Critical Thinking Now!

Helen Pearson to present talk 9-11 @ 11am ET

Helen Pearson, PhD will present a talk on “The Fight for Facts: From ‘Beyond Belief’ to the Embrace of Evidence” on September 11 at 11am PT.

Abstract:

In an age flooded with misinformation and contested truths, the role of evidence couldn’t be more important. But how did we come to use evidence — and why are some people rejecting it today?

Pearson will speak about her new book Beyond Belief: How Evidence Shows What Really Works. It tells the story of the “evidence revolution” — the global movement that promotes the idea that scientific evidence should guide our decisions rather than unreliable opinions or beliefs.

Beyond Belief examines the rise of evidence-based medicine and how the principle of using evidence to determine “what works” is transforming fields from government policy and education to policing and conservation — as well as the many obstacles the evidence movement faces today. Is there a public crisis of trust in science and evidence? How can evidence stand out amidst the torrent of questionable claims online?

Essential reading for the rational-minded, Beyond Belief is an engaging portrait of the mavericks, visionaries and rebels who share the simple belief that decisions based on evidence make the world a better place. Events will be recorded and archived on the AILACT YouTube channel:https://www.youtube.com/@ailactvideos

Bio

Helen Pearson is an award-winning science journalist and editor at Nature and was named European Science Journalist of the Year 2025. She is also an Honorary Professor of Practice at University College London, teaching science writing and journalism, and a Knight Science Journalism fellow at MIT in 2026-27. Helen’s first book, The Life Project, was named science book of the year by The Observer and was a book of the year for The Economist. Her second book, Beyond Belief was published in April and named a Financial Times best summer book of 2026. Helen studied Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge and completed a PhD in genetics at the University of Edinburgh.

Tailoring to the Audience? Ethics of Argumentation in Vegan Advocacy

Friday, April 17 11am ET

Friderike Spang is presenting. Here is her topic:

In this paper*, I treat vegan activism as a form of deliberative activism: a practice centered on exchanging reasons and engaging interlocutors through argument. Within this deliberative setting, activists are often encouraged to tailor their message to the audience, advocating for veganism in terms of health or environmental benefits rather than animal suffering. This talk examines the ethical implications of that practice. I argue that audience-tailored framing can generate significant moral costs for non-human animals: When the core concern of animal suffering is set aside for strategic reasons, deliberative exchanges can inadvertently objectify animals, weaken their moral standing, reinforce property notions, make future harms easier to justify, and create a hierarchy of moral worth among different animal species.

The talk also opens up broader questions for the ethics of argumentation: what responsibilities do advocates bear when choosing their argumentative strategy? And, especially in the case of advocacy for non-human beings, what distinct responsibilities arise when speaking on behalf of those who cannot participate in the exchange themselves? The aim is to show that the question of “what persuades” should not be treated in isolation but considered together with other ethical concerns.

https://bit.ly/4mIh6l6

Ethics in the Classroom – 4/10/26 Lecture

Why and How We Ought to Address Ethics in Critical Thinking Courses

Katharina Stevens, Assoc. Prof. of Philosophy, University of Lethbridge

Abstract: There are probably as many ideas about what belongs in a critical thinking course as there are instructors who teach critical thinking courses. But one thing that is generally missing in such courses are lessons that specifically address the ethics of interpersonal reasoning. In this talk, I will present an argument for the claim that we all should teach some ethics in our critical thinking courses, and I will address shortly how I think this can be possible without having to overhaul our courses completely.

April 10, 11:00 US Eastern Time
Zoom Link:https://wisconsin-edu.zoom.us/j/7153464115

Events will be recorded and archived on the AILACT YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ailactvideos

“When Should We Argue?”

Ethics of Argumentation is presenting the first talk of 2026, “When Should We Argue?”by Neil Levy on Friday, January 9, 1pm ET. Sounds pretty interesting. Go to this link to listen live.:

https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fuleth.zoom.us%2Fj%2F97510128232&data=05%7C02%7C%7Cb40f39d0a8d545e0dbca08de4d70bbbd%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C639033343815270714%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=%2FKm6E%2BRBClnn5TIBC7n3tuyw31Gg4Xni2XZbjGHjlNE%3D&reserved=0

You can go to this link to see past talks, including this one if you miss it:

https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.argnet.org%2Fethics-of-arg&data=05%7C02%7C%7Cb40f39d0a8d545e0dbca08de4d70bbbd%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C639033343815245483%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=KL7K1e6KWsoz7lkEQ6VSiCpWK7V5gmE6tvDlKtid1bk%3D&reserved=0

My Article in New Issue of Skeptical Inquirer

The new Nov/Dec issue of Skeptical Inquirer (http://bit.ly/3Jv4tKU) has my article, “Teaching Critical Thinking in Authoritarian Cultures” (p. 8). While most articles are free, not all are available to nonsubscribers. Unfortunately, mine is one of them. But check out the rest of the magazine for some great reading you won’t find elsewhere. A subscription is very reasonable.

Lecture on Argument Mapping as a Game

The Association for Informal Logic and Critical Thinkingis thrilled to announce the next session of:

The AILACT Speakers Forum

November 21, 11:00 US Eastern Time Please note this special date!
Zoom Link:https://wisconsin-edu.zoom.us/j/7153464115

Better Disagreement through Simplified Argument Mapping Disguised as a Game

Steve Franconeri

Professor

Visual Thinking Laboratory

Department of Psychology

Northwestern University

His research is on how well-designed visual displays (charts, slides, and diagrams) can help people think and communicate better.

Abstract:
Point Taken (https://pointtaken.social/) is Franconeri’s kitchen-table argumentation/collaboration game, designed to create clear and calm disagreements, combining the best prescriptions from conflict resolution and critical thinking. Steve will discuss and demonstrate the game, and then enthusiastically ask for your feedback on new and possible mechanics. Events will be recorded and archived on the AILACT YouTube channel:https://www.youtube.com/@ailactvideos

Please join us and please forward this on to others

If you have questions, please contact Kevin Possin directly at kpossin@winona.edu

CALL FOR PROPOSALS: Please consider being a speaker by sending an abstract of your topic to:

Frank Fair [psy_fkf@SHSU.EDU] or Dona Warren [dwarren@uwsp.edu]

Next Forum:

The AILACT Speakers Forum will return for a Spring season in February 2026

Hear From an Expert on AI August 1 (1pm ET)

“I’d Rather Talk to an AI”: Examining the Moral Risks of Outsourcing Belief Revision to ChatGPT

Presented by Martina Orlandi, Assistant Professor in the Applied Artificial Intelligence Program at Trent University Durham, Canada.

Convincing people that their beliefs are unwarranted is a notoriously challenging task. Granted that nobody enjoys being lectured, the culprit is that individuals often have non-epistemic interests that motivate them to hold onto certain beliefs. This is the case of conspiracy theorists. The standard view in both psychology and philosophy argues that conspiracy theorists are drawn to conspiracy theories for non-epistemic reasons and that reiterating the evidence not only is insufficient for belief revision, but it can also have a boomerang effect (Douglas et al. 2017; Horne at al. 2015).
However, in April 2024 a comprehensive study from a group of psychologists at MIT has challenged this received wisdom and showed a surprising result: that while individuals struggle to persuade conspiracy theorists that they are wrong, ChatGPT can successfully change their minds by engaging in an evidence-based dialogue (Costello et al. 2024). What’s more, this change seems to be durable and to last for months.
What should we, philosophers, make of these results? In this talk, I examine the philosophical import of outsourcing belief revision to AI. Insofar as abandoning false beliefs is epistemically rational, ChatGPT seems to bring about positive consequences by leading conspiracy theorists to revise their beliefs in light of factual evidence. However, I argue that outsourcing belief revision to AI also carries ethical risks by undermining moral growth. For example, when it comes to morally loaded conspiracy theories that target particular segments of the population (like those that drive distrust in scientists, or target vulnerable minorities, etc.), reconciling with factual beliefs can also restore trust in those targets, thus bringing about positive collective consequences by strengthening the social fabric. But this can only occur when true beliefs are delivered by other persons. Outsourcing belief revision to ChatGPT necessarily eradicates such positive returns because it undermines this relational benefit.

So You Like to Argue? Here’s Your Chance

Call for Abstracts – Arguing for Sport

Formal debate has been a staple of fostering competency in critical thinking since … well, Plato’s time at least. By now, there are dozens of styles, with varying degrees of adversariality, conditions for winning and topical constraints. To many students, debate was a life-changing experience that had a lasting impact on their approach to reasoning and argumentation generally.

In addition to a continuous interest in debate as a teaching method among practitioners at high schools and universities, we have also seen a recent uptick in interest in the practice from argumentation theorists working in vastly different traditions, examples of which are the work that the ADAB team at Ibn Haldon University have done on the Islamic Munazara tradition, and the recent 2nd International Conference on Debate and Dialogue in Qatar.

We therefore believe that it is time to update our discussion on the merits and disadvantages of using debate to teach critical thinking. We welcome submissions from all academic disciplines on topics concerning the role of all types of formally structured debate in critical thinking and argumentation education./more

Possible Topics Include: The merit of arguing according to explicit rules; adversarial vs. cooperative approaches; argument design and debate design; training devil’s advocacy through debate; debate practices in different cultures; debate as training for the job market; debate and legal reasoning; the history of debate as education; debate styles (e.g. Ethics Bowl, CX Debate, Munazara, Lincoln-Douglas etc.).

Details

THIS WORKSHOP IS ONLINE

Five papers will be accepted for presentation at the workshop based on peer-reviewed abstracts. Each paper will be assigned a student commentator. For this reason, papers need to be submitted at a minimum two weeks before the presentation date to allow commentators enough time to formulate their comments.

Presenters will have thirty minutes to present their papers. Commentators will have ten minutes to comment. While papers will only be presented in English, we encourage second language speakers to take advantage of this opportunity to try preparing and presenting in English with an understanding and compassionate audience.

Application

To apply, please send an abstract of 250-300 words to fuehrer@uleth.ca by August 1, 2025. Completed papers should be no more than 8000 words excluding notes and bibliography.

If you are a student interested in being a commentator, please send an email with a list of your credentials, including the program you are enrolled in, and outlining your affiliation with argumentation.

Important Dates

– August 1, 2025 – Abstracts due

– January 9, 2026 – Papers due

– January 23, 2026 – Workshop

Sincerely,

Nathan Fuehrer, Graduate Student, University of Lethbridge

fuehrer@uleth.ca

July 4th lecture 1pm ET by Christoph Lumer

Prof. Dr. Christoph Lumer will speak about A Welfare Ethics of Argumentation.

Christoph Lumer is a full professor of moral philosophy at the University of Siena. He received his doctorate from the University of Münster (Germany), was a researcher and then associate professor of philosophy at the University of Osnabrück (Germany); since 2002 he has been professor at the University of Siena.

His main fields of research are: practical philosophy: normative and metaethics, environmental ethics, action theory, theory of practical rationality; theoretical philosophy: argumentation theory, metaphilosophy.

Go here https://www.argnet.org/ethics-of-arg-speakers.html for more information about Dr. Lumer. Here is the list of abstracts for this year: https://www.argnet.org/ethics-of-arg.

You can watch past talks on our youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCF50_BXQYXwcqFfLdXav5rg

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEE A TALK, PLEASE EMAIL Katharina.stevens@uleth.ca.

“Psychological Inoculation Against Misinformation”

Save 7pm ET June 28, 2025, to watch Professor Sander van der Linden as he describes the lab and field studies into the process called “prebunking,” which van der Linden says helps people cultivate cognitive antibodies in both simulated and real social media environments. He’ll also detail several interventions—developed and evaluated with public health authorities and technology companies—to help people around the world recognize and resist unwanted attempts to influence and mislead. You must register in advance to attend this free event: Register Now

Much like a viral contagion, misinformation can spread rapidly from one mind to another. Moreover, once lodged in memory, falsehoods are difficult to correct. Inoculation theory offers a natural basis for developing a psychological “vaccine” against the spread of fake news and misinformation. Is it possible to pre-emptively “immunize” millions of people against disinformation by pre-exposing them to severely weakened doses of the techniques that underlie its production?

Sander van der Linden, PhD, is a professor of Social Psychology in Society and Director of the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab in the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge. He has won numerous awards for his research on human judgment, communication, and decision making. He codeveloped the award-winning fake news game “Bad News” and regularly advises governments, public health authorities, and social media companies on how to combat the spread of misinformation.