Something You Should Know - Why Some Things & People Become Popular & How to Use Logic Effectively

Episode Date: October 11, 2018

Anyone who has ever cooked pasta has thought about using HOT tap water instead of cold to speed up the process. After all, hot tap water takes less time to boil. But is it really a good idea to cook with hot tap water? We begin this episode with a discussion on why it is such a bad idea. https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/29/health/29real.html It may seem as if it's luck or chance that causes some things catch on and become popular or go viral. But it isn’t luck really. If you’ve ever wondered why some restaurants succeed while others fail or why some books, TV shows or movies do great but others go nowhere, you will want to listen to this segment. Jonah Berger, is a professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and author of the book Contagious: Why Things Catch On https://amzn.to/2IQAn0s. Jonah joins me to explains the science of popularity – and it really is a science.  Conventional wisdom is that you should change the oil in your car every 3,000 miles. And it is a great example of just how wrong conventional wisdom is. Now it used to be accurate but not with cars today. Listen as I reveal how often you should REALLY change your oil. http://www.edmunds.com/car-care/stop-changing-your-oil.html?mktcat=maintenance-article&kw=stop+changing+your+oil&mktid=ob61762858&msite=w Logic is sometimes misunderstood. For example, can you be logical AND emotional? (That was always an issue for Mr. Spock on Star Trek). Is there only one logical way to get to a conclusion? How does logic really work? We all need logic and to help you understand it is Eugenia Cheng. She is Scientist in Residence at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago and author of the book The Art of Logic in an Illogical World https://amzn.to/2QHth15. She joins me to explain logic and how you can use logic more effectively in your life. This Week's Sponsors care/of. For 25% off your first month of personalized care/of vitamins go to www.TakeCareOf.com and use the promo code SOMETHING   Ancestry DNA. For 20% off your Ancestry DNA Kit go to www.ancestry.com/something Glip. Get a free Glip account at www.glip.com/something Madison Reed. For 10% off plus free shipping on your first order go to www.Madison-Reed.com/something Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As a listener to Something You Should Know, I can only assume that you are someone who likes to learn about new and interesting things and bring more knowledge to work for you in your everyday life. I mean, that's kind of what Something You Should Know is all about. And so I want to invite you to listen to another podcast called TED Talks Daily. Now, you know about TED Talks, right? Many of the guests on Something You Should Know have done TED Talks. Well, you see, TED Talks Daily is a podcast that brings you a new TED Talk every weekday in less than 15 minutes. Join host Elise Hu. She goes beyond the headlines so you can hear about the big ideas shaping our future.

Learn about things like sustainable fashion, embracing your entrepreneurial spirit, the future of robotics, and so much more. Like I said, if you like this podcast, Something You Should Know, I'm pretty sure you're going to like TED Talks Daily. And you get TED Talks Daily wherever you get your podcasts. Today on Something You Should Know, is it okay to cook with hot tap water? The simple answer is no, and I'll explain why. Then, why do things catch on and become popular? One reason is something called social currency. For example, a couple years ago, Beyonce came out with a new album. No advertising. Just put it

online because she knew that her followers want to be the first person to tell their friends, if you know about something before everyone else does, it makes you look special. It makes you look in the know. And so you pass it on to get that social currency. Plus, how often should you change your oil? The answer is nothing close to every 3,000 miles. And Mr. Spock on Star Trek struggled with logic and emotions. Are they incompatible with each other?

No. Logic and emotions aren't in a strict dichotomy with each other. And I think it's very dangerous to believe that if you are emotional, then you are definitely not being logical. All this today

on Something You Should Know. Since I host a podcast, it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast. And I tell people, if you like Something You Should Know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show. Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest. Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests, but Jordan does it better than most. Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS and went to prison for three years. She now works to raise awareness on this issue. It's a great conversation. And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how

taking birth control not only prevents pregnancy, it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices, and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes. Apple named The Jordan Harbinger Show one of the best podcasts a few years back, and in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed critical thinker. Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice

you can use in your life. Today, something you should know with Mike Carruthers. Hi, so here's a big deal. On Monday of this week, we, for the first time ever in the history of this podcast, which is a little over two years old now, we hit 1 million downloads, 1 million listeners for the preceding 30 days. That's a big deal, given when we started, we were lucky to have 100 listeners in the preceding 30 days. So since you are now listening to this episode of this podcast, you are part of the reason we hit that million download milestone. And for that, a sincere thank you. First up today, have you ever been in the kitchen ready to cook pasta and thought, well, one way to speed up this process is to start with hot tap water because then the water

will boil faster since it's already hot out of the tap? Well, that turns out to be a pretty bad idea. According to the EPA, the heat in tap water can actually dissolve toxic metal in the plumbing, exposing you to lead. And exposure to lead can cause all kinds of health problems. Now, lead is rarely found in source water, but it can enter the water through corroded plumbing. The EPA says that older homes are more likely to have lead pipes and fixtures, but even newer plumbing advertised as lead-free can still contain as much as 8% lead.

So the best advice is to turn on the tap and let it run for a bit if it's been off for several hours. After the pipes have been flushed out, you're good to go, but stick with cold water for drinking and cooking, and only use hot water for washing. And that is something you should know. Have you ever wondered why some things catch on? Why does one restaurant become really popular while the one across the street fails?

Why does one book hit the bestseller list when millions of other good books don't? Why do cat videos go viral? Why do some movies and TV shows become big blockbusters and others don't? Of course, quality is a factor, but there's a lot more going on here. Jonah Berger set out to find out why things catch on. Jonah is a professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and he is author of a book called Contagious, Why Things Catch On. Hi, Jonah. Welcome. Thanks so much for having me. So it may not be possible to answer this because that's why you wrote a whole book to answer this question. But is there sort of a nutshell answer as to why things catch on?

You know, we say see things catch on in all areas of our lives, from new products at the grocery store, movies at the multiplex, books, television shows, lots of different things catch on, ideas, viral videos. But when we try to understand why, we often think it's random, it's luck, it's chance. But it turns out there's a science behind it. Actually, if we understand the drivers of word of mouth, of why people talk and share, that's a huge reason why things catch on. And it explains all sorts of products and ideas and behaviors across a range of domains.

So talk about some interesting things that we might know of that have caught on and how they caught on and how, in retrospect, it worked and maybe what the takeaway is from that. One of my favorites is this hot dog restaurant in New York City. So it's a place called Criff Dogs. You walk down a flight of stairs into this sort of subterranean hot dog restaurant. It has dozens of different hot dogs from a New York-style water dog with traditional, you know, just ketchup and mustard. They have a hot dog with green onion and pineapple. They have a hot dog with bacon and eggs and cheese.

It's sort of like a breakfast hot dog. Every hot dog you can imagine. And tucked in the corner is this little phone booth. And if you have a minute, you walk inside this phone booth. It's quite small. But on the wall, there's a little rotary dial phone. And if you stick your finger in the phone, you dial around in a circle like we used to many years ago, and you pick up the receiver, something really interesting happens. Someone else picks up the other line, and they ask you

whether you have a reservation. And what I love about this, you say, reservation? I'm on a phone booth inside of a hot dog restaurant. What could I possibly have a reservation for? But if you're lucky, and they happen to have space, or a friend of yours made a reservation, the back of that phone booth will open and you'll be led into a secret bar called Please Don't Tell. Now, Please Don't Tell is really neat. They've never advertised yet every day they're full. 3 p.m. phone lines open up by 3.30, all the seats are gone. You have to redial again and again and again trying to get through. And it's not lack of competition, right? There are dozens of other bars offering great drinks in New York City. So what led this bar to become so popular? And if you look at it, they did something really interesting. They made themselves

a secret. Think about the last time someone told you something and they told you not to tell anyone else. And if you think about it, what's the first thing you then did with that information? And if you're like most people, you probably told someone else because having access to information that not everyone else has makes you look smart and makes you look in the know. It gives you what I'll call social currency. It's like the car we drive and just like the clothes we wear, the things we talk about and the things we share affect how other people see us. And so one reason people talk about something or they share it is because it makes them look good. It reflects positively on them. So the basis for the popularity of this

restaurant is that people tell people, and the reason they do is because it makes them look good. They're in the know about this secret place that nobody knows about, so they tell people about the secret, and that makes them look good. Definitely. And this idea of social currency happens all the time. Parents brag about their kids' SAT scores. People take selfies with celebrities that they see or pictures of themselves on vacation. We love to make ourselves look good. We love to share things. We pick the stuff from our lives that make us look good rather than bad. But what's really neat about that is it leads things that make the share to look good to be more

likely to catch on. A couple of years ago, Beyonce came out with a new album, no advertising. She just put it online because she knew that her followers want to be the first person to tell their friends that there was a new album out. If you know about something before everyone else does, it makes you look smart. it makes you look special, it makes you look in the know. And so you pass it on to get that social currency. You know, listening to you, it sounds as if these are kind of quirky ways

that things catch on that are kind of below the radar. Do things ever catch on from a more conventional approach, you know, traditional advertising, traditional marketing that we would think of? Or is it usually the stuff you're talking about? Word of mouth tends to be much more impactful than advertising. Some very nice research shows that a dollar spent on word of mouth goes 10 times as far as a dollar spent on traditional advertising. And there are kind of two reasons why. The first, I think, is pretty intuitive, and that is trust, right? We tend not to trust ads because we know ads are trying to convince

us of something. So if you think about a shampoo ad, for example, there's always a man or a woman with short or long, flowy hair. They use the shampoo, and then they get an attractive spouse. You've never seen a shampoo ad where the person doesn't get an attractive spouse. If it's a vacation destination, the kids always look like they're having fun. If it's a restaurant, the food is always tasty. But because those organizations are trying to convince us, because it's always good, it always says the product, the service, the idea is great, we don't know whether to trust it or not. But our friends will tell it to us straight. They'll say, hey, I love that restaurant, or hey, it wasn't really good, or hey, it was good for these type of people,

but not these type of people. And so because of that, we're much more likely to trust our peers. We're much more likely to trust word of mouth. But the second really interesting aspect of word of mouth is I think is a little more nuanced. And that's the targeting benefit. If we think about it, right, ads often tell us about things we're not interested in. Right. You watch television. There's a lot of ads for things you're never going to buy. You might not need a new car. You might not be interested in

a certain brand of shoes. You might never like traveling or not want to go to a particular destination. And so there are lots of ads that sort of don't really fit your interests. Whereas word of mouth tends to be really targeted to you. Sure, we know some people that talk about themselves and blab on at a party about things that don't interest us. But for the most part, people tend to shape what they say based on us. If you don't have a kid, no one's going to tell you about a website for baby clothes. If you don't like spicy food, no one's going to tell you about an Indian restaurant with really spicy curries. They'll pick stuff to tell you that they think fits with you.

And that's really the targeting benefit of word of mouth. It happened to me actually a couple of years ago. I got a book in the mail. Academics often get books from publishers. They send them to us with the hopes that we'll assign them to students and they'll sell more copies in the process. But this time they didn't send us one book or me one book. They sent me two copies of the exact same book. I'm sitting there at my desk going, why the second copy? Somebody must have made a mistake. But there's a note in the back of that book that said, hey, Professor Berger, we think you'll like this book, but we think you'll also know someone else who will like this book. Pass the second copy on to them. And that's really the targeting benefit of word of mouth, because I went out there and figured out who might like

that book. And so because that word of mouth reaches more interested targets, right, much more likely to be impactful because we trust it and because it's more relevant to our own interests. Talk about emotion and how that enters into this. We looked at emotion, actually, in a study we did a number of years ago. We were interested in what makes online content viral. So, you know, why do certain newspaper articles make the most emailed list? And so we worked with the New York Times. We got six months of articles, thousands of thousands of articles from their website.

And we've done similar work with other newspapers and other online outlets. And we analyze them on a variety of different dimensions. Sure enough, you know, more interesting or surprising articles got shared. But then we looked at emotion and we saw something quite interesting. More emotional content is more likely to be shared. But when you look at specific emotions, it's actually more complicated. You might think that people share positive things and avoid sharing negative ones. So, you know, we talked about the fact that people like to share things that make them look good. You know, you get promoted, you talk about it. You're a celebrity, you talk about it. But maybe if you get fired, you don't talk about it. If you're bummed out, you don't talk about it. And

so we share positive things and avoid sharing negative ones. When we looked at the data, we saw something interesting. So sad things, people that made people more sad, were less likely to be shared. The more sad an article, the more sad a video makes us, the less likely we are to share it. But not all negative emotions were like that. When we looked at anger or anxiety, anger or anxiety actually increased sharing. Even though anger is a negative emotion, it doesn't feel very good, it actually increases our likelihood of sharing. And so one question is, well, what's different between anger and sadness? They're both negative emotions.

Why does one decrease sharing and one increases sharing? And it turns out it's about the behavioral tendencies associated with these emotions. So think for a minute what you do when you're sad versus what you do when you're angry. When you're sad, you kind of power down a little bit, right? You want to curl up in a ball or be alone or watch your favorite movie or kind of power down. Or if you're angry, you're fired up. You want to yell at someone, you want to throw something, you want to take an action. And it turns out that this action, this activating aspect of emotions, what's called physiological arousal, actually drives a lot of sharing. It's not about whether emotions are positive or negative.

It's whether they power us up or they power us down. And so all sorts of high arousal emotions, from negative ones like anger and anxiety to positive ones like humor and excitement and inspiration, all of those things drive us to share. Whereas these power down emotions, things like sadness or contentment, lead us to be less likely to share. So often people say, well, why do folks share funny videos on YouTube? Because it makes them laugh. And why do they share angry political rants? Because they're pissed off. But actually, they're both exactly the same.

Professor Jonah Berger is my guest. He teaches at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and he is author of the book Contagious, Why Things Catch On. Contained herein are the heresies of Rudolf Buntwine, erstwhile monk turned traveling medical investigator. Join me as I study the secrets of the divine plagues and uncover the blasphemous truth that ours is not a loving God and we are not its favored children. The heresies of Randolph Bantwine, wherever podcasts are available. You know, it's a simple fact that 90% of people fall short of FDA-recommended guidelines for at

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So, Jonah, talk about the importance of practical value, because I think that's one of the things people might not readily think of when they think of why things get shared. Practical value is all about helping others. We don't just share things because we want to look good. We share things because we want to make other people better off. If you think about why we share Black Friday deals or why we share, you know, seven superfoods you should eat more of, or here are six tips to interview better if you have a friend who's going on an important interview. We share this helpful information not just because it makes us look good, but because we want to help other people be better off. There's this great

example I talk about in the book of this viral video that got 10 million views. And that by itself is not surprising. Lots of videos get millions of views. What is surprising is the guy who made it is 80 years old, and the video is about one of the least exciting things we can think of, and that is corn. And so how does an 80-year-old make a viral video about one of the least exciting things we could think of, corn? And so it turns out he has a trick for eating corn better. When you eat corn, there are two issues, right? One, it gets stuck in your teeth. He can't solve that one. But the second is it has those annoying things called silks along the side, right? Once you take off the husk, you can never get rid of all the silks. They stay on there and they're sort of annoying. And so he has a trick

for getting rid of them. You toss a year of corn in the microwave for a couple minutes, you take it out, you hold the husk, you cut the bottom quarter inch off and out drops the husk, clean ears every time. Is this extremely remarkable? No. Is it highly emotional? Definitely not. But what it is, is pure, useful information. And so one of the reasons we share is not just because it makes us look good, because it helps make others' lives better. Well, I think everybody, yeah, everybody can relate to that because we like to know something that we can share with someone else that they would find valuable. It just, it makes us feel good.

It certainly makes us feel good. And, you know, I think what's interesting about the motivations behind sharing is some of them make a lot of sense, right? The idea we share things that help others out make a lot of sense. But triggers is one, when I talk about it, that people go, I never would have thought of that before. And the idea very simply is sometimes we don't talk about things that make us look good. We simply talk about things that are top of mind. So if I said peanut butter, for example,

what word might you think of? Jelly. Jelly. Or if I said rum and you might think of? Coke. Coke. Yeah. So the first word is a trigger for the second. It makes us think about something, even if it's not there. And there was a great example of this a couple of the second. It makes us think about something even if it's not there. And there was a great example of this a couple of years ago. So some of your listeners might remember the insurance company Geico had this ad about hump day with a camel in it. So this annoying camel walked through an office going, what day is it today? What day is it? Everyone ignores him. He's a very annoying camel. Finally comes across this poor woman and she goes, it's hump day. And the camel gets very excited

and he goes, whoa. And the ad says, how happy are people who save money with Geico? Happier than a camel on hump day. Now, this video is a little bit funny. It's not that funny. It's a little bit funny, certainly. Yet it's one of the most shared videos from a couple of years ago. Not a car ad, not a beer ad, but an insurance ad. And so why do so many people share a boring thing like an insurance ad? Well, if you dig a little deeper, you see a really interesting pattern. There's a spike in shares, and then it goes down, and another spike, and then it goes down, and another spike, and then it goes down. But if you look closer, the spikes aren't random. They're actually seven days apart. And if you look even closer, you'll notice that they're every,

well, Wednesday, or as it's colloquially known, hump day. So, you know, this video is equally good or bad, funny or not funny every day of the week, but Wednesday rolls around and provides a ready reminder, what a psychologist might call a trigger, to make people think about it and talk about it and share it. Because if something's top of mind, it's much more likely to be tip of tongue. And so we don't only share things we like, we share things because we're thinking about them. Often, particularly in face-to-face conversation, we don't share the funniest or most interesting thing that happened to us. We share just whatever's top of mind because we don't want to sit there in silence. We want to fill in that conversational space. And so things that are top of mind or things that are cued by the environment are much more likely to be talked about.

And so companies try to make their products top of mind, which, you know, essentially is what advertising is, is to keep the name and the brand in front of the public so they remember it. Certainly. So, you know, there's a great example I talk about in the book about KitKat. So, you know, a great candy bar that many of us love and associate with maybe Halloween. And so a few years ago, you know, people still liked KitKat, but for some reason they weren't buying it. Sales were down around 30%. And so KitKat was trying you know, people still liked KitKat, but for some reason they weren't buying it. Sales were down around 30%. And so KitKat was trying to figure out what to do. You know, oh, we should talk about how delicious it is.

What should we do? And they ended up coming up with a really interesting strategy. They linked KitKat to coffee. So they had a bunch of radio campaigns that said, you know, having a coffee break, have a KitKat. Think about coffee, think about KitKat. Coffee and KitKat, KitKat and coffee, best friends forever. And if you think about it, coffee is a perfect trigger for KitKat. Coffee and KitKat, KitKat and coffee, best friends forever. And if you think

about it, coffee is a perfect trigger for KitKat, right? Not only is there a lot of alliteration, but people drink coffee a lot, right? We drink, many people drink coffee multiple times a day, millions of people drink it. And so by linking yourself to a frequent trigger in the environment, you can come to mind more often and get people to talk about you more. And that's in fact what happened with KitKat, right? After this campaign, sales went up over $50 million just because they linked themselves to a reminder in that environment. They didn't change how much people liked KitKat. They changed whether they thought about it or not.

And I know another thing you talk about is stories, the importance of telling a story rather than just telling people, you know, facts and figures, because stories are more emotional. They're more personal. When we want to convince someone, we think about standing up straight, speaking slowly and using lots of facts and figures, assuming that the information will win the day. But information often goes in one ear and out the other. It makes us seem credible, but people can't remember it. Whereas people are much more likely to remember stories. A good story goes a long way. But if you think about it, certain stories are more effective than others. A good story carries a message or idea along for the ride. It's almost like a vessel or a carrier of information. If you think about The Boy Who Cried Wolf, yes, it's an interesting story, but at the end, you learn a moral, right? The moral is don't lie. Bad things happen if you lie.

Lots of great stories have a moral. Lots of religious texts use stories to communicate morals or ideas. And these are what I call a Trojan horse story. Yes, there's an engaging exterior, right? Yes, there's something that makes that story interesting. Otherwise, someone wouldn't tell it. But along the way, it brings an idea, a message, a brand, because too often people tell really engaging stories that they're funny, they make people laugh, but people can't remember the point, right? If you can't remember the point of the story, it's not going to help people change their behavior. It's not going to encourage people to do what you want them to do. And so when we think about being good storytellers, right, stories are a great way to sell ideas. We just have to make sure they bring our message along with them.

I couldn't really find a way to work this into the discussion in the flow of word of mouth and what makes things contagious and all, but part of what you talk about in the book that is word of mouth or the example that you give that fascinated me, is why so many people who work in nail salons are Vietnamese. And word of mouth is the reason why. And it's a fascinating story, and I don't know if it's true everywhere, but certainly here in California, you go by any nail salon, and you look in the window, and virtually everyone who works there looks Asian. And if you examine a little closer, you find out they are primarily from Vietnam.

And why that is, is fascinating. So explain that. Word of mouth shapes everything. It shapes the products we buy. It shapes the nannies we hire, everything in our lives, including what jobs we get. And I was looking into writing this book, Contagious. I was looking around for interesting stories. And I came across this amazing thing that said basically two-thirds, if not people who were Vietnamese that became manicurists. There's a famous story of Tippi Hedren, a famous actress who kind of helped them get careers in that area. And then they told their friends who told their friends who told their friends who told their friends. And suddenly now a whole industry is driven heavily by a certain ethnic group. And this is true in lots of areas of life, right? Word of mouth shapes almost everything we do.

If we understand the science behind it, we have a lot better idea of why things become popular. That's really interesting. Jonah Berger has been my guest. He is a professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. And his book, which has been out for a while and still sells very well because people really like this topic. The book is Contagious, Why Things Catch On. There's a link to his book in the show notes. Thanks for being here, Jonah. Awesome. When you're the member of a team,

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We are famous for rabbit holes, Disney themed games, and fun facts you didn't know you needed, but you definitely need in your life. So if you're looking for a healthy dose of Disney magic, check out Disney Countdown wherever you get your podcasts. On Star Trek, part of what made Mr. Spock an interesting character, a big part of it, was that he was half Vulcan and half human. Vulcans are logical and without emotion, and humans are full of emotions. The implication is that logic and emotion don't go together very well. That's why Mr. Spock was always in conflict.

But is this really true? Can't you be logical and emotional? And just how well do we use logic? What does it mean to be logical when you're talking about something? It's an interesting topic, and here to discuss how you can understand and use logic better in your life is Eugenia Chang. She is the scientist-in-res residence at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago. She has studied logic and is author of the book, The Art of Logic in an Illogical World. Hi, Eugenia. Hi, thanks for having me on. So what does it mean to be logical? What is logic?

I think that logic is a process of deducing things from other things that really have to follow. And so it's not guesswork. It's not evidence. It's not feelings. It's not opinions. It's things that really have to follow from each other. And it's at the absolute central root of how mathematics constructs arguments. If this, then that.

That's right. Now, we have to be careful about that because in normal life, we say if and then in situations that aren't necessarily logical. For example, we might say, if you walk my dog, I'll pay you $20, which isn't a logical statement. It's a promise. And we could also make them as a threat. Like, if you don't eat your broccoli, then I'm going to put you in timeout for 10 minutes. That's a threat, that's not logic. And then there's also, if you don't, if you miss two classes, then you'll fail this course, which is also not logic, that's rules. And so it can be confusing, because in normal life, we're not quite as precise as we are in mathematics. Something I've always wondered about is, is logic science or is it art? Is it two

plus two equals four and that's how we make our argument? Or is it all about interpretation and building a logical argument that supports your theory? Interesting question. Now, I don't feel the need to draw a boundary between science and art. And I think that we have constructed a lot of artificial boundaries between subject areas and between disciplines, just probably for bureaucratic reasons, but they're not really there and one of the things that i do as scientist in residence at the school of the art institute of chicago is i work towards eliminating the boundaries between science and art and showing that yes there are some things that are really really science and some things that are really really art but at some point they're all part of the same thing which is that we're all trying to understand the world

around us. And there are different ways of doing so. And my students and I decided during one interesting discussion in class, we decided that science is sort of about understanding the world. And that art is sort of about interpreting the world. But in order to interpret the world, you kind of need to understand it. And in order to understand it, you kind of need to interpret it. So it's really two different, slightly different emphases on the same idea, which is how can we make sense of the world around us? Maybe another way to ask the question, because in math and in science, you know, if you have a formula, then X equals seven. It doesn't equal anything but seven. And there's only that important thing in mathematics, that x equals 7, maybe if you solve that equation in one world of numbers, but maybe in some other world of numbers, x won't equal 7

at all. And do you think, it's just my observation and maybe my experience, that it's easier to see the logic or the illogic in what somebody else says than it is in what you say. It's hard to find the flaws in your own argument. It's easier to find them in the argument of others. That's an interesting question. I mean, I think that most of us like to think that we're right. Exactly. All the time.

Because that's why we say things. We don't deliberate, most of us anyway, don't deliberately say things that we know to be wrong. I mean, some people do, but many of us only say things that we think are right. And then from our point of view, the things that other people are saying might obviously be wrong. And I think it's really important. And one of the things I stress in my book is that it's important to find what's right in what other people say, not just find what's wrong. And then by the same token, it's important to understand what could be viewed as wrong in what we say, so that we don't just think of ourselves as being right. And I impose a discipline on myself where I read comments online on articles. Some people say, never read the comments. And I always read the comments until I feel ill about what people are saying, because I think it's really important to remain aware of viewpoints that are very different from my own so that I can remember to challenge my own viewpoints and see if I really think that.

And I think that an important aspect of a rational person is that they're open to changing their mind if they get new information or new ideas. Can you use, well, I guess you can attempt to use, can you use logic to make any argument? I mean, in some extremely redundant way, I'm thinking like a mathematician here, in some very redundant way, yes. Because if you take the conclusion as an axiom, then it is in fact logical. For example, some people say, I don't believe in same-sex marriage because I believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman. And all they've really done there is say the same thing twice. And so they've really taken their conclusion as a fundamental belief and declared that to be their reasoning. Now that is not illogical. It definitely is logical, but it's not very

usefully logical because it hasn't really got us anywhere. It hasn't really unpacked why we're thinking the thing that we're thinking. And so I think that it is possible to be logical without being powerfully logical or helpful or getting anywhere. And so maybe really the answer is can every point of view be unpacked to some very basic beliefs via a chain of deductions and i think the answer to that is yes so i said at the beginning of this segment that that one of the reasons mr spock in star trek was so interesting was because of this inner conflict between logic and emotion, with the implication being that there is a conflict, that they are oil and water, that they don't mix. Do you believe that? Do you believe that in order to be logical, you must be devoid of emotion?

No, and or rather, I think that logic and emotions aren't in a strict dichotomy with each other, just like art and science aren't. And I think that the idea that art and science are believe that if you are emotional, then you are definitely not being logical. And I think that's very unfortunate, especially because it tends to be, I mean, this is not always the case, but I would say as a general trend, it tends to be applied to women because women tend to express their emotions and feel their emotions more strongly. And then other people, often men, but not always, will accuse them of being not logical just because they're being emotional. And I know that I am very emotional. I feel my emotions very strongly and very quickly. But I also know that I'm extremely logical. I am a professional research mathematician and my whole profession depends on my use of logic. And I know that I use both at the same time, even when I'm doing mathematics. For example, when we're doing research in math, we don't just take logical steps to see where that would get us, because it probably wouldn't

get us anywhere. What we do is we develop an intuition and a feeling about what we think is true. And then we try and prove it once we've decided that something feels like it's going to be true. I think that this should be the case in life as well. But if we feel something very, very strongly something that looks irrational to some other people, it might really stem down to some childhood experiences that have stayed with you. For example, just like I am very afraid of dogs. And most people think that this is ridiculous because most people really like dogs. But I think it stems from my childhood experience of dogs and a lack of familiarity with them. And so I don't think that it is

irrational. You can understand it if you understand my life experiences. And I think that that's true of almost all. I'd like to say all, but I'm a very careful mathematician. So I'm going to say almost all just in case. But I think that's true of almost all of people's emotional responses. But we need emotions because emotions work faster than logic, but we can often then find the logic behind how we reacted to something. Can you talk about some of your favorite examples in the modern world of how logic has been used brilliantly, how logic is abused and used poorly? I don't want to be just theoretical here. I want to talk about some real-life examples of how logic works in the real world. So one fantastic example of logic being used badly happened last week when a male physics professor at CERN gave a talk claiming that women simply are worse at physics than men.

And his logical justification for that was that women's research papers are cited less than men's research papers. And he said, the amount of citation tells you how good some work is. And therefore, that proves that women are worse at physics than men. And that sounds logical, but there is another possibility, which is that there is some embedded sexism, so that people cite men's work more because they assume that men's work is better. And so it could go in both directions. That was an example of some faulty logic. And then a couple of days later, of course, a female person won the Nobel Prize in physics.

So that was very satisfying, I thought. Another example that happened last week was the announcement that same-sex partner visas would no longer be available. I think it was for the UN, people working for the UN, that same-sex partner visas would no longer be allowed for unmarried same-sex couples. And this is very difficult for people from some countries where same-sex marriage isn't even allowed. So they have no chance. They're not even allowed to get married, so they will have no chance of getting the visas. And the argument that I read said that this was to be consistent and egalitarian with opposite sex couples, because opposite sex couples have to be married in order to get a partner visa. And previously, same-sex couples did not have to be. And so the argument was this is to make it egalitarian.

But we can see that this is faulty logic, because there are other ways that you could make it egalitarian. But we can see that this is faulty logic because there are other ways that you could make it egalitarian, which is the other way around, allowing opposite sex couples to get visas if they're unmarried as well. And so when some general principle is claimed that isn't actually general, especially if that principle then causes great disadvantage to a certain group of people, in this case, gay people, then the principle has prejudice embedded in it, even though it sounds like a logical principle. And we can tell that it's not an entirely logical principle if it doesn't work in the generality that it was claimed.

In this case, it was claimed that it was in order to be egalitarian, but there could have been other ways. So then to be logical, you would have to justify why you were choosing that method of being egalitarian instead of the other method. How about an example of, in your view, of logic being used well? Oh, good question. There are so many examples of logic being used badly. I could give an example of how someone used logic to convince me to change my mind about something quite dramatic. And that is to do with whether voting in elections should be compulsory or not. So in Australia, it is

compulsory. And here, obviously, it's not compulsory. And I previously, like many people, thought it should not be compulsory because voting should be a right. It's not an obligation. And we can't force people to vote. And then someone explained to me a different principle, which is about false positives and false negatives. So we can think about who votes and we can think about the false positive, which is forcing people to vote when they don't want to vote, as opposed to the false negative, which is preventing people from voting when they have the right to vote. And someone pointed out to me that the point of compulsory voting is to stop the disenfranchisement of some voters who either

feel disengaged from politics, so don't think it's worth it, think their vote won't count, or that they are unable to get enough time off to go and vote, or they can't get transportation to go and vote, or their votes are being suppressed because of rules around what ID you need in order to get to vote. And for example, I read the other day somewhere in Texas has declared that only a driver's license is allowed as a form of ID for voting. And also that all the places you can get a driving license, one of them closed, which meant that some people from a certain place would have to go 50 miles to get a driving license. And if they don't have a car, and there's no public transportation, they simply have no way of getting there, which means that they can't vote. Whereas

in a system where voting is compulsory, then everyone has to be given a way to go and vote. Whereas in a system where voting is compulsory, then everyone has to be given a way to go and vote. And so I've now changed my mind. And I believe in that despite my initial objection, because I think that the issue of false positives and false negatives outweigh my objection about the fact that voting should be a right and not an obligation. And as someone pointed out to me, if you don't want to vote for anyone, you can still show up and abstain on your ballot. Lastly, are there any major flaws that you see people use when they try to use logic? People kind of misconstrue how it works. Yes, I think that one of them is related to what I just said about thinking that

you're using a logical principle when it doesn't count as logical if you're not applying it in all cases. So for example, some people criticize certain female politicians for saying that they're dishonest, but they don't criticize the male politicians for being dishonest. I mean, let's face it, probably all politicians are dishonest at some level about some things. And if they don't also criticize the male politicians for the same thing, then they're not using the general principle of criticizing someone for being dishonest. And that means that we should ask ourselves whether it's actually because they're a female person, not a male person. And something similar is true about allegations of sexual harassment,

where some people say that we should hold people innocent until they're proved guilty. But in fact, they're only really applying that to the accused person. They're not also applying that to the accuser, who should also be held innocent, innocent of false accusation, that is. And if we try and hold them both innocent at the same time, then we are likely to run into a contradiction because it's very unlikely that they can both be innocent. And so we have to find some other principle to get ourselves out of that contradiction. In general, as you talk to people and walk around and listen to people talk, are people generally fairly logical? I mean, on a scale of one to ten, where are we?

I would say no. And I think that we've got into a situation where everyone largely believes that their opinion is valid, and that there are some people who don't think that they have to challenge their opinion or get any evidence and they don't believe experts and they don't believe scientists but then on the other hand there are other people who think that they're better than that when they're not necessarily better than that and they just believe something else without really challenging it and even scientists and mathematicians who are very, very good at logic in their research are prone to making mistakes when they're talking about real life situations, such as this male professor talking about women just being worse at physics.

And other examples I've heard where male scientists say things like, I know that women are different from men because I have two daughters and they're really different from me. And that's an absolutely minuscule sample size that a scientist would never use in their actual research. But somehow, when dealing with real life situations, emotions tend to take over. And what I think is that if we pit logic against emotions in a battle, then logic is never going to win because emotions are stronger and they're faster. And so what we need to do is try and use logic and emotions together so that instead of trying to change people's emotions using logic, we somehow tap into those emotions, just in the same way that people do with advertising and viral videos and memes. It's unfortunate that those things are quite so manipulative. But if we can find a way to convince people emotionally of something that we think is logical, then I think that we'll have a much better chance, as opposed to if we just let logic and emotions fight with each other.

Well, and wasn't that the whole premise of that character in Star Trek, Mr. Spock, who was half human, so he struggled with his logic and his emotions, and they often did not agree? Yes, and I think when logic and emotions don't agree, some people say you should just get rid of your emotions because the logic is correct, but I don't think that's right because I think emotions are always true. And I find it much more interesting to examine why some logic and some emotions don't agree. And it can be very interesting.

For example, I used to be very afraid of flying despite all the statistics. And I knew the statistics say that flying is much safer than traveling in a car, for example. And people told me this over and over again, and I was still completely afraid of flying. And so instead of trying to squash my emotions, which doesn't work, I examined very closely why I was afraid of flying. And it was simply that the act of takeoff is so isolated in its, it's just there, there's takeoff, it's a moment that it just caused me to think about the possibility of dying in a plane crash. And that terrified me. And so I realized that what I needed to do was distract myself during takeoff rather than anything else. And that was how I overcame my fear of flying.

It does seem especially today that people use logic or attempt to use logic in large part to prove somebody's wrong, that it's not to make a case, but it's to show how wrong you are. Yeah, I think that having an argument where you're trying to show the other person is wrong is almost always pointless, actually. And I wish that we could all an argument where you're trying to show the other person is wrong is almost always pointless, actually. And I wish that we could all have arguments where we're trying to understand things more rather than trying to win. The kind of argument where you're really seeking to understand why the other person thinks the things they do. And hopefully they can also try to understand why you think the things you do. And then we can find senses in which we agree as well as senses in which we disagree.

And I think that would be much more productive than the kind where we're just trying to everyone's trying to show that everyone else is wrong. Well, great. And you've been highly logical. So thank you. Eugenia Chang has been my guest. She is the scientist in residence at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago. And her book is The Art of Logic in an Illogical World, and you will find a link to her book in the show notes. Thanks, Eugenia.

Thank you very much. True or false? If you want your car to last, you should change your oil every 3,000 miles. The answer is false. In fact, Edmunds.com says we are wasting millions of dollars on unnecessary oil changes and disposing of millions of gallons of old contaminated waste

oil into the environment. The 3,000 mile change your oil rule is really a marketing tactic to get you to bring your car into the shop more often. In fact, in an article in the trade industry publication National Oil and Lube News, they state, Here's the truth. Your car's owner's manual tells you when to change your oil. Go by that. On average, it's about every 7,800 miles. The 3,000-mile rule was once accurate,

but oil and car technology have rendered it completely obsolete. There is no car manufacturer today who recommends oil be changed every 3,000 miles, not a single one. Porsche recommends you change the oil in their cars every 20,000 miles. Just because the last oil change place you went to put a little sticker on your windshield telling you to come back in 3,000 miles, which is another very effective marketing tactic, don't. Your car doesn't need it.

And that is something you should know. Reviews are always appreciated wherever you listen to this podcast, Apple Podcasts, TuneIn, Spotify, Google Play. Please take a moment and leave a review. I'm Micah Ruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced.

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