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In this episode, April talks about why good data (current, accurate, and trustworthy) is so important to good thinking. She is perturbed about the current administration's deliberate attempts to delete, change, or hide critical government data. However, she is also hopeful that the many efforts to protect and preserve this data will be successful.

Episode 40 Show Notes--just citations because my explanations took up too much data...

https://www.getrightdata.com/blog/why-quality-matters-the-10-biggest-data-quality-disasters

https://www.smorescience.com/data-driven-life-how-information-shapes-our-daily-decisionsexamples-of-data-in-everyday-life/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/airline-news/2025/05/06/newark-airport-radio-radar-failures/83471323007/

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/white-house-covid-web-page-page-supporting-lab/story?id=120956514

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/31012025/trump-administration-war-on-science/

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/climate-change-transparency-project-foia/2025-02-06/disappearing-data-trump?utm_source=chatgpt.com

https://www.rheumatologyadvisor.com/news/key-cdc-health-websites-vanish-following-trump-orders/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/public-health/removal-pages-cdc-website-brings-confusion-dismay?utm_source=chatgpt.com

https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/02/06/nx-s1-5288113/cdc-website-health-data-trump

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/20/trump-missing-murdered-indigenous-peoples-report-removed?utm_source=chatgpt.com

https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/the-data-hoarders-resisting-trumps-purge

https://libguides.umn.edu/c.php?g=1449575&p=10778647

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Government_watchdog_groups_in_the_United_States

https://journalistsresource.org/home/researchers-rush-to-preserve-federal-health-databases-before-they-disappear-from-government-websites/

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In this episode, April attempts to unpack the complicated topic of propaganda, a form of persuasion used by corporations, advertisers, pundits, influencers, and political personalities. These days, it's important for critical thinkers to understand that there should be a delineation between propaganda and the kind of rhetoric used in democratic governance, to recognize propaganda and to avoid being influenced by it. If this sounds important--well, it is.

Episode 39 Show Notes

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/propaganda--this references the origins of the word propaganda and its original link to religious proselytizing

https://www.thoughtco.com/propaganda-definition-1691544--Dr. Richard Nordquist's excellent ThoughtCo article about the difference between rhetoric and propaganda

https://researchguides.uoregon.edu/medialiteracy/propaganda --University of Oregon's Media Literary Research guide's deep dive into propaganda has some great information about how to determine if something is propaganda

https://researchguides.uoregon.edu/medialiteracy/propaganda --the Naab Research Center gives examples of positive uses of propaganda

Emotional Campaigning in Politics: Being Moved and Anger …--a pdf of Gruning and Schubert's article about the use of emotion in political campaigns

https://www.yourdictionary.com/articles/glittering-generalities--YourDictionary.com has a great article with examples of glittering generalities

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Loaded_language--the list of "snarl" words is at the bottom of this wiki page devoted to loaded language

https://www.allsides.com/sites/default/files/AllSidesMediaBiasChart-Version2.jpg--an updated version of the AllSides Media Bias chart

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/--a great source for checking the bias of any news source, as well as whether it has failed any fact checks

https://disinformation-nation.org/combat-propaganda/--great article about ways to combat propaganda

https://www.shortform.com/summary/thinking-fast-and-slow-summary-daniel-kahneman?utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=531475976&msclkid=704335b2e9371134f6f7526e8cdafb8c--a long web address leading to a short summary of Daniel Kahneman's book Thinking Fast and Slow

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/think-act-be/202003/can-you-be-abundantly-cautious-and-fearless--while this article was written about the Covid pandemic, the ideas in it still resonate

https://www.neuroandcounselingcenter.com/single-post/informed-protect-peace--good ideas from certified mental health counselor Amanda Levison, about how to keep your cool and not get overwhelmed w

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In this episode April explains some very common relevance fallacies--Straw Man, Begging the Question, and Two Wrongs Make a Right. Let's all try not to commit these fallacies, okay?

Episode 38 Show Notes:

https://philosophyterms.com/fallacy-of-relevance/#google_vignette--a handy reference website that gives basic explanations of terms related to philosophy as well as short biographies of many famous philosophers.

https://www.historyextra.com/period/georgian/why-we-say-phrase-red-herring-hunting-origins/--a fun discussion of "red herrings" from the official website for the BBC History Magazine

https://www.etymonline.com/word/straw%20man--want to know the origin of a word or common phrase? This is the website for you.

https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2023/10/protecting-free-speech-compels-some-form-of-social.html--a great article about why social media needs some kind of regulation.

https://effectiviology.com/begging-the-question/--this website always has clear, concise definitions and examples of fallacies.

https://helpfulprofessor.com/straw-man-fallacy-examples/--legit professors help you with your homework by answering almost any academic question you might have.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/whataboutism--hey it's an encyclopedia so...

https://human.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Philosophy/Introduction_to_Logic_and_Critical_Thinking_2e_(van_Cleave)/04%3A_Informal_Fallacies/4.03%3A_Fallacies_of_Relevance--this is an entire OER (Open Educational Resource) philosophy textbook, so anyone can access and read it.