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Episode 31: Branden Fitelson discusses reasoning fallacies

In this episode, Branden Fitelson, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University, joins us to discuss reasoning fallacies.  Click here to listen to our conversation with him.

Imagine that you are worried that you have a rare disease for which there is a reliable test. If you take this test and it returns a positive result, how certain should you be that you have the disease?

Or consider the following: Linda was a philosophy student at Berkeley in the 1960’s who fought for social justice and nuclear disarmament. Is it more likely that she is currently a bank teller or a feminist bank teller?

Professor Fitelson provides the answers to these questions, observes the surprising fact that a supermajority of us consistently answer these sorts of questions incorrectly, and offers an illuminating account of why this might be.

Jaime Edwards

Posted in Podcast.


5 Responses

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  1. wr says

    This is probably the single best piece of audio ever recorded on the subject. Thanks for the fantastic podcast guys.

Continuing the Discussion

  1. Fitelson on Fallacies « Florida Student Philosophy Blog linked to this post on January 20, 2012

    […] some learning here. Share this:ShareEmailFacebookStumbleUponTwitterRedditDiggPrintLike this:LikeBe the first to like […]

  2. The Non Sequitur » Too timid too object linked to this post on February 7, 2012

    […] via Leiter, an interesting podcast on fallacies of reasoning. Bookmark on Delicious Digg this post Recommend on Facebook share via […]

  3. Branden Fitelson on Reasoning Fallacies (Fitelson論推理謬誤) « 法哲學、生活與實踐 linked to this post on February 8, 2012

    […] 經由Prof. Leiter的轉載,發現了這一個訪談,Prof. Fitelson討論推理謬誤,很值得一聽。文中討論到了對於疾病的例子,以及說明如果使用比率或是次數對於人們的發生機率的認知有所影響。但更有趣的是,Fitelson教授利用銀行出納員(bank teller)的例子說明日常生活中的推理謬誤。整段訪談有點長,約40分鐘,但強烈推薦聆聽!! Share this:TwitterFacebookLike this:LikeBe the first to like this post. […]

  4. Confirmation in a ‘threshold’ sense and in a ‘relevance’ sense | Argument in journalism linked to this post on March 8, 2012

    […] Brandon Fitelson, appearing on the Elucidations podcast in January, introduced me to a useful distinction in forms of “confirmation,” as in some evidence […]



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