Philosopher’s Guide to Better Thinking: A Conversation with Dr. Michael Huemer | EP 79

Summary

The Read Well Podcast: Episode 79 Summary Philosopher’s Guide to Better Thinking: A Conversation with Dr. Michael Huemer

Introduction

In Episode 79 of The Read Well Podcast, host Eddie Hood engages in an illuminating conversation with Dr. Michael Huemer, a renowned philosopher, author, and professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. The episode delves into the intricacies of critical thinking, rationality, and the challenges of navigating through contemporary ideological landscapes. Released on December 9, 2024, this episode serves as a master class in enhancing one's thinking processes and discerning truth from bias.

The Importance of Critical Thinking

Eddie Hood sets the stage by emphasizing the significance of critical thinking within his community, which is dedicated to fostering strong reading habits and effective research strategies. He shares his personal journey of leaving the Mormon Church and pursuing philosophy, highlighting how Dr. Huemer’s work has been instrumental in his intellectual growth.

“How do you know that you're thinking correctly? How do you know that you're thinking without bias?” – [00:30] Eddie Hood

Dr. Huemer responds by outlining his mission to promote rationality, both in his teaching and writing. He underscores the importance of evaluating premises and researching the validity of ideas to foster unbiased, rational thought.

Defining Rationality and Epistemology

Eddie Hood introduces the concept of rationality, prompting Dr. Huemer to distinguish between instrumental and epistemic rationality.

“Instrumental rationality is basically you're choosing the correct means of pursuing your goals... Epistemic rationality... thinking in a truth-oriented manner.” – [05:28] Dr. Michael Huemer

He further elaborates on epistemology, citing his book Understanding Knowledge:

“Epistemology... studies the nature of knowledge, whether and how we know what we think we know, whether and how our beliefs are justified.” – [06:05] Eddie Hood

Progressive Myths: Unpacking the Definition

The conversation transitions to Dr. Huemer’s latest book, Progressive Myths. Eddie Hood breaks down the definition provided in the book:

“A progressive myth is first an empirical, factual claim; second, is believed by many progressives; third, seems to obviously strongly support an element of progressive ideology; and yet fourth, is demonstrably false or highly misleading.” – [24:34] Eddie Hood

Dr. Huemer clarifies that these myths involve objective empirical facts rather than subjective opinions or value judgments. He emphasizes the importance of addressing factual inaccuracies to foster a more truthful discourse.

Case Study: The Trayvon Martin Case

A significant portion of the episode examines the Trayvon Martin case as explored in Progressive Myths. Dr. Huemer critiques media portrayals and highlights discrepancies in evidence presentation.

“The main lesson is, you can't really trust media and activist reports.” – [64:02] Dr. Michael Huemer

He discusses how media edits can distort the narrative, using NBC’s selective editing of Zimmerman’s police call as an example:

“It was a bit of a deceptive edit, wouldn't you say?” – [50:03] Dr. Huemer

Eddie Hood and Dr. Huemer dissect various pieces of evidence, including witness testimonies and forensic data, to illustrate how initial perceptions can be misleading.

Media Bias and the Need for Skepticism

The hosts delve into the pervasive issue of media bias, stressing the necessity for skepticism among consumers of information. Dr. Huemer advocates for questioning the reliability of sources, especially when information aligns too neatly with ideological preferences.

“You should be learning skepticism.” – [57:46] Dr. Michael Huemer

Eddie Hood echoes this sentiment, encouraging listeners to verify information beyond superficial media reports to uncover the underlying truths.

Personal Application: Steps for Better Thinking

Eddie Hood transitions to practical advice, seeking Dr. Huemer’s guidance on applying critical thinking in everyday life. Dr. Huemer outlines a methodical approach:

1. Identify the Subject: Understand what you are trying to learn or debunk.
2. Gather Information: Collect data from a variety of reputable sources.
3. Evaluate Evidence: Assess the validity and reliability of the information.
4. Formulate Conclusions: Draw reasoned conclusions based on the evidence.

“If you're just trying to confirm your existing beliefs, then keep doing that. But I don't think that... we human beings should live in the truth.” – [37:39] Dr. Michael Huemer

Guarding Against Cognitive Bias

Addressing confirmation bias, Dr. Huemer advises actively seeking opposing viewpoints to counteract inherent prejudices:

“If you can clearly identify whether this is a left wing or a right wing idea, and only people on one side would be promoting this fact, then you should immediately wonder if it is.” – [65:43] Dr. Michael Huemer

Eddie Hood recommends exercises such as writing down one’s beliefs and supporting evidence to differentiate between feelings and factual knowledge.

The Role of Writing in Critical Thinking

Dr. Huemer highlights the value of writing as a tool for clarifying thoughts and uncovering misunderstandings:

“Writing can help you figure out what you think and also kind of, it can make you realize when you don't know or you don't understand something.” – [73:20] Dr. Michael Huemer

Eddie Hood echoes this by suggesting that writing fosters a disciplined approach to evaluating beliefs and evidence, moving beyond emotional attachments.

Final Thoughts and Recommendations

As the episode concludes, Dr. Huemer offers additional tips for identifying reliable sources:

• Seek Honest Communication: Reliable individuals may sometimes present information that is uncomfortable or unfavorable.
• Use Qualifiers: Trust sources that acknowledge uncertainties and avoid absolute statements.
• Address Objections: Respectable sources consider and address counterarguments.

Eddie Hood encourages listeners to engage with Dr. Huemer’s works, including Progressive Myths, Understanding Knowledge, and Knowledge, Reality, and Value, to deepen their understanding of critical thinking.

“If you decide to pick up progressiveness and read it, read the chapters where he presents the research... consider those resources and then make a decision.” – [29:42] Eddie Hood

Conclusion

Episode 79 offers a comprehensive exploration of critical thinking through the expertise of Dr. Michael Huemer. By dissecting media narratives, addressing cognitive biases, and advocating for evidence-based reasoning, Eddie Hood provides listeners with valuable tools to enhance their intellectual rigor. Whether grappling with personal belief systems or navigating complex societal debates, this episode serves as an essential guide for anyone seeking to think more clearly and objectively.

Notable Quotes

1. “How do you know that you're thinking correctly? How do you know that you're thinking without bias?” – [00:30] Eddie Hood
2. “Instrumental rationality is basically you're choosing the correct means of pursuing your goals... Epistemic rationality... thinking in a truth-oriented manner.” – [05:28] Dr. Michael Huemer
3. “A progressive myth is first an empirical, factual claim; second, is believed by many progressives; third, seems to obviously strongly support an element of progressive ideology; and yet fourth, is demonstrably false or highly misleading.” – [24:34] Eddie Hood
4. “You should be learning skepticism.” – [57:46] Dr. Michael Huemer
5. “Writing can help you figure out what you think and also kind of, it can make you realize when you don't know or you don't understand something.” – [73:20] Dr. Michael Huemer

Resources Mentioned

• Progressive Myths by Dr. Michael Huemer
• Understanding Knowledge by Dr. Michael Huemer
• Knowledge, Reality, and Value by Dr. Michael Huemer
• Dr. Huemer’s Substack: Fake News

Listeners are encouraged to explore these resources for a deeper dive into critical thinking and rational analysis.

Connect with The Read Well Podcast

For more insights on building a strong reading habit and mastering intellectual ideas, visit thereadwellpodcast.com. Subscribe to stay updated with daily posts, book notes, and tools to enhance your reading and thinking skills.

Transcript

[Eddie Hood]

Welcome to this week's episode of the Read well podcast. My name is Eddie Hood and I'm your host where I believe it's more important to read well than to be well read. So grab your favorite book, open up your notes and let's get ready to learn something fascinating. Hey friends, welcome back to the Read well podcast. This is Eddie Hood and I am very honored and excited today because this, this is going to be a master class in critical thinking. This is something that is really important to our community because we spend a lot of time reading books and thinking about important issues. But how do you know that you're thinking correctly? How do you know that you're thinking without bias? How do you know you're not tainting an idea with your own specific background, but you're coming at it in a rational way? So I'm honored to introduce Dr. Michael Humer to you. He is a modern day philosopher, he is an author and he is a professor at University of Colorado Boulder and is somebody I highly respect because of his approach to thinking. He digs into some really hot button topics but does it in a way that breaks them down and creates a clear statement of what the issue is, looks at the premise behind each idea and then does the research to see if it's accurate or not. So with that, Dr. Humer, welcome to the show. How are you doing today?

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Oh, I'm doing great and thanks for having me. It's great to be here.

[Eddie Hood]

Yeah, I'm so excited. I've, I've spent well, I would say the past year digging into your work. As many of the people who watch my show know, I left the, the Mormon Church about a year and a half ago. I'm trying to get a degree in philosophy in my spare time, I'm going to say, quote, unquote, spare time there and that journey have been introduced to your work and it has been really helpful to me. I love your writing style. First of all, it's a lot of fun to read your work. I'm just going to say that.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Yeah, my main thing is trying to be clear. You know, some people try to be eloquent. I just try to make sure you know what I'm saying.

[Eddie Hood]

Yeah, well good. So let's jump into your background really quickly. And I'm curious to know modern day, are there philosophers today or is this just something that happened back in the time of Socrates? Can you talk to us about that for just a second?

[Dr. Michael Humer]

There are still philosophers, you know, like if you, somebody asks you what you do and you're like, oh, I'm a professor. Oh, what are you? Professor of philosophy. And then, like, you know, the next question is usually something like, oh, what's the meaning of life? Or what is truth? Right. Or it'll be, oh, who do you study? Right. Like, you know, philosophy. Philosophy today is just like, studying other people, like, talking about what other people said in the distant past, because that's when they do philosophy. No, actually, I don't study people. Right. I study philosophy.

[Eddie Hood]

Yeah.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

So I'm studying the problems. Right. You know, like, yeah. Is there free will and whatever? And are. Are there real moral values and things like that?

[Eddie Hood]

This is a. So, yeah, I think the argument today is that philosophy might be not just as important, but maybe even more important today than it was in the past, because we're dealing with some pretty weighty stuff right now. And one of the things I want to talk about today is you've just put out a new book called Progressive Myths. There's a bunch of his books here. We're going to go through many of them today.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Great.

[Eddie Hood]

But this one here, Progressive Myths, is really looking at some of the big topics, big beliefs that are moving through our culture and how some of them are doing quite a bit of harm, actually. And so what's a philosopher's job today? What's your role in writing all of this?

[Dr. Michael Humer]

I don't know about other philosophers, but, like, I'm on a mission to promote rationality. That's, like, what I hope I'm doing with my career. You know, when I'm teaching and, like, whatever, I'm giving lectures to students or, like, I'm having discussions with them, I'm trying to model rationality, and I'm hoping that they will pick it up, talk about an idea, and then I'll talk about the arguments. And this is how we examine this. Like, is this premise true? What do you think? Like, what would other people. What would people who disagree say about this? You know, and then. And I tried to do this in my books, right? And, like, you know, one of the ways that I'm trying to promote rationality is by making people aware of irrationality, aware of ways in which people are likely to go wrong. Lights, what's.

[Eddie Hood]

Yeah, so that's interesting. I mean, I want to try to apply this to my own life, because I'm not a philosopher. I'm just fascinated by it. Who knows, maybe one day I will be. But right now I'm trying to get my feet wet and I'm trying to study people of the Past to figure out who thought what right, and people in contemporary thinking. But I went to lunch a few days ago with a friend and he heard my story that I had left the Mormon Church and I, I get asked the same question by everybody or that here's my story and they say, well, do you even believe in God anymore? Like what happened to you? And so that's a conversation where I'm looking at a friend and I would like to figure out how to approach that rationally. Like you just mentioned rationality versus getting emotional. Because I think conversations like that can go south very quickly. When we let our emotions take over and, and we start to defend our culture, our family, our way of thinking in the past, our pride gets hurt. So can you talk to us real quick about even just rationality? What does that word mean?

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Well, you know, there are different senses of rationality, so there's what they call instrumental rationality, which is basically you're choosing the correct means of pursuing your goals, whatever your goals are, you know, you're doing the thing that makes sense. If this is what you want and this is what you believe about how the world works, okay, but what we're probably interested in now is what they call epistemic rationality, which is, roughly speaking, thinking in a truth oriented manner. The habits of thought that would result in your having beliefs that are more likely to be true. So not contradicting yourself, accepting valid arguments, not committing fallacies and things like that.

[Eddie Hood]

That's what I want to get into today. And you specialize in epistemology, right? I mean that seems to be a major branch of thinking for you. So I love your definition of epistemology in your book Understanding Knowledge. I just want to read this to everybody really quick. This will also give everybody a sense of Dr. Humer's writing style, which I think is a lot of fun. So in this book you're talking about the definition and you say epistemology, AKA the theory of knowledge, studies the nature of knowledge, whether and how we know what we think, we know, whether or how our beliefs are justified and stuff like that. Right. So I love the end stuff like that. That makes me feel like I'm reading somebody who I can sit down, have some coffee with and just talk to each other about this kind of stuff versus somebody who's preaching at me, you know?

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Well, you got to put a clause like that in there, right? In order to capture. Right, because like, you know, the way the way fields evolve, it's just like somebody starts talking about something and then other People start talking about things and they start talking about that, but they start talking about related things. Okay, right. That reminds me of this. But then it's all part of the conversation. Right? So there's not going to be a simple neat definition that covers the whole thing. So that's why there's stuff like that in there.

[Eddie Hood]

Right, right. Okay, so, so, so the definition then really is, how do I know that I know what I know? Essentially that's the problem we're dealing with. Right. I'm walking around and I think I know a bunch of stuff. I've got some beliefs in my head. I've done some research on things. How do I know that all of that is actually true or that it's something I can rely on? Because again, I spent 25 plus years of my life walking around with a very specific sort of thesis statement as a member of the church, which for me was, if I wanted to go to heaven, I had to pay 10% of my income. I had to avoid coffee and tea, I had to go to the temple and do specific ceremonies and so on. And if I did those things, then I would be able to get into heaven. That was how I was functioning in my life. And it's interesting because as a member of, we call it the church here in Utah, because it's like almost everybody's a member of the Mormon Church. You're often taught when you go to lessons on Sunday to not look at the information from other sources, only read stuff from the church. Right. Because it is a major red flag. But at the time, as members of the church, you, you think to yourself, well, that makes perfect sense because the church knows itself best and I should go to the source for information. Right. And so you, it felt like you were seeking truth by doing that and by looking at other sources, you were looking at detractors or people who had vendetta against that ideology. And so you became very scared of those thinkers. And the church does a very good job of making you think, no, only listen to the leaders and read the handbooks that we print. It never once occurred to me that's a red flag. Never once. You know, and I think that's indicative of some of the issues we have today. We're walking around with these beliefs, we're making statements about those beliefs, and we don't realize that we've. We're doing this whether it's with politics or with the way we treat our body or how we view marriage versus whatever. So many issues out there.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Yeah, there's a Sort of like made up anecdote in the progressive Ms. Book where, you know, you imagine that a detective is looking into a crime, right? And you know, he goes up, goes to interview this suspect, Lefty, right? And hey, Lefty, where were you on the night of January 16th? Whatever. And lefty goes, how dare you question me? Okay. And then, whoa, whoa, you know, like I'm not accusing you of anything, I just want to know. Okay, well I was with my mother and you know, go ask her. And if she says I was with her, it would be immoral for you to not listen to her. Oh, okay, but if she says I wasn't there, then don't listen to her. She's a liar. And then, by the way, oh, and you know, Lefty, would you give us your fingerprints? Because like we found some fingerprints. Wow. How dare you. Fingerprints are unreliable. Never listen to fingerprints. Never look at that. What should the detective be thinking at this point? Right? Fucker's guilty. Like that's what you're thinking. He doesn't want me to look at the, doesn't want me to look at the evidence. Huh. Okay, I wonder why. Okay. And that's what you should always think if, if somebody doesn't want you to hear, like they don't want you to learn more information about the thing we're talking about.

[Eddie Hood]

Yeah. And this sort of story is leading into our little master class today. And I'm, I'm dwell on it because it's so personal to me and I'm frustrated because I was in that sort of tunnel thought, that tunnel vision. But as an example, when you go to church on Sundays, the lessons are very sanitized, they're very scrubbed in terms of the history of the church and what happened. When you look outside of that narrative, there are lots of things that happen that make you as a member kind of panic and go, what? How do I not know these things? And the church has done a very good job at glancing over or hiding many of the things that would scare its members. It's hiding the evidence. Right. And so that's what we want to get to today for everybody that's listening is where wherever you're at in life, to dig into the evidence rationally and then make a decision versus just blindly accepting what we're told, which is actually hard to do. Why is that hard for us to do, Dr. Humer? Why, why are we so happy to just blindly accept what people tell us, what media tells us, what our church leaders tell us and so on?

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Yeah, I mean, you know, it depends on what the subject matter is.

[Eddie Hood]

Right.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

But you know, when you're thinking about religion or political ideology, well, people need something to orient them in life. They need a conception of like what they're doing in life, you know, what's my role? And you know, why is this meaningful? And also like, they need a sense of community.

[Eddie Hood]

Right.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

And so you get this from religion, but you also get this from political ideology. So like I see something similar happening with a progressive ideology where, you know, people join it and it gives them a sense of community of like the like minded people working for a common cause, whatever. Right. And also it gives them a story about, like a story about the world and what their place in the world is. And then, well, if you start to question that, then you might lose that. So you have like psychological needs. Right. That are being satisfied.

[Eddie Hood]

That's actually interesting. When we chose to leave the church, I was not expecting this, but we very much experienced the, the phases of grief, or whatever it's called, where you go through denial and pain and all of those things. It felt like we had lost not only that narrative and that part of our life, but it felt like somebody had died in my life, like, like my mother had passed away or something because I had relied on this ideology for so long. And now that it was gone, I lost that community, which by the way, definitely lost the community. You know, once you step outside of the circle, you're not a part of that crowd anymore. And it's been interesting living in our neighborhood where everybody's a member of the church. Right. It's been actually quite hard. Luckily they're still good to our kids and they're very nice people, they're very kind people. But we can definitely feel that we are out of the circle now. Right. Which is weird. But yeah, experiencing that sense of grief has been hard. I think none of us want to feel that. And so we would rather go along with the flow versus being an outcast. It's kind of scary to be an outcast sometimes.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Yeah. You know, like I mentioned earlier, the different senses of rationality. Right. And it might be instrumentally rational, you know, to maintain beliefs that are epistemically irrational. Right. Meaning. Yeah. In other words, like, well, maybe you'll be happier and your desires will be better satisfied if you believe things that are not really supported by the evidence. Right. So that, that's the ultimate explanation. Right. So like in a, in a sense you're being rational by like, you know, not listening to the evidence because it might make you unhappy. And cause you to lose your friends and family.

[Eddie Hood]

So you're talking about incentives now?

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, you don't really have an, you know, like, especially with politics, you don't really have an incentive to try to find out what's objectively true because, you know, it could cause your friends to not like you if the truth happens to not be what your friends believe, you know, and it. And if it happens to not be what you want it to believe and you don't have any effect on policy. Like, neither of us is going to control the US Government, so neither of us is going to actually make the policy better or worse. So in a certain sense, it doesn't matter what we believe about it. Right. Like, it's extremely unlikely that we're going to affect the policy. So there's a tiny probability. Right.

[Eddie Hood]

Who knows, this video could go viral and billions of people will watch it. It's going to be great.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

So. Yeah, right. Yeah. You know, there's a small chance, but still very small. So.

[Eddie Hood]

Yeah, yeah. Well, so before we actually get into some examples, because I want to go through an example from beginning to end in progressive myths, and I also want to parallel that with my own life because I'm being selfish today, everybody. I want to figure out my own thinking. That's why I'm. That's why I'm here. But before we do that, we're all walking around with a sort of a baggage of beliefs or ideas or things we claim to be true. And in your book Understanding Knowledge, you. You talk about something called Moore's Paradox, which I just loved this idea that actually, could, could you explain to us what Moore's Paradox is and why that is so helpful? You talk about the concept of it's raining outside, but I don't believe it's raining.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Yeah, this was, you know, a cute puzzle from the, the British philosopher G. Moore from the early 20th century. Like he was wondering why you can't say something like, so, you know, imagine somebody says, oh, so what's the weather like outside? And you say, well, it's raining outside, but I don't believe that it is. Okay. And to be clear, you know, what you mean is you literally do not believe that the thing that you just said is true. Right. You're attempting to assert that. And then, and it sounds like something like a contradiction, but it's not a contradiction because it could be true. It could be raining outside, and you could fail to believe that it is. So why does it sound like a contradiction? Okay. And you know Whatever. So it's a minor puzzle, and you think of some things you know. But basically, G.E. moore's explanation was when you assert P, you're implying that you know P. And there's like, there's some kind of rule that you're not supposed to assert things that you don't know to be the case. Okay, so what you said, like, you said you didn't believe it, and that entails that you don't know it. And so what you said contradicts what you imply. Right. Okay. And then. And that's supposed. So, you know, I bring this up in the book because that's supposed to show the importance of the concept of knowledge. Every time you say anything, you're implicitly laying claim to knowledge, and that's why you can't say the thing and then deny that you know it.

[Eddie Hood]

Okay, so. So there it is. So. So the example of the sentence, if. If you were to ask me, what's the weather outside right now? And I said, well, it's raining, but I don't believe it's raining. So when you. When I read that in your book, at first my brain went, right. I had this moment of like. But that feel, it felt weird to read that sentence. And then you went on to explain why that felt weird. And hearing it probably feels weird as well. But when you say it's raining outside, what you're telling me, and what more is saying is that by making that statement, I'm laying claim that I know it's raining outside.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Yeah.

[Eddie Hood]

But then when I follow up with but I don't believe it's raining outside, that feels like a contradiction. But it's not. Because I could believe that even though I know it is.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Well. Well, you can't. Let's see. You can't know that it's raining and fail to believe that it's raining.

[Eddie Hood]

Right? Yeah. So there's like this smash of ideas.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Knowledge entails at least believing something. And you know, like, okay, you didn't say that you knew it was raining. You just said that it was raining.

[Eddie Hood]

It was raining.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Right. But by saying it, you're implying that you know it. And then that contradicts you're not believing. And by the way, notice that, you know, you also can't say, well, it's raining outside, but I don't know if it is. And you know, if you say it's raining outside, other people can say, how do you know it? How do you know that it is? And you can't go, what? I never said I knew.

[Eddie Hood]

Right. So this all matters because every time we make a statement like it's raining outside, we're essentially claiming knowledge of something. We're claiming that we know something. And so it could be anything from, you know, today is a holiday to political party. XYZ is right or wrong. Both of those statements would be me claiming to know something about those things. And that's challenging because knowledge to actually know something. Help me out with this. How do we know that we know something? You know, this is where evidence comes in and bias and all those things.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Well, I mean, if you know something, then you have to at least believe it. And then you've got to have like some kind of justification for believing it and it has to actually be the case. Right. And then. And you know, like epistemologists don't agree on all the conditions for knowledge. Right. But those three are pretty widely held. Okay, so when you ask somebody, how do you know such and such, usually what you have in mind is what's your justification? Right. Because it's not going to be puzzling how you believe it or like how it could be true. Usually it's not puzzling how it could be true, but the puzzle is like, yeah, what's your justification? So you got to give some, usually some kind of evidence or some kind of argument for believing the thing. And it's like, okay, like, you know, somebody says, well, Kamala Harris is the best candidate, we should all vote for her. You can say, well, how do you know that? And then I got to give you some arguments for that. Right?

[Eddie Hood]

Right.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

They've got to be pretty good arguments.

[Eddie Hood]

Right?

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Okay.

[Eddie Hood]

And so that brings us to the start of the steps. So I would like to challenge everybody. And if you're listening live, feel free to use the chat button down below and you can start amassing your questions. And I'll ask Dr. Humer those as we go. But this is the perfect time to step in and say, let's create sort of a step by step guide for thinking clearly for people who maybe aren't philosophers, who maybe don't have lots of time to read lots and lots of books, but they want to start thinking clearly for themselves. And what I would love to do is I guess what happens in my community. I get comments a lot from people who say, number one, not only am I having a hard time thinking clearly, but I'm having a hard time focusing. Like I can't even focus for five minutes because social media has trained me to like just scroll and click and notifications. So people now are having not only a hard time going for long walks and thinking, but they can't even bring their brains together. So I'm hoping that as we chat today, we can give people a framework of like, when you're facing an important belief system or ideology, for you, let's at least follow these basic steps and work through that. And so in Progressive Myths, you've. I mean, this is an interesting book we're going to start here because I feel like it takes a lot of courage to write a book like this. Personally, I think you've gone out and you've really addressed some issues that are very personal to people. But what I love about it is you're not trying to promote the myth, you're trying to objectively lay out facts and then show people the justification for that, I guess A really great passage in here that I want to read really fast. It says, I will not give a neutral presentation in the following chapters, but I do aim to give an objective presentation. I'm a philosopher, not a lawyer or a campaign manager. My task is not to replace left wing propaganda with right wing propaganda. My task is to replace propaganda with a fair and accurate account. So how. Let's just start with how was it writing this book? I mean, were you nervous writing this book? Were you. Did you find it difficult to address some of these issues?

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Well, it was fun because I like writing and yeah, these things are. They're kind of interesting to me and I don't get upset. So, like, sometimes it turns out that the truth isn't what you were expecting, but that's not upsetting to me. So, you know, I did. I do have some concern that people are going to be mad. But, you know, like, whatever, it's my job to tell the truth. I'm a philosopher. Right. You know, like, like I said, like, I'm not a lawyer. Right. I'm a philosopher. There's. There's this thing in ancient Greece, you know, there's this disagreement between Socrates and the sophists.

[Eddie Hood]

Right.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Which you might think of as the philosophers versus the sophists. And the sophists were people who were like paid to argue. Like lawyers. Yep. So, okay. Yeah. So, you know, the job of the philosopher is to tell the truth, not to convince people of a specific side. Right. So, you know, that's what I got to do. Luckily I have tenure, so, you know, officially they can't fire me for.

[Eddie Hood]

Yeah, for sure. Well, I think it's important that before we get into this, because in this book we're talking. I Mean, you're talking about myths, and I want to break down what you mean by the word myth. But, but you go over racial myths, feminist myths, gender myths, economic myths, science myths, and so on. These are some really big topics that wrap our culture around. But I think it's important that everybody understand this definition of myths before we get into this. On page two, Dr. Humer writes, a progressive myth is first an empirical, factual claim. And I want to break these terms down, but we'll read the whole thing, which two is believed by many progressives, three seems to obviously strongly support an element of progressive ideology, and yet four is demonstrably false or highly misleading. So I think that last part is really important that you're having a conversation. We're not attacking people. We're not saying racism, racism doesn't occur, and so on, but we're saying there are specific events that we might have gotten wrong as a culture and they're demonstrably. We're able to prove that. So let's just break this down. A progressive myth is an empirical factual claim. Let's start with that. What does an empirical factual claim mean?

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Yeah, empirical means it's based on observation. Yeah. Ultimately you have to make some kind of observations. And I put that in there because I didn't want the myths to be matters of opinion or like, you know, philosophical stances or value judgments or something like that. I say like, you know, equality is intrinsically valuable. Like, you know, you could agree or disagree with that. But like, I'm not going to say that's a myth. Right. It's a matter of opinion whether that's true. I don't mean that there's not a truth about it, but it's not an empirical fact. Like, you can't do an experiment to see that's true and, you know, factual claim. So, like, just that there's an objective fact about it. Okay, so there's. There's some disagreement about whether there are objective facts about what's morally right or wrong. Right. But like, was Trayvon Martin murdered because of racism? So that's a factual claim. You know, it's not a value judgment. There's an objective fact about that. Whatever. Your philosophical views about other things are right. Based on observation. Right. It's not right. Yeah. And it's not like, you know, it's not like some complicated, difficult theoretical thing. Right. And why, you know, why this? Because, like, if I was dealing with like, theoretical things or like, things, there's like general value judgments or whatever, then. Well, it's hard to persuade people. And then, like, you know, like, I could just go on for a while and then, like, people could just, like, resist everything that I say. And I wanted to say, no, look, there are specific factual claims that the progressives are getting wrong. And by the way, if they're getting, like, objective, empirical facts wrong, you shouldn't trust them about the more difficult things. You shouldn't trust them about, like, complicated theoretical matters if they can't get, like, you know, objective matters of fact.

[Eddie Hood]

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Okay, so then you say is believed by many progressives.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Yeah.

[Eddie Hood]

Now what does that statement mean to you?

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Yeah, I mean, and I put that because, well, some of these things, there were going to be things that. So they're going to be factual errors. But I anticipated somebody was going to say, oh, I don't believe that. No, nobody really believes that. So I have to give, like, quotations, and it's in each chapter there's, like, quotations of people saying this. In some cases, there's like, survey data. So, like after the Trayvon Martin case, for example, there was, like, surveys of how many people thought that George Zimmerman was guilty.

[Eddie Hood]

Right.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

And, like, it was a large number of people, especially black people.

[Eddie Hood]

Yeah.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Okay.

[Eddie Hood]

So, yeah, so this matters because in the book, you guys, what he does, what Dr. Zumer does, is he writes out almost a thesis statement of here's. He calls it a myth in each chapter. But here's the myth of the thesis statement, here's what everybody is believing. And he's providing lots of quotes from US Presidents to organizations to news outlets. And then he goes on to say, and here's the reality. And then he's got a bunch of research to back up what actually happened, right or wrong. And one of the nice things about this book, I think oftentimes we get a little leery of writing like this because there are so many people writing in their basement. You know, they're sitting in their underwear eating Cheetos and writing their opinions about everything. But in reality, this book has I don't know how many references in the back, but there are just pages and pages. Yeah. So this isn't Dr. Humer just saying, I believe this and you should, too. He's gone out and done quite a bit of research on every topic and everything is linked. And then as a reader, I think it's our job to objectively consider that, consider the resources, and then make a decision, which is, I think, the process you're trying to take us through. Get away from opinion. Let's look at the Facts. Then let's make a decision. Okay, so an empirical, factual claim which is believed by many progressives. The next part says it seems to obviously strongly support an element of progressive ideology and yet is demonstrably false or highly misleading. So what does that section mean to you?

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Yeah, I mean, so, you know, there'd be like, okay, what are the elements of progressive ideology? Well, they include things like, oh, racism is rampant in our society and, you know, it's an oppressive patriarchy. And you know, sometimes they think like, oh, we're destroying the planet and like, we're in danger of killing everybody because of our pollution and whatever, destruction of the environment, the myths. There'll be empirical claims that are supposed to be supporting that. Right. So like the people who think that we're living in an oppressive patriarchy, then they will, they'll try to give examples that support that. Like, oh, did you know that, you know, women make whatever 76 cents for every dollar that men earn or something like that. There's, you know, different numbers that they quote. And so then that's supposed to be due to sexism. That's what you're supposed to conclude. Right. But then, like, actually, no, it's not. Right. So like, you know, you just go. We could just go through particular examples. Right. But like, in that case, well, it turns out that if you control for things like occupation hours worked, you know, years of experience and things like that are obviously relevant to your pay. If you control for those things, the pay gap disappears. So then, so it's highly misleading. Right. So like there's like, the statistic isn't a lie, but it's super misleading. Right. Because like, in the end there is no evidence of sexism.

[Eddie Hood]

Sure. I. I think what's important is that anybody listening to this show immediately, right now ask yourself what you just felt when Dr. Humer said that. Did you feel that he was sharing something factual or did you feel that he's sharing something that's potentially biased? And I think it's important that if you decide to pick up progressiveness and read it, to read the chapters where he presents the research on what he just shared, because we don't really have the space to go over all of the reference material here, but he's saying that from a position of research. So read those facts before you make a judgment as to whether he's right or wrong about the pay gap and then decide after you've read it.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Yeah. You know, like, by the way, if I could comment, like, you know, when I was trying to debunk the myths. I didn't want to just be relying on my opinion. I didn't want to be relying on partisan sources. So, like, the sources that I rely on are generally really mainstream. There'll be academic papers or published in major journals, or some of them will be government sources. When I talk about the Trayvon Martin case, look at what happened in the trial. I'll look at that police investigation if there's a government report written on something. So it's not like I'm looking at these Right. Wings, you know, I'm not like, looking up Breitbart News or something for the information. Right. So, like, if you want the objective truth, like, you should be receptive.

[Eddie Hood]

What's interesting is that. So the first part of the book here talks about cases like Trayvon Martin. And like Dr. Hubert just mentioned, you. You didn't just listen to public opinion or culture. You went through and looked at all of the investigation reports, what happened in the courtroom, and you present a lot of that here, and it's linked. But then in. At the end of that sort of section of the book, you also give us three non myths where issues did occur potentially due to race or inappropriate behavior or what have you. So you're not saying, look, racism doesn't occur, but at specific events, we really got it wrong, and in some events, we could still improve as human beings.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Is.

[Eddie Hood]

Is that a fair statement?

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Yeah, I mean, so the chapter 3 non myths is about cases that I think what happened was in fact, what most people believe happened. Okay.

[Eddie Hood]

Yeah.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

So, like the George Floyd case, I think that was, in fact, a murder. Well, he. I think it was an accidental killing, but it was culpable. Right. So put it that way. So you might consider it manslaughter. Okay. But, you know, Derek Chauvin, he was correctly convicted, by the way. The. The outcome of trials is usually correct. So, like, Chauvin got convicted because he did it. Okay. And George Zimmerman got acquitted because he didn't do it. Right. And you should not be surprised by this because the people, the jury members had to listen to all the evidence. They had to sit there for many hours while both sides presented all the evidence that they could. And the people, the pundits on the news do not have to do any of that. They don't have to listen to anything. Okay. So you really shouldn't listen to the.

[Eddie Hood]

Pundits, and neither do we. Right. We listen to something on the radio and we just. We hear somebody that's of one persuasion or another persuasion make a statement Then we just go along with it and believe it. We don't. We also aren't sitting through hours and hours of evidence to. To objectively figure out what happened. Major issue.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Yeah, well, no, I mean, that's why you. You should defer. You should usually defer to the jury outcome. And.

[Eddie Hood]

Yeah.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

You know, it's like they're not infallible. Sometimes they get wrong. Right. But they generally know more than we do. Right.

[Eddie Hood]

But it's better than a news outlet just sharing an opinion.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Yeah, yeah. You know, like. Yeah, just like these opinion people who get. They get positions on TV or whatever, they get followers and readers because they're entertaining.

[Eddie Hood]

Yeah.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Entertaining thing is not necessarily the correct thing. Like, the truth is rarely maximally entertaining. Right. And so, like. Yeah, the media selects for. They don't select for the most honest people, let's put it that way.

[Eddie Hood]

What does this say? If it bleeds, it reads. Right, yeah, yeah. The comment. Before we get into that, I'm bouncing around your books. It's just so good.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

But there's a.

[Eddie Hood]

On page four of Progressive Myths. I wanted to read this too, because this, I feel, is something that everybody needs to hear before we get any deeper here. You talk about where we're all coming from as human beings, and you say the way we work is typically more like this. We adopt a political ideology when we're 20 years old and know practically nothing. Based mainly on our emotional temperament and a smattering of misleading factoids. We spend the next several years rationalizing that ideology, which we cling to ever after. If our original reasons for adopting the ideology are undermined by later evidence, we invent new reasons for holding on to the same beliefs. If you're clever enough, you can rationalize nearly any ideological belief in the face of nearly any body of evidence.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Okay.

[Eddie Hood]

Yeah. So when we're 20, we're super emotional, we're trying to figure life out, and we just pick a camp. Right. Based on several factors, and then we spend the rest of our life justifying that decision versus being open to new evidence, new ways of thinking.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Yeah, that's common. Right. And you know, like, it's really hard to convince an academic to change their mind about something that's important to them. Right. And you're like, okay, you know, like, the professors are smart, smart and highly educated people. Right. And so, like, oh, so they should know the truth. Right. Not necessarily. Right. Because it could be that they're using their intelligence and their knowledge to rationalize a predetermined position that they adopted before they had that knowledge. Right? And so, like, if you're a smart person, you can figure out ways of avoiding changing your belief, right. You can come up with rationalizations for why some evidence doesn't really refute you, which a dumb person would not be able to think of. And so, like, you could actually be worse at getting to the truth. If you're biased and not just motivated by getting to the truth, then it may be harder for you to get.

[Eddie Hood]

To the truth, especially if you've spent years and years doing research and your brain is tuned in to looking for details and connecting ideas. We're really good at selective memory or cognitive bias or whatever it is, where we just pick out the stuff that, that makes sense to us and we somehow delete everything else. Like it doesn't even exist. It's not even in the book.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

This is like what they call confirmation bias, which is very well established, very well known in psychology. Bias towards information that confirms what you already believe. Or, I mean, it's kind of weird, like, if you don't even have a belief about something, but somebody asks you whether a thing is true, you're biased in favor of the thing whenever they asked you, you're biased in favor of finding evidence in favor of it rather than evidence against it.

[Eddie Hood]

Yeah, right.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Like, you know, if you already believe something and like, you hear evidence, you remember the evidence that supports it, and then you like, forget the evidence or don't notice the evidence that went against it. And then, like, and then we just, like, look for evidence that supports it. Like, you go to the new sources that you already know are kind of going to agree with you. And then you just like, don't go to the other sources.

[Eddie Hood]

Right, right. This takes me back to my experience being a member of quote unquote, the church, where we're told, don't look at any other sources, only look at what we write and what we say, because that's the source of truth. And we were happy to just go along with that because it confirmed everything we thought we knew or believed. It was terrifying to look at other potential thinkers. And so we didn't. Who wants to live in fear? Just better to be safe and feel comfy, you know?

[Dr. Michael Humer]

But, you know, then, then you should ask yourself, like, what are you really trying to do? Like, are you trying to understand reality? Right. Are you just trying to confirm your existing beliefs? Okay, if you're just trying to confirm your existing beliefs, then keep doing that. But I don't think that. I don't think that's good. I think we human beings should live in the truth, right? Like, whatever it is, even if it's unpleasant, we need to know it.

[Eddie Hood]

I had a conversation recently with a couple different people who are really sad for my soul. And I said, listen, I genuinely want the story of the church and of the experience of God to be true. I just don't believe it is. And then they would give. It's not that I don't want it to be true. I do. It's a beautiful concept. Right? But that doesn't make it true. And that's the hard part. We're so emotionally tied to that concept. Especially if you lose a loved one, you really want that message to be true. Now you know somebody that you greatly miss. So there's a lot of weight to our beliefs. Well, okay, let's jump in here. I want to just pepper one more concept in here before we get into the Trayvon Martin case and how you thought through that. So you go on to talk about several people who have been murdered by police. And you do this after the three non myths, after you talk about George Floyd and a few other people where we actually got the myth right. You know, this actually is what we considered. But then you mentioned people like Timothy Randall, Tyler Woodburn, Matthew Mitchell, John Bomer, Richard Poland, and so on. There's a whole list of names here. And you say those are all just from the year 2022. Again, talking about people that have been killed from the hands of police. But then you say, I bet you don't know any of those names. Why not? And it's because they're white. Those are the names of white people. And got to be honest, I had never heard of those names. And why is.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Me neither. Right. So there's like a, you know, there's a database. There's this website mapping police violence or something like that, where you can get the database of like everyone. Well, everyone that they could find was killed by the police. So it might be incomplete. And you can sort it. You get a spreadsheet. You could sort it by race. So. And you can also sort it by year. So I did that for 2022 and white. And yeah, got all those names. And there. Those were all unarmed people killed by the police.

[Eddie Hood]

Unarmed.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Never, never, never heard of any of them.

[Eddie Hood]

Now here's another challenge to anybody that's listening to this, you might think, well, okay, and Dr. Humer and I have some cards playing against us already because we're two white guys talking about a very hot topic issue. And I appreciate and Understand that. But let's think about this for just a minute. Why bring these names up? One, you might think that we're devaluing cases like Trayvon Martin and other people and different cultures, but in reality, it feels to me like what you're doing is trying to show us that the media that we see online is very selective of the stories we hear, and we're only being shown a small portion of it. And that can create a lot of anger and hate and frustration. Is that correct?

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Yeah. So, like, am I trying to expose the myths about Trayvon Martin or Michael Brown, whatever it is? Like, you know, am I happy that they were killed? No. Like, I don't want anyone to be killed unnecessarily. Right. But there are more people who are being killed that we're not paying any attention to because they don't belong to the right race for the media to care about them. If the media did care about those people, there would be more attention and maybe fewer people of other races would be killed.

[Eddie Hood]

Right.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

And by the way, there is not a racial bias against black people. There's no evidence of a racial bias among police homicides against black people. Right. There's, as a matter of fact, the opposite. The evidence indicates that they're biased against white people.

[Eddie Hood]

Right.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Or bias against shooting black people. So.

[Eddie Hood]

And for anybody that's interested in that, if you read the book, there's plenty of data that's cited and sourced to that, those statistics. Before you make a judgment as to whether Dr. Humer was right or wrong in that statement, go read the book, read the sources, and then make your decision. Try to not make that decision now based off of just your emotional appeal, your cultural background. And that's the hard part. We're all wired to just be like, oh, that's wrong, that's wrong. How dare he say that?

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Yeah, it's not what I want to be true. You know, it's just what the evidence indicates. Right. There's like, look at the statistics. And these are not controversial statistics, Right. They're the same statistics everyone is relying on. Right. There was also an academic experiment, right? So they did an experiment in a simulator where they have scenarios that would be the same scenario, but, you know, using a black actor or a white actor. And they test that to see if the police would be quicker to shoot the black people. And it turned out that they were quicker to shoot the white people. That's just what happened. And if it had gone the other way, people on the left would be trumpeting this as Proof of the police racism, but so we have to report it regardless of which way the data goes.

[Eddie Hood]

Yeah, yeah. Again, going back to our concept of being in a jury where they're exposed to the evidence, we need to be more jury. Like, we need to be willing to look at the evidence. Well, okay, let's dig into one of these myths here. Now, for anybody that's listening, I would encourage you to curb any predefined biases, myths, whatever you have about the concept, and just listen to the conversation and then go get the book, read the report yourself and see what you think. But I'm just picking out the first one here. The Trayvon Martin case. This is a very sensitive topic for a lot of people, which is why I want to talk about it, because I think it immediately creates emotion in people when they hear his name. Just like George Floyd definitely creates an immediate sort of gut reaction on things. So what you do is you start off. There's almost like a formula you're walking through. Then the first step of your formula is to label out the myth. I also follow you on your substack account, fakenews, which you should all go do, by the way. And in fake news, you always do the same thing as. Well, you always say, this is what I'm going to talk about. It's like a thesis statement at the very beginning. So can we start with that as this first step to critical thinking? Why do you always start with a thesis statement that's very clear or even in this case, the myth, as you call it?

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Yeah. Why? Because I like to communicate. Okay. I want everybody to know what my point is. So it's going to come right at the beginning and that. So, you know, one thing is. Well, then you can decide if you want to read the rest of the article. Like, are you interested in that thing that I'm saying?

[Eddie Hood]

Yeah.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Okay. But another thing is like, well, sometimes with, you know, with some writers, sometimes you get to the end of the article and you don't know what their point was.

[Eddie Hood]

Right.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

So let's have it right at the beginning so that, you know, there won't be any confusion.

[Eddie Hood]

Yeah. How do we apply that to just general living? Because, I mean, I write every day about similar topic. Not similar topics to you, but topics related to reading and literature and philosophy and stuff. But how do we do that in our own personal life? Let's say we just want to think clearly. Should we all be sitting down and trying to at least write out our thesis statement on something? So, for example, if I'm a member of the Mormon Church, I just kind of went along and the ideas were rattling around in my head, but I never sat down and thought on paper, what am I actually thinking here? You know, should we come up with our own statements?

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Well, I guess the way in which things are presented when like you write an essay is different from what happens when you're thinking like, you know, when you're thinking the thing through, you should not be starting with your thesis. Right. So like I thought about the subject and then I decided this was what I was going to argue. And sometimes when I'm writing the post, I change. Looks like I started out with this and then now I'm going to prove it. But what happened was I thought it through and then I modified what the thesis was so that it would match what was going to follow it, which is what you should do and you should be. So I guess the answer is no, you shouldn't start with a thesis statement. You should start with I'm going to find out. Just let's just gather the information, find out what's the case.

[Eddie Hood]

Okay, so, so that's really good because a lot of the times we would sit down and try to identify our belief first and then go confirm that. But what you're saying is don't do that. Start with the subject and then go out and do some research before you craft that thesis statement.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Yeah, right. And by the way, like, you may not even know what the alternatives are that have to be considered because like, okay, you know, there's a, there's subject matter that left and right wing people are debating about. And there's like the left wing position, the right wing position, you might think, oh, I'm going to figure out who's right. But as a matter of fact, maybe they're both wrong, which is very common. So the question isn't even who's right. Just like forget the bullshit that the extremists are saying or the partisans are saying on other side. Let's just like try to gather information and see if something jumps out at us. Right? See if we see a pattern in the data.

[Eddie Hood]

Okay, so step one is know what you're trying to understand, but don't make a decision about it yet and go out and gather some data. So most of us would gather data by doing a quick Google search.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Yeah, right.

[Eddie Hood]

I love it when people say, oh, I did some research on subject xyz, which is really just a simple Google search. A few of us are going into the academic literature, reading books that look at Both sides of a topic, which, by the way, every concept has at least two sides to it. Right.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Usually things that are worth discussing usually have two sides. Yeah.

[Eddie Hood]

Yeah. So how can we guard ourselves from. As we go out and do our research, how can we guard ourselves from that confirmation bias you were talking about earlier?

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Well, so if there's a topic that, you know, there's a controversy about, you have to know what these different sides say about it. Like, if you know the reasons why people would believe the thing you believe, and you don't know why anyone would not agree with you, and you don't know what the hell you're talking about. Right. But, like, if you understand why people would support gun control and you don't understand why anyone would oppose it, then you don't know what you're talking about. You need to find out. And the end, you know, and the reason is not going to be because they're evil. If you think the reason is because they're evil, then again, you don't know what you're talking about because, like, it's probably not like half the people are evil. Right.

[Eddie Hood]

Okay. That's actually fun. And not knowing what you're talking about or thinking is actually an okay. That's actually a good place to start. If we can just acknowledge that. Right. Like, I've lived my entire life thinking that gun control is bad, everybody else is evil. Right. If we can just start with, oh, maybe that's not true. I need to learn about both sides first. That's probably step one. And so let's go through this Trayvon Martin case. So in the beginning here, you make this statement, the thesis statement, the myth, whatever. Trayvon Martin was murdered due to racism and his killer was unacquitted due to racism. That's what we're exploring, right? Yeah, that's the main idea. But you're saying you didn't start with that. You just went into this event and said, there's a lot of opinion about this. I need to do my research first. Is that fair?

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Yeah. I mean, so, you know, like, as we mentioned, there was the chapter about the non myths. So, like, I looked into multiple cases, and then some of them I concluded that it really was what. What we thought it was. Yeah, some of them I concluded that it wasn't what people thought it was.

[Eddie Hood]

Yeah. Okay, so there's some interesting things here I'm going to bounce around a little bit. But on page 10, in progressive mist, you talk about an NBC News statement that was made about the event that probably stirred Up a lot of heat. You wrote NBC played an edited clip from the police call in which Zimmerman is heard to say, this guy looks like he's up to no good. He looks black. That's the statement. Right? And that's what we heard. That's what we heard. So of course if we hear that, I mean, I get offended by that. I'm like, oh man, that just sounds odd. Like why would you say that? You know, that's awful. But in fact, that's not exactly what was presented in the actual recording. Right. NBC edited this thing and I'm just going to read this. It's not super long, but it goes back and forth. It says Zimmerman. This is what Zimmerman said. He says, hey, we've had some break ins in my neighborhood and there's a real suspicious guy near Retreat View Circle. The best address I can give you is 111 retreat view circle. This guy looks like he's up to no good. So there's the first part that ABC got. This guy looks like he's up to no good or he's on drugs or something. It's raining and he's just walking around looking about. Then the dispatcher, which gets cut out of the NBC article says, okay, and this guy, is he white, black or Hispanic? And then Zimmerman says he looks black. So NBC cut out all of that stuff so that all we hear was this guy looks like he's up to no good.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

He looks black.

[Eddie Hood]

He looks black.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Yeah.

[Eddie Hood]

Right. Okay, can we just like open that up for a minute?

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Yeah, yeah. A bit of a deceptive edit, wouldn't you say?

[Eddie Hood]

Yeah.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

And I think like, you know, what's important about this is not just what it implies about that case, but like what it implies about how the media operates. Right. Why would they do that? It's like, well, their business model is not founded on their keeping the public informed, making sure that you get accurate beliefs or anything like that. Their business model is based on attracting attention. Yeah, that's what they get paid for, you know, attract attention so that then you can sell it to advertisers.

[Eddie Hood]

Yeah.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

So. And there's, and like there's no mechanism that forces them to tell the truth. Right?

[Eddie Hood]

Yeah.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

So like they put that. And then like, and then some people said, hey, that's misleading. But nothing bad happened to NBC and they attracted more attention, so they succeeded. And so like, what you should think is, I wonder how often they're doing that.

[Eddie Hood]

Exactly. Yeah. Well, the challenge here is that when we see something in print or online, we, for some Reason have an immediate belief that it's true because it's been printed. And that's a real problem. I'm constantly teaching my kids, look, just because it was on Google doesn't mean it's accurate. Right. And they'll happily believe random thoughts or.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Ideas because it's on the Internet.

[Eddie Hood]

Right. Somebody printed it, so it's got to be true. The Internet, it's the case. One, we're not really motivated to go out and dig deep because it's all, it's hard work to get the evidence. I mean, you probably went through a lot of time. Well, I know you did a lot of time and effort to get this information and put it together into a cogent sort of thought. Right. Most people don't want to do that work. So we're just going to believe NBC and go, wow, the guy was racist. It makes sense to me, you know.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Yeah. Like I'm an academic so I could spend a year doing research and writing stuff. But ordinary people can't do that.

[Eddie Hood]

Right.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

But you know, that is part of why I wrote this book, so that, you know, they don't have to do that. At least not for these specific issues. But there's a whole bunch of other issues, you know, of course, can't cover everything.

[Eddie Hood]

Yeah, yeah. So, okay, so the media is putting out some edited information to create some emotion to get people to view, to watch, to click whatever it might be, but in reality. So, so what's happening here for. I mean, most people know the Trayvon Martin case, but just as a quick summary, this young man was visiting his father. He was not supposed to be in the neighborhood. He was a visitor. He had gone to the store to get something and was on his way back from the store. Right. It's raining outside. And the problem is we're in a neighborhood that has experienced lots of theft and break in over the past few years. So much so that the neighborhood instituted a neighborhood watch program. And if you're not familiar with that, anybody listening? That's essentially the people in the neighborhood working with the police to report suspicious behavior. And they, they literally walk on patrol around the neighborhood or they'll keep watch from their house or whatever because so many bad things have happened. Unfortunately, many of the break ins that have happened in the past were from young black men who were causing some of the challenges in the community. Now George Zimmerman is in the neighborhood and he is essentially the one who helped start the, the neighborhood watch. And he's on duty at the time. He's walking around, sees this young man. And the young man, one, he's never seen him before. He's, again, he's visiting his father. Right. So he's not a typical resident of the neighborhood. So this is a. Somebody that's. We don't recognize him. But two, because he's kind of lost. He's like looking in at houses and trying to figure out where he goes. So from Zimmerman's perspective, it just looks a little fishy. Right. So it's completely reasonable that he would call the cops and say, hey, we've had some break ins in the past. We've had some problems. There's a guy walking around, he's looking at homes. What do I do? Is that sort of the first basis of what's going on here?

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Yeah. So, you know, like Zimmerman had. So he, he was aware of these break ins and like he was trying to help people and he was trying to stop them. And then. And he was like, he was mad that the criminals were getting away, right?

[Eddie Hood]

Yeah.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

He sees Trayvon Martin, he thinks this might be one of these criminals.

[Eddie Hood]

Yeah.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

And he decides to follow him so that he doesn't get away. You know, you can understand why he would do. Although it turned out to be not a good decision. Right.

[Eddie Hood]

Yeah. So he calls the, the cops, they tell him, hey, you know, we don't need you necessarily to follow him. So he starts to walk around and look for an address because he doesn't know the exact address of where this guy's at and he's moving. And then we have this sort of altercation where the story that we're told is that Zimmerman attacked and shot due to racism. And you make a comment here where there are problems with witnesses and stories and what have you. Because really we have two people at the scene of the crime. We have Zimmerman and we have Trayvon. But we also have one independent witness that saw what went on. And you make the comment that it's easy to see why George and Trayvon's families might lie essentially to protect them. So it's really hard to trust the testimonies of family members because they're biased towards protecting people. And I'm kind of going on with all of this because I'm looking at it for me from the perspective of like, how do I parse through all this as a guy living in Utah to know what's right and what's wrong. Right.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Yeah. And by the way, just so that people get this, like, why is the family's opinion relevant? There was a recording where somebody is crying for Help. Okay. And George Zimmerman's family says, well, that was obviously George crying for help because Trayvon was beating him up. And then Trayvon's father initially said that wasn't his son, but later changed his mind to agree with Trayvon's mother that it was Trayvon who was calling. Okay, so now you're like, okay, who should we believe?

[Eddie Hood]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

And that's relevant because, like, it's relevant to who was beating up whom.

[Eddie Hood]

Yeah.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

So, like, George Zimmerman's story was that Trayvon was beating the shit out of George, and Trayvon's family was saying, no, George was just, like, beating up Trayvon because he's an. And then decided to kill him.

[Eddie Hood]

The independent witness, the police found, somebody who is not biased either way, said that Trayvon was on top of George beating him, and George was on the ground screaming. And then we have some forensic evidence which proves that might actually be the case as well. Can you explain that evidence?

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Yeah. So in the trial, a forensic expert testified that when the gun was fired, it was in contact with Trayvon's shirt, and it was, like, a couple inches away from his skin. Okay, so that doesn't really make sense if George was on top. It does make sense if Trayvon was on top leaning over George, and then his shirt would be hanging off him. So the gun could be touching the shirt but not touching his skin. So that's probably what happened.

[Eddie Hood]

Yeah, right.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Probably. So Trayvon was probably on top of George beating up George as George, the women said.

[Eddie Hood]

Yeah. And then you go through several other pieces of evidence here which were brought up in court and were shown to be hoaxes or what have you. There's a letter that the prosecution relied on from a girl named Diamond Eugene and so on.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Yeah. It was quite incredible.

[Eddie Hood]

Yeah. So I think that's what I want to get at, is we're hearing a very small piece of information from the media, but, in fact, there's a lot of nuance to things. If somebody were to walk away from listening to this episode, Dr. Humor, and think about the Trayvon Martin case or the George Floyd case, where we mostly got that one right or so on, what would you say is probably the number one skill we should be developing as listeners of media? How do we deal with this?

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Now, I don't know if this is a skill, but you should be learning skepticism. You should just learn that. Yeah. If the thing that you're hearing is entertaining enough that it would spread even if it wasn't true, then you should be suspicious. Maybe they're Just saying it because it's entertaining. And what happens is one person could start the story, they could start saying something, and if it's entertaining enough, it just spreads. And all the other people who are spreading it are not exactly lying because they just believe the first person. Right? But most people don't question what they hear. Like, if they hear something that sounds entertaining, especially if it fits their ideological presuppositions, then they just start spreading it. We didn't mention but, like, some of the other amazing things about this. Like, okay, so there's, like, one of these mainstream media reports said that after the altercation, George Zimmerman didn't show any injuries on his head, where Zimmerman said that Trayvon was, like, slamming his head into the concrete. Okay? And so then you say, but there were no injuries on his head in the police photos. But there are. Reproduce the photos in the book, and it shows, like, blood on the back of his head. Right?

[Eddie Hood]

It's pretty beat up.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Yeah, like, exactly consistent with what he's told the police happened. Okay? So I don't know why the news got that wrong. But anyway, like. And then, you know that thing about the. The letter from Diamond Eugene? You know, like, the prosecution got this witness who testified and said that she was Trayvon's girlfriend and that she had written this letter to Trayvon's mother to describe what had happened. Okay? And the letter is signed Diamond Eugene, and the name of that witness is Rachel Jeantel. Okay? And they're like, oh, why did you sign it Time in Eugene? And she says, oh, that's my nickname. Right? And also, like, she was. I think she was 19 or something. She was a different age from. So the family got this lawyer. Trayvon's family got this lawyer who had said in a press conference that they had gotten information from the girlfriend, and then he had reported the age of the girlfriend. The lawyer said the girlfriend was, I think, 16 or something, and Rachel Jeantel was 19 or something. She was a different age. And then, so she just said, oh, well, I lied about my age. Like, huh, okay. And it turns out that there actually is a woman named Brittany Diamond Eugene, whose pictures were on Trayvon's phone. So that was the person who wrote the letter, not this person who testified in the court. Okay? So, like, and it's. It's just remarkable that somebody could have such a blatant fraud, apparent apparent fraud. And the media doesn't notice this. Okay? So, like, media people report on the trial, and they report on the testimony. Like, a couple of sources I found, like, had Pictures of this letter, and they had the signature redacted. And they don't mention that the signature doesn't match the name of the actual witness who said that she wrote it. Oh, also, by the way, this witness, during the trial, the defense attorney is like, could you read this letter? And she says she can't read it. She can't read cursive. Oh, well, how did you write? Well, I got a friend to write this letter for me. Come on, man. But the remarkable thing is the media don't tell you anything about this. They report on it, but they just forget the obvious suspicious things about this.

[Eddie Hood]

Okay, so this matters because this letter was a key piece of evidence in the prosecution against Zimmerman to state that he had acted unjustly. But we can't really trust that piece of evidence because the person who is claiming to have written it was proven she didn't actually write it. And so how can you trust evidence when it's been redirected or changed or what have you?

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Yeah, so just to clarify, like the letter, it describes Diamond, Eugene, hearing, whatever, talking to Trayvon on the phone, but it doesn't contain evidence that's particular incriminating. So it doesn't indicate whether Trayvon was beating up George or vice versa.

[Eddie Hood]

Right.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Okay, so the prosecution relied on Rachel Jontel's verbal testimony in court. Right. That, you know, whatever she heard Trayvon saying, get off of me, or something like that. Okay, but that testimony is only valid if she was actually the person that he was talking to on the phone.

[Eddie Hood]

Right.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Actually the girlfriend. And, like, it's pretty clear that she wasn't.

[Eddie Hood]

Now let's go back to the statement that you made earlier. It's not that we want or would promote these bad things happen. It's unfortunate that they did. So nobody wanted this to happen to Trayvon or to George or what have you. We're not trying to make this a statement about race or people. We're trying to make this a statement about fact and evidence. And there's a part in this write up where you talk about how even the police were. I'm not willing to convict Zimmerman because I couldn't find any evidence. A lot of people had an issue with that. They felt that they were being racist. And the police, I think the deputy or the chief actually lost his job because he's like, I can't arrest this guy. It's illegal. There's no evidence.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Yeah, yeah. You're not allowed to arrest people when you don't have evidence. You don't have probable cause. Right. So particular amount of evidence that they committed the crime. And the police chief was. And the mayor was like, oh, you got to arrest this guy. And the chief was like, no, I'm not allowed to do that. And then he got murdered.

[Eddie Hood]

Yeah. You actually start this write up by, I think this is important. You say, let me start with a trivial observation that nonetheless appears to be necessary. The guilt or innocence of George Zimmerman depends on the particular factual details of the case. It cannot be determined based on the races of the two parties involved, nor can it be determined based on your political affiliation. Right. So, yeah, well, it does seem obvious that he's either guilty or he's not. Based off of fact and evidence. Not race, not political ideation. Even though that is obvious, it's really hard to ignore for whatever reason, race and political ideation. Right. It's like that stuff just like boils in us. And so it takes a lot of effort to recognize that and just stick with the facts. Okay, so any last thoughts on that case before we move on to the next concept here?

[Dr. Michael Humer]

I think the main lesson is, well, you can't really trust media and activist reports. Right. And that is not an isolated incident.

[Eddie Hood]

Right.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

There are many cases in which the stuff that they're saying and you know, like political activists might be like the least honest and least reliable sources of information. Okay, for sure. So just keep that in mind. Like, you might not be convinced of that from this case alone, but if you go through the book, there are many cases, right?

[Eddie Hood]

Yeah.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

What you heard was not reliable.

[Eddie Hood]

Yeah. And I would encourage you guys to check out progressiveness. Like Dr. Humer said, there are many cases across many different concepts and just try to read them with an open mind and look at the evidence and see what you think. Let's take this into a little bit of a more personal level now before we wrap up. You've been very kind with your time. I'm a 44 year old guy. I have left something that has been a part of my life for many years. Me and my family now, like I said, moving into philosophy and what have you. But if you were me in my situation, Dr. Humer, what questions would you be asking about life and thinking in general? Let's say I know this life is short because it is. And I'm already 44 and I want to make sure that I'm thinking for myself and thinking clearly. How can I make sure that I don't get swayed by other communities, other groups without thinking for myself? That's a really bad question. But I Don't know.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Yeah. I mean, the first thing is actually just to care about what you just asked. Right? Because the people who are being, whatever, brainwashed or something are people who are. I think they're people who are not thinking about how to avoid being brainwashed. That's why it's happening to them.

[Eddie Hood]

Oh, that's a good statement.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

If you hear somebody telling you a thing and you're even just taking the step of asking yourself, I wonder if that's trustworthy, then that's a good way of avoiding being a sucker. Right. And so what you should do. Okay, so first of all, somebody's telling you something that fits a particular political ideology really well. If you can clearly identify whether this is a left wing or a right wing idea, and only people on one side would be promoting this fact, then you should immediately wonder, Right? That doesn't prove that it's biased, but you should wonder if it is. And then you should try to hear what the other side would say. All right. Or what people who don't share that ideological orientation say. And how do you do that? Well, you got to look it up, right? Like, you gotta, you know, if it's like a left wing idea, you gotta find at least one conservative who says something about that. Right. Okay. But also, by the way, like, my point in writing, the progressive myth is not. Oh, the right is always correct because they're not like, they. They have bullshit too. Like, you know, every ideology has bullshit factoids that are supposed to support it. Okay? So if you're a conservative, you should also think, like when you're watching the stories on Fox News that seem to show something really outrageous that the left is doing, you should ask yourself, is it really like that? Is that really what happened? And just see what somebody who's not on the right would say about.

[Eddie Hood]

Have you ever seen the movie the Truman Show?

[Dr. Michael Humer]

No, I think I just saw excerpts from it.

[Eddie Hood]

Yeah, I mean, it's the ultimate. Ultimately, it's a story that features Jim Carrey. He's born into a movie production, like a, you know, a movie stage or whatever. And there are cameras all over this fake world, and everybody watches him grow up and live his life. And it's all fake, right? His neighbors, his job, his everything, it's all fake. And there's a moment where he actually escapes the show and he comes out into real life and it's this sort of very heartfelt, felt emotional thing.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

And that's like leaving the church.

[Eddie Hood]

Yeah, well, it is like leaving the church, but it's also like you said, if you hear a very right wing idea, just to take a moment to say, well, who's on the left? That's saying, talking about the same thing. Let's just read that. Just read it. You don't even have to like dive in and become a leftist or whatever, but just read the opposing opinion before you make a decision.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Yeah, yeah. Oh, by the way, like, you know, I have, I had like a list of some tips about identifying people who are reliable. Right. I'm not going to be able for all of them, but like some of them are honest people don't always tell you what you want to hear.

[Eddie Hood]

Yeah.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Like if there's a particular source and like they're always or almost always telling you things that you like, they're probably lying because reality, Right. Reality is not attuned to your desires. So honest and reliable sources will sometimes tell you things that you don't like. You know, another thing is like, well, more reliable people, they frequently use qualifiers. So rather than saying that something is always definitely the case, they'll say, well, it's usually like this, right? And then, you know, reliable people sometimes correct themselves because they care about what's true. And like they do. Like, I just noticed I said something wrong. Oh, wait, sorry. If somebody never corrects themselves, it could be that they never make a mistake or it could be that they don't care if what they said was true. You know, another thing is like, well, reliable people take some cognizance of objections. They will in some way recognize that some people disagree with what they said and they will say something about what the opposition says. You know, like I, I said X. By the way, some people say that's wrong because of this. And let me explain why I don't agree with that. Okay. If you don't consider objections at all, then it could be that you're not aware of the objections, which means that you, you didn't do enough research. Or it could be that you don't care, which means that you're probably not very reliable at finding the truth.

[Eddie Hood]

I think about the people in my life who have been the most that I trust and that I know I can go to for clear thinking. My wife is actually one of those because she will directly tell me sometimes things that I don't want to hear. But whenever I sit back, she's always so she's trying to, she's not, she's never trying to persuade me into a specific way of thinking. She's always trying to sort of get rid of the Presentation. I think that's maybe the way to say that she's trying to move away from, like, painting things to be a certain way. I think we all have one or two people like that in our lives or maybe specific authors that we know we can trust. And I think that's another skill. One, asking, is that really the way it is? But two, looking for these reliable people and trying to. Trying to emulate them a little bit. But even reliable people can be swayed. True, they can be biased. How do we protect ourselves against somebody who has been reliable up to a specific point, but then all of a sudden we're on a topic that they care passionately about and they want to defend whether it's right or wrong.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Yeah, I mean, you know, like, another key is, like, whether they're. Whether you're getting emotional or whether the person you're listening to is getting emotional.

[Eddie Hood]

Oh, very good.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Okay. Now, like, it could be totally appropriate to be emotional. Like, maybe you're talking about something that's really important and, like, something really horrible is happening, so you're getting emotional about it. That makes sense. It's not that you're wrong, but that could bias your judgment. Right. And so, yeah, so that, you know, like, if you see if the person that you're listening to is getting into the rhetoric or something like that, I take that. But I think the main thing is getting a variety of sources. So, like, if the person you're listening to is very wrong about something, there probably are other people who are also reliable who know why that's wrong. You know, I had like, an. A thing where, like, you know, on my blog, I posted about the book to promote it and then. And like, I mentioned a news story that's not in the book. Right. But that I had just recently heard on the Internet. And there's a story about how, like, these whatever, like, Fortune 400 companies or something, a bunch of these big companies, they'd made a certain number of hires, and they were almost all people of color. It was like something like only 8% of them were white over the course of a particular year, if it was 2021 or something like that. So it was like, wow, that's amazing. That's, like, so wrong and illegal.

[Eddie Hood]

Okay.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

And then one of my. Actually a couple of my readers said, mike, I don't think that's exactly what happened. So it turned out that wasn't exactly what happened. So, like, I had to post a correction there.

[Eddie Hood]

Yeah.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

And that was just a. You know, that was like a. An experience to show that, like, no, we all make mistakes, I guess. And like, you know, when you hear something that really supports your side, man, I should have been more suspicious. But like, the story like it was on Bloomberg News, which is not a right wing source, so I thought you could trust that. But, you know, what actually happened was they don't know how many people were hired. What they know is the change in the total number of people. Right. So like some people leave and other people are hired. They knew the increase in employees. Okay. And then so there. Right. So it was like the percentage of the increase that was people of color or something. Right. If they were initially almost all white people and then a bunch of white people left and then black people, that could lead to this statistic.

[Eddie Hood]

I'm curious really quickly, you do a lot of writing. You mentioned you like to communicate and you write a lot on fake news, your substack account, and obviously lots of books and what have you. Can you walk me through really quickly the value of writing? How does that actually help lead you to truth knowledge, whatever it might be, versus just keeping it in your head?

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Well, I mean, writing can help you figure out what you think and also kind of, it can make you realize when you don't know or you don't understand something. This happened one time, like, I was writing stuff for students, so I was teaching logic and I was writing up an explanation of Godel's theorem. And I thought that I understood it. I thought that I understood the proof. And then it was when I had to explain it that I realized that I had gotten it wrong. So like, that often happens when you're trying to explain a thing to other people. That's when you know if you really understood it. Right. Is it like you just have the feeling that you understand the whole thing, but you have to actually put it out, then you have to really understand it.

[Eddie Hood]

Yeah, I love that. So I. I think that if we go back to the Trayvon Martin case, which we've been talking about today, that's up here for 99.99% of the people. Right? The feeling that we understand what happened. Very few people have sat down and written about it and clarified their thoughts about it. I'm guessing, I don't know. But that act of doing so, if you were to sit down and write, here's what happened and here's why, I believe that that would probably get us much further along and realizing, oh, I don't really know why this case angers me. I should probably go research that. Because if I Have to write an essay on it. I'm going to need some sources, I'm going to use evidence and so on. Writing seems to pull us out of emotion a little bit. I don't know.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Yeah, there's like this sort of academic discipline, right? So it's partly the style and it's partly the sort of norms of evidence of the academy. Now this is not to say that academic people are not biased because there's a bunch of kind of like bullshit in the academy, okay? But traditionally what you're supposed to do, and if you're a philosopher or social scientist, there's a, like you're supposed to write in this sort of dispassionate tone and that makes it boring, but that also reduces your emotions, like, because you have to write like you're not emotional, you have to calm yourself down. And then there's like, there's this norm that you have to discuss the objections, you have to discuss other views and reasons why you might be wrong, which you don't have to do, just like in ordinary everyday life, okay? And then that just makes you think about those things. And then, you know, you have to like, cite sources. And so like, it just imposes this discipline on you. So if you try to write semi academically, I guess you don't have to write an academic paper if you're not an academic, but take on some of these norms, think about what are your sources, tell people what your sources are, address the reasons why you might be wrong, and try to take a rational and not emotional tone. That's going to help you. It's going to help you know the truth, if that's what you want.

[Eddie Hood]

So for everybody listening, maybe it would be a good exercise for each of us to pick one thing that we, quote, unquote, know to be true, whether it's something related to religion, politics, government, family, marriage, health, whatever it is something that you feel you know to be true and write that at the top of a piece of paper, physically write it out and then try to write at least one paragraph of how you know that to be true and see if you can supply some evidence to support it, not just your emotions. I think that one exercise might be enlightening for people to realize, oh, this is a feeling, not knowledge. I better go do some research here.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Yeah, I mean, it depends on what the thing is, right? Like, okay, well, I know there's a desk in front of me, so that's going to be straightforward. Well, because I thought if it's a political thing that you Think, you know? You probably don't know.

[Eddie Hood]

Yeah, for sure. Well, this has been very helpful for me. I hope all of you have gotten something out of this. And for everybody that's listening, when somebody like Dr. Humer speaks, it's really important that you do your own critical thinking. And so I would encourage you to go pick up his books. The three of my favorite are Progressive Myths, which is his newest one coming out, Understanding Knowledge, which I really love because I'm a philosophy guy trying to get into it. And the knowledge, reality and Value is how I first got into his work. And I think if you read those with an open mind, you'll have your own little masterclass on thinking critically. Also, subscribe to his substack Fake News, and you'll find some great writing on things that are happening in contemporary times. Dr. Humer, is there anything else you'd like to share with people before we wrap up today?

[Dr. Michael Humer]

No, no, we covered it. Buy my books and read my blog.

[Eddie Hood]

Absolutely. Yeah, do so. I think it's. I think that's a very helpful thing to. To spend time thinking about complicated issues. A lot of us are scared to do so again. People will message me on Facebook or have you after my podcast. They want to think about challenging things, but they don't really know where to start. And they also feel like they can't focus. So those are really great places to start if you feel like you want to start your brain in the right direction. Whether you agree with Dr. Humer, myself, or other people. Before you make that decision, try to go through the process of thinking critically and asking those questions. Dr. Humer, thank you so much for your time today. It's been a huge pleasure for me to have you on the show.

[Dr. Michael Humer]

Oh, you're welcome. And thanks for having me. It's great talking to you.

[Eddie Hood]

All right, well, thank you. Take care of yourself and for everybody else listening. As always, remember to read slowly, take notes and apply the ideas. I'll see you next time. Thanks for listening. If you'd like to take your reading to the next level, then head on over to thereadwellpodcast.com there you'll find daily posts on how to read well. You'll also get access to all of my book notes and tools for becoming a better reader. And as always, don't forget to read slowly, take notes and apply the ideas. Thank you for listening to the Read well podcast.