a way to inoculate minds against infectious ideas.

Closed captioning will be available for this event through Google Meet. To enable captions in Google Meet, click on the three dots menu in the lower right corner and choose “Turn on captions” next to the CC symbol.

Our Board | Donate | Site Map | Join PFC