{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"Frank Keil on Causal Thinking","description":" As a practical matter, how much effort do you put into pinning down the causes behind daily occurrences? To developmental psychologist Frank Keil, who studies causal thinking, that answer is likely along the lines of \u2018not enough.\u2019 A lack of causal thinking is both endemic, and, to an extent, hurtful these days, he argues, suggesting that lacking even simplified causal models makes things like the black box of artificial intelligence a potential problem. In this Social Science Bites podcast, Keil, the Charles C. and Dorathea S. Dilley Professor of Psychology and Linguistics at Yale University, outlines for interviewer David Edmonds how causal thinking is a skill we seem to have at an early age, but which diminishes as we grow up. \u201c[K]ids, by the time they approach elementary school, are asking up to 200 \u2018why\u2019 and \u2018how\u2019 questions a day,\u201d he explains. \u201cWithin a year or two up to starting school, they're down to two or three, often none.\u201d Furthermore, Keil sees this diminishment continuing in society today \u2013 and this comes as a cost. \u201cI think it's making kids today be pushed more towards surface understanding, being user interface understanders. I think it makes influences more influential. To just say \u2018This is cool\u2019 as opposed to \u2018This is how it works.\u2019 One of the negative consequences is that we can get fooled by misinformation more; one of the best ways to debunk an expert is to ask them to explain the mechanism.\u201d At Yale, Keil directs the Cognition and Development lab. He has written several books, from academe-oriented books like Developmental Psychology: The Growth of Mind and Behavior, to more general reader titles like Wonder: Childhood and the Lifelong Love of Science. His awards include the Boyd R. McCandless Award from the American Psychological Association (Developmental Psychology), the Distinguished Scientific Award for an Early Career Contribution to Psychology from the American Psychological Association, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, a MERIT Award from the National Institutes of Health, and the Ann L. Brown Award for Excellence in Developmental Research.   ","author_name":"Social Science Bites","author_url":"http:\/\/www.socialsciencebites.com","html":"