Critical Thinking for the Masses

Brian Dunning, of the weekly podcast Skeptoid, does a lot of good work exposing pseudoscience in our popular culture. Most of the time, he focuses on a single topic and applies critical thinking and scientifically confirmed evidence to claims made for things like bigfoot, homeopathy, conspiracy theories, intelligent design, anti-vaxxers, etc. If you have the time, I highly recommend visiting his site and listening to a few episodes, especially on topics that interest or concern you. It’s quite eye-opening!

However, I just discovered that back in 2011, he made a short educational film ‘Here Be Dragons’, which focuses on learning critical thinking and how to apply it generally to *any* claims you may hear. Today, I found that film by chance and watched it. It may not win any awards for production quality, but it’s chock full of well defined, easy to understand tips on how to keep yourself from falling for scams and hoaxes. This should be required viewing in every science class in America!