Third Millennium Thinking: Creating Sense in a World of Nonsense

How does one make the best decisions and solve the hardest problems in an age of uncertainty and overwhelming information?

Join us for a lively conversation with the physicist (Saul Perlmutter Ph.D), philosopher (John Campbell Ph.D) and psychologist (Rob MacCoun Ph.D) whose book, Third Millennium Thinking presents the tools and frameworks that scientists have developed to keep from fooling themselves, to understand the world, and to make decisions. The conversation will be moderated by writer Jennifer Kahn.

Based on a wildly popular UC Berkeley course, Third Millennium Thinking is a primer on how to think critically, make sound decisions, and solve problems – individually and collectively using scientists’ tricks of the trade.

In our deluge of information, it’s getting harder and harder to distinguish the revelatory from the contradictory. How do we make health decisions in the face of conflicting medical advice? Does the research cited in that article even show what the authors claim? How can we navigate the next Thanksgiving discussion with our in-laws, who follow completely different experts on the topic of climate change?

Using provocative thought exercises, jargon-free language, and vivid illustrations drawn from history, daily life, and scientists’ insider stories, Third Millennium Thinking offers a novel approach for readers to make sense of the nonsense.

Saul Perlmutter Ph.D is a 2011 Nobel Laureate, sharing the Physics prize for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe. He is a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley and a senior scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

JOHN CAMPBELL Ph.D is a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. He has held Guggenheim and NEH Fellowships and served as President of the European Society for Philosophy and Psychology.

Rob MacCoun Ph.D is a social psychologist and a professor of Law at Stanford, and a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute. He received the 2019 James McKeen Cattell Award for lifetime achievement from tehe Association for Psychological Science.

Jennifer Kahn is a staff writer for the New York Times Magazine, and has been a regular feature writer for The New Yorker, National Geographic, and Wired, among others. She writes cover stories and in-depth features on a range of subjects.

This program is supported in part by our Program Sponsors Orchard Nursery and Friends of the Lafayette Library.

Third Millennium Thinking

Lafayette Library and Learning Center Foundation presents