Christoper DiCarlo: How To Become A Really Good Pain In The Location: MSC Escalus Room at MacEwan Hall, University of Calgary When: Tuesday, August 23, 2011 at 7:30-9:30 PM Email: gordwcummings@gmail.com WebSite: http://dicarlo.eventbrite.com/ Book Release and World Lecture Tour: July December, 2011 Dr. Christopher DiCarlo is on a world tour to promote his latest book: How to Become a Really Good Pain in the Ass: A Critical Thinker s Guide to Asking the Right Questions (Prometheus Books, July). He will be lecturing, reading excerpts from the new book, and signing copies in major U.S., Canadian and European cities. About Christopher DiCarlo Voted TV Ontario s Big Ideas Best Lecturer and Canadian Humanist of the Year by Humanist Canada in 2008, Dr. DiCarlo presents highly insightful and lively discussions. He is a past Visiting Research Scholar at Harvard University and the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Here, he conducted research for two books he is currently writing titled: The Comparative Brain: The Evolution of Human Reasoning and The Evolution of Religion: Why Many Need to Believe in Deities, Demons, and the Unseen. He has been invited to speak at numerous national and international conferences and has written many scholarly papers ranging from bioethics to cognitive evolution. About the Book How to Become a Really Good Pain in the Ass is an incisive, engaging, and entertaining guide to critical thinking and its benefits. The overall purpose of this book is to provide readers with tools which will allow them to question beliefs and assumptions held by those who claim to know what they re talking about. A really good pain in the ass is someone who is empowered with the ability to spot faulty reasoning and, by asking the right sorts of questions, hold people accountable not only for what they believe but how they behave. This book revolves around asking and answering five very important questions. They are so important, they are called the Big Five. They are: What can I know? Why am I here? What am I? How should I behave? What is to come of me? The way you answer these questions can tell you a lot about yourself. And if you ask others, their answers will tell you a good deal about them, how they think, and what they value. Of course, if you persist in asking these questions, others may think you ve become a pain in the ass. But that s not such a bad thing according to Dr. DiCarlo because it means you ve learned to think critically. This witty and incisive guide to critical thinking provides you with the tools to allow you to question beliefs and assumptions held by those who claim to know what they re talking about from politicians and lawyers to bankers, doctors, the divinely inspired, and even your boss. But be aware that many people do not like having their views and beliefs questioned and challenged. As a result, being a really good pain in the ass can be lonely; it can lose you friends, promotions, jobs, and marriages; it can get you hurt, beaten up, and sometimes even killed. Michael Ruse, director of the program in history and philosophy of science, Florida State University, calls How to Become a Really Good Pain in the Ass lively and entertaining in an informal but important manner. He says, This work on critical reasoning should be read by students in all fields. However mundane or lofty your goals may be, Dr. DiCarlo s new book will empower you with the necessary tools that will allow you to think more clearly and confidently about important issues that affect all our lives. .
Event Details. Location:
University of Calgary