Conference "Thomas Durand - Zététique & biais cognitifs" (Zetetics and cognitive biases)

École Nationale de Chimie de Montpellier, amphithéâtre Mousseron, 240 Avenue du Professeur Émile Jeanbrau 34090 Montpellier.

Zetetics takes an interest in speeches in the field of beliefs and pseudosciences, in order to tame the intellectual tools needed to assess the validity of speeches in general.

The first step in zetetics is to become aware of our own biases, the blind spots in our rationality, and what results in spite of ourselves: the persistence of disproved beliefs. No one is immune to the persistence of error, because certain beliefs turn our intelligence against us.
Fortunately, there are ways of limiting the damage, identifying situations where error is likely, suspending our judgment and asking ourselves the right questions. This helps us to avoid falling into the traps set before us, but also to outwit the greatest manipulator of all: ourselves.

This conference is organized by ED GAIA and the Geosciences Montpellier laboratory.

About Thomas Durand

Science popularizer, host of La Tronche en Biais, author of books on science and critical thinking (L'ironie de l'évolution, Seuil 2018. Connaissez-vous l'homéopathie? Editions Matériologiques 2019. Quand est-ce qu'on biaise? Humenscience 2019. Pyramidologie, 2021), and director of the Association pour la Science et la Transmission de l'Esprit Critique (ASTEC), Thomas Durand is also a novelist and playwright.

• Free but compulsory registration by clicking here.