I’m a former academic philosopher of science. Now I work as an independent educator and consultant, helping individuals and companies develop their capacity to think critically, communicate persuasively, and make smart decisions that promote their true goals and values.
- As a solo entrepreneur, I develop learning resources (video courses, podcasts, ebooks) and run a membership site dedicated to helping individuals develop their critical thinking, argumentation and persuasion skills. One can think of this work as located at the intersection of critical thinking education and personal development.
- As an educational consultant, I give talks and run workshops on the topics related to critical thinking education, teacher training and curriculum development.
- As a business consultant, I work with the amazing team at Lenker Consulting, where I bring my skills as a writer, researcher, analyst and philosopher to help businesses fulfill their aspirational goals and make a positive impact on the world.
032 – When Tribalism Becomes Pathological
On this episode of the Argument Ninja podcast I share the audio for the three videos I recently produced on Cognitive Biases, Tribalism and Politics. It was designed as one long video presenting one long argument, so the audio works well in this continuous format.
031 – New Cartoon Videos Plus a Fall 2018 Update
On this episode of the Argument Ninja podcast I talk about the three new videos I recently produced on Cognitive Biases, Tribalism and Politics, and I give an update on what’s been keeping me busy this fall.
Cognitive Biases, Tribalism and Politics
In this set of videos I present a framework for thinking about how polarized political and cultural environments interact with our natural tribal psychology to create “pathological tribalism”. I show how under pathological tribalism our ability to think critically and independently is compromised. Polarized environments are hostile to critical thinking. (What a shock!)
Conference Talk at HCC – Critical Thinking and Tribalism
On Nov 2-3 I had the pleasure of traveling to Houston, Texas, to Houston Community College, to participate in their annual Philosophy & Humanities Conference. I was also fortunate to be asked to give the keynote presentation for this conference.
What People Are Saying …
I have over 30,000 students registered in my four video courses that I host on Udemy, the most popular video course marketplace on the web. Udemy has a very robust student feedback and course rating system, which is obviously important in a course marketplace, but also helpful for instructors to see what’s working and what needs improvement. I’m happy to see that my courses have a lot of positive reviews from paying students on Udemy. Here are some with concrete feedback.
30 – Behind the Scenes of My New Video Course
On this episode I talk about the genesis of my new video course, “The Vocabulary of Science: First Steps to Science Literacy”, and my decision to start producing the Argument Ninja podcast in both audio and video formats.
What is a Fact? A Preview From My New Video Course
I’ll soon be releasing a new video course that will be available on my video tutorial site, Critical Thinker Academy, and on Udemy. The course is titled “The Vocabulary of Science: First Steps to Science Literacy”. It introduces some fundamental concepts about the nature of science and scientific reasoning by examining the various ways that scientists and non-scientists use terms like “theory”, “fact”, “law”, “hypothesis”, and “model”. Below is a sequence of three videos from the course that explore the concept of a scientific “fact”.
029 – How to Raise a Critical Thinker
On this episode of the Argument Ninja podcast I talk about the importance of critical thinking education for kids and teens, and what parents can do to help their kids become better critical thinkers.