If you had two people trying to argue that, okay, the way I see it is de-way to see it,

I'm right and you're wrong. Nothing fruitful really comes out of that. But if you had two people

approach that same situation and say, okay, let's go shoulder to shoulder on this

and try to understand, why do you think we disagree? Why would we see it differently?

That's the only investigation that will lead to that amazing, deeper truth of, oh, this has to do

with sunlight and priors and stuff. Today we welcome David McRainey on the show. David is a science

journalist fascinated with brains, minds and culture. In 2012 he created the podcast You Are Not So

Smart based on his 2009 internationally bestselling book of the same name and its follow-up,

You Are Now Less Dumb. David is also an editor, photographer, voiceover artist, television host,

journalism teacher, lecturer and tornado survivor. His most recent book is called How Minds Change

and that's the topic of our conversation today. In this episode I talked to David about the

science of belief and persuasion. In this day and age of online tribes and echo chambers,

changing people's opinions seems like an impossible task. Instead of arguing over facts,

David encourages us to use empathy to understand why we disagree. He explains PHA's framework

behind knowledge building and shares the use of technique rebuttal for sincere conversations.

It was a great honor chatting with David. He's someone who's inspired my own podcast, the psychology

podcast. He has been in this podcast space so long and he has thought so deeply about psychological

issues that it was great to riff with him on such an important topic, especially in society today.

So I now bring you David McRainey. David's so great to finally have you on the psychology podcast.

I am happy just to see you, Scott. I am so comfortable doing zooms that I'll just drink coffee

while we're talking. Look at this. Me too. Me too. So yeah, I'm really happy to be here.

You know, I love you. I love you, Sherr. I'm seeing the puzzler and How Minds Change back there in

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