Melanie Trecek-King

Join host Edouard Tahmizian for a little under half-an-hour with biologist and science popularizer Melanie Trecek-King on misinformation, "artificial intelligence", young-Earth creationism, and declining birth rates. While on the one hand increasing reliance on the constantly evolving large language models branded as "artificial intelligence" threatens to weaken the basic critical thinking skills needed to distinguish between misinformation and knowledge, on the other hand directly challenging people's identity-based beliefs (about evolution or climate change, say) is likely to be less effective than giving them the evidence-based reasoning skills to rout out misinformation themselves. The discussion then turns to how birth control, resources, and giving women more choices over their lives inevitably leads to the declining birth rates that we see across the globe today before delving into how the Earth's "carrying capacity" is highly dependent upon human consumption levels. Tune in for a wide-ranging discussion and check out Trecek-King's forthcoming A Field Guide to Spotting Misinformation: How to Survive and Thrive in the Digital Age, already available for pre-order.