Just a quick note to pass on the YouTube video of my recent Zoom talk, “The Psychology of Superstition,” for the Philadelphia Association for Critical Thinking (PhACT). It was a nice event, however, there is a rather meandering beginning to the video. I was asked to arrive ten minutes early to deal with technical issues, and all the green room chitchat ended up in the video. So, you may want to scroll ahead about 12 minutes to the beginning of the actual event. I provided a slide show and my full “credibility bookcase” background.

It’s Thanksgiving week in a very unusual year. Students are coming home from college, and there is likely to be some slippage in compliance with health recommendations. All of this as infection rates are already on the rise throughout the country. I am cooking a modest Thanksgiving meal to be delivered to my mother and to a neighbor. It will be an unusual holiday season, but in the last weeks we have begun to hear some very hopeful news about vaccines. If we can just get through this dark season, there should be light and a return to relative normalcy by spring.

Take care.

SV 

Another Friday the 13th has come and gone, and even in the age of pandemic, it holds a fascination. For reasons that I cannot understand, I am quickly becoming a darling of conservative media outlets, and this past Friday I was briefly interviewed on the far-right Newsmax TV. There is no online evidence of my appearance, so perhaps it didn’t happen.

I gave no other new interviews for this Friday the 13t, but there are enough older quotes of mine floating around the internet that they tend to be recycled whenever this scary day pops up. I am aware of quotes from me appearing in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Western Mass News, and the Cincinnati Enquirer.

Finally, I will be giving a zoom talk on the psychology of superstition this coming Saturday November 21 at 2:00 ET for the Philadelphia Association for Critical Thinking (PhACT). The talk is free, and you can register for it here. There will be slides, provided I can remember how to share my screen. I am very much in favor of critical thinking, so I am looking forward to this event.

A quick book recommendation before I go. If you are interested in the nature of the coronavirus epidemic and how it is likely to affect our lives in the future, I recommend Nicholas Christakis’ “Apollo’s Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live.” I’m only a chapter in, but so far it reads like a fast-moving novel. Full of insight about what has and is likely to happen.

That’s all for now.

SV