Madeleine Brand had me on her KPCC public radio show today to talk about illusory correlations (as they apply to the Juan Williams controversy) and the action bias (as it applies to the upcoming 2010 midterm elections).
Listen here or download the file here http://bit.ly/9OpK5a

http://bit.ly/dkYwC7
Ever hear of the phenomenon called an “illusory correlation”? It explains why commentator Williams, who was recently fired from NPR, associates Muslims at airports with terrorists.
I am going to be writing my next column for Slate about this issue. To whet your appetite, here’s a radio interview about illusory correlations and other biases with Steve [...]

http://bit.ly/cNVLOA
Joseph Stack, the Texas man who burned his house down and then recently flew a plane into an IRS building, killing one person, has some stark similarities to the the suicide bomber I write about in The Hidden Brain. Like Stack, Larry Layton was white and American — which apparently makes it difficult for some [...]

http://bit.ly/aibJLe
A new interview explores what happens to people when they are deprived of their hidden brains.
Much of The Hidden Brain is about the problems that unconscious factors create in our lives — from the vagaries in our moral judgment to the ways in which suicide bombers are indoctrinated. A natural conclusion from these examples is that [...]

http://bit.ly/cT6NkU
I spent some time in the interview talking about an unconscious bias I discovered in my own three year-old daughter. Before she could tie her own shoelaces, she had already come to the conclusion that nurses always have to be women, and that doctors usually have to be men. Where do you think this bias [...]

http://bit.ly/cc8JWl
Listen to an interview about The Hidden Brain conducted by the Diane Rehm show. The show was guest-hosted by the immensely talented Susan Page of USA Today, and featured a discussion that ranged from how to reform our criminal justice system to same-sex attraction among Visigoths. Sorry, I can’t say more. You’ll just have to [...]

There are more reader reviews of The Hidden Brain on Amazon See http://bit.ly/7BW7iu
Dr Yuval Lirov: Vedantam, an accomplished science journalist, combines an exceptional story telling talent with modern psychology research to explore seemingly intractable questions, including why very young children exhibit racial preferences, how peaceful, professional family people become suicide bombers, and why smart and [...]

As children, we all like Santa Claus. But it would be odd if an adult were invested in the fantasy, went to great pains to prove the existence of Santa, and denied all questions about the burly man in the red suit. That would not be charming. It would be silly, even disturbing.
David Brooks recently asked [...]

Every time there is a terrorist incident (or an attempted terrorist incident) in the United States, supporters and critics of more intrusive security measures engage in a form of intellectual dishonesty. Those who advocate greater security measures argue that they can carry out those measures without harming innocents. Those who criticize those measures argue that [...]

Early news reports suggest that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian man who attemped to bring down a Northwest Airlines plane in Detroit, went in search of Al Qaeda masterminds in Yemen. If the reports are accurate, this would mean Abdulmutallab was following a pattern established by several other suicide terrorists and would-be suicide terrorists. Rather than [...]