“Do your own research!” It’s not an unfamiliar call, especially more recently, in debates around controversial topics from vaccine effectiveness to the causes of climate change. And it sounds empowering and measured, but in an opinion piece published in the New York Times on January 3, 2022, alumnus Nathan Ballantyne (BA Hon. 2004; MA 2005) and his co-author David Dunning examine why the practice often goes awry and leads to the opposite of healthy critical thinking: misguided overconfidence. Read their “Skeptics Say, ‘Do Your Own Research’: It’s Not That Simple” for more.
Ballantyne is a professor of Philosophy at Fordham University whose work focuses on how to improve judgment, while Dunning is a social psychologist at the University of Michigan who studies misbelief.
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