Behavioral Grooves Podcast

When we pretend to know something that we don’t or start a comment with “everyone knows that...”, we create an atmosphere where answers become irrelevant. It closes off our openness to new ideas, ways of thinking and discovering new information. This is the curse of knowingness.   On this episode of Behavioral Grooves, Jonathan Malesic discusses the concept of "knowingness" - the tendency people have to act like they already know something when in fact they don't. This false sense of knowledge can prevent learning and understanding. Overcoming knowingness requires maintaining a healthy skepticism and openness to new evidence.    Knowingness afflicts all corners of our politics. And I think that it's a real problem when it starts afflicting people whose job is to inform us.   Jonathan Malesic teaches writing at Southern Methodist University and creative nonfiction at the University of Texas at Dallas. He’s a philosopher and scholar and cares a lot about something we do every week: science communication. And