Think critically! is a free conference dedicated to critical thinking in all areas of society, which is being held for the third year in a row. The organizers are the Human-Ethical Association (HEF), the Oslo region team in HEF and the secular think tank Dømmekraft.
This year, as in previous years, we present four different speakers, each of whom will address a current topic where the ability and willingness to think critically play a decisive role. The focus will be on how fake news plays a role in the Ukraine war, the need for critical thinking in schools, factual errors about climate change, and the necessity to defend the rights of apostates and sexual minorities in a religious environment.

The event is free of charge, and will also be streamed so that those who are prevented from attending can follow it. A recording of the broadcast will be published afterwards.

This year’s speakers are:
Jimmy Bangash is a psychotherapist who specializes in working with ex-Muslims as well as Muslims with an LBHT background in an international context. He is a spokesman for the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain and is concerned with creating increased awareness of the rights of apostates and sexual minorities in Islamic countries and societies.

John Færseth is a writer and freelance journalist. He is educated in media studies at the University of Oslo, and has followed developments in Ukraine and Russia for many years. Færseth has also written about extremism, conspiracy theories and Russian disinformation.

Maria Sand works as a senior researcher at CICERO, where she researches how emissions of particles and gases in the atmosphere affect the climate system. Maria has a PhD in Meteorology and Oceanography from the University of Oslo (2014). She has also worked for two years as a visiting researcher at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in the USA.

Christian Lomsdalen is a leader in the Human-Ethical Association, a doctoral student at UiB, and runs several podcasts. For the past 11 years, Christian has worked as a lecturer in upper secondary school and has written more than 400 readers’ articles and chronicles in Norwegian newspapers.