Repurpose Spider Hairs, Licking Rocks, and Counting Dead People’s Nose Hairs: Logic Matters and so do the Ig Nobles

Dogs Are Smarter Than People: Writing Life, Marriage and Motivation

In our random thought we talk all about the Ig Nobles. We don't transcribe that, so you'll have to listen. Sorry!

But now, let’s talk about logic.

When you are writing a novel and something doesn’t make sense—let’s say someone has brown eyes on page 2 and blue eyes on page 1—your editor if you have one is going to call you on that. If they don’t call you on that, the readers’ brain will hitch when they are reading.

Editors are awesome.

And what I’m saying is that we need editors for real life. That’s because a lot of time people don’t seem to listen to facts. Reason is what helps us justify our beliefs. But someties that means that we aren’t awesome at seeing the truth. We like to cherry pick facts that support our own ideas and then we get biased. We start looking and seeing information that holds with what we already believe rather than information that goes counter to how we believe.

These two cognitive scientists Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber believe that reasoning is to help us function as a social group rather than as people who seek truth.

A Psychology Today article by Jessica Schrader writes:

"A number of studies document the many ways in which our political party distorts our reasoning. One study found that people who had strong math skills were only good at solving a math problem if the solution to the problem conformed to their political beliefs. Liberals were only good at solving a math problem, for instance, if the answer to that problem showed that gun control reduced crime. Conservatives were only good at solving this problem if the solution showed that gun control increased crime. Another study found that the higher an individual’s IQ, the better they are at coming up with reasons to support a position—but only a position that they agree with.

"Belonging to a particular political party can also shape our perception. In one study, researchers were asked to watch a video of protestors. Half of the participants were told the people in the video were protesting the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. The other half were told that the people were protesting an abortion clinic. Liberals reported saying the protestors were more violent and disruptive if they were told they were watching abortion clinic protestors, and the opposite was true for conservatives—even though everyone was watching the same video."

DOG TIP FOR LIFE

Hoarding all your toys on the couch isn't the best idea.

LINKS TO LEARN MORE

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/words-matter/201810/why-people-ignore-facts

https://apnews.com/article/ig-nobels-prize-2023-3f34e020cfb9154c240dfef7c076f177

SHOUT OUT!

The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License.

Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song? It’s “Summer Spliff” by Broke For Free.

WE HAVE EXTRA CONTENT ALL ABOUT LIVING HAPPY OVER HERE! It's pretty awesome.

We have a podcast, LOVING THE STRANGE, which we stream biweekly live on Carrie’s Facebook and Twitter and YouTube on Fridays. Her Facebook and Twitter handles are all carriejonesbooks or carriejonesbook. But she also has extra cool content focused on writing tips here.

Carrie is reading one of her raw poems every once in awhile on CARRIE DOES POEMS. And there you go! Whew! That's a lot!

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