"How Minds Change" with David McRaney In-Person
Join us for an evening with David McRaney, a September Writer-In-Residence with The Community Library at the Hemingway House. McRaney will discuss his book, How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion - a brain-bending investigation of why some people never change their minds—and others do in an instant.
What made a prominent conspiracy-theorist YouTuber finally see that 9/11 was not a hoax? How do voter opinions shift from neutral to resolute? Can widespread social change only take place when a generation dies out? Delving into the latest research of psychologists and neuroscientists, How Minds Change explores the limits of reasoning, the power of groupthink, and the effects of deep canvassing.
Told with McRaney's trademark sense of humor, compassion, and scientific curiosity, it's an eye-opening journey among cult members, conspiracy theorists, and political activists, from Westboro Baptist Church picketers to LGBTQ campaigners in California – that ultimately challenges us to question our own motives and beliefs. In an age of dangerous conspiratorial thinking, can we rise to the occasion with empathy? An expansive, big-hearted journalistic narrative, How Minds Change reaches surprising and thought-provoking conclusions, to demonstrate the rare but transformative circumstances under which minds can change.
- Date:
- Thursday, September 25, 2025
- Time:
- 5:30pm - 6:30pm
- Time Zone:
- Mountain Time - US & Canada (change)
- Location:
- John A. and Carole O. Moran Lecture Hall
- Campus:
- The Community Library
- Audience:
- Adults
- Categories:
- Lectures & Conversations
David McRaney is a science journalist and bestselling author fascinated with brains, minds, and cultures. He created the blog, book, and ongoing podcast You Are Not So Smart, which he calls a "celebration of self delusion," and his most recent book, How Minds Change, is all about conspiratorial thinking, the nuances of persuasion, and how and why people do and do not change their minds.
David has written for a wide range of publications from Wired to Politico to Big Think, and consulted for an even wider range of organizations from NASA, to the Department of Wildlife Fisheries and Parks, to the FBI. He is also the director of the School of Thought, a nonprofit devoted to providing critical thinking teaching materials for schools and businesses, and he is an advisor for The Alliance for Decision Education.
He started out as a newspaper reporter covering Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast and in the Pine Belt region of the Deep South. Later, he covered things like who tests rockets for NASA, what it is like to run a halfway home for homeless people who are HIV-positive, and how a family sent their kids to college by making and selling knives.
He has been an editor, photographer, voiceover artist, television host, journalism teacher, lecturer, and tornado survivor (seriously, a tornado destroyed his home with him inside while he was finishing his second book). He also worked for several years as the head of digital media for WDAM-TV where he produced The Green Couch Sessions, a TV show about the music of the Deep South. Unbelievably, he's also written advertising campaigns for Heineken, Duck Tape, and a few others. He even appeared as himself in a Reebok ad that he also helped write.
After finishing How Minds Change, he wrote, produced, and recorded a six-hour audio documentary exploring the history of the idea and the word "genius" which is the subject of his next book.