[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teMlv3ripSM[/youtube]

Here's a nice resource with many links on critiquing pseudoscience and thinking critically:

http://www.chem1.com/acad/sci/pseudosci.html

http://www.amazon.com/Art-Thinking-9th-Vincent-Ruggiero/dp/020566833X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1297122918&sr=1-2 I used earlier editions of this with much success many years ago in freshman English classes.

Why is nobody talking about biases.

A lot of so called logic is semantic bullshit.

You need to filter out THE TYRANNY OF WORDS

THE TYRANNY OF WORDS by Stuart Chase
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 06,00.html

But a brief grounding in semantics is a life work in itself. Modern semantics dates from 1923, when two English professors. C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards, wrote a book called The Meaning QJ Meaning, followed by Ogden's invention of an 850-word vocabulary called Basic English. Indicative of the complexity of semantics is the fact that while Ogden is an orthologist and psychologist and Richards is an esthetician, important contributions have been made by a Polish mathematician, Count Alfred Korzybski, and a Harvard physicist, Percy Williams Bridgman. Semantics ranges from the equator of Basic English through the lush tropics of political bunkum to the North Pole of James Joyce's word-coining.

I struggled through most of Korzybski's Science and Sanity decades ago but I never heard of The Tyranny of Words until last year. So if this society really wanted most people to think straight why isn't the book common knowledge. The culture is designed to keep most people confused.

Sci-fi writers like Heinlein and A.E. van Vogt were into General Semantics in the 50s. It got incorporated into their works.

http://www.roger-russell.com/sffun/nulla.htm

psik

I suppose it is redundant to state the obvious but it seems to get missed so often:

Sort the data that is relevant to the problem from the data that is not.

psik

I think this video is pretty good:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oefmPtsV_w4[/youtube]

"If something doesn't make sense, don't pretend that it does."

I'm currently reading 'Asking the Right Questions' by M. Neil Browne and Stuart M. Keeley. It seems like a very decent introduction to critical thinking.

I think one of the most important points is neatly summarized by a pic I made to parody some other atheist pic that was floating around on the Interwebs:



Remember that the Western concept of rationality is instrumental, meaning that it prescribes only means, not ends. This means that e.g. free market theory, human rights charters, feminism, do not automatically get rolled into the canon of Rationality™.

I have never dispensed with MY epistemic scruples even when asked polity.

John

These are great and everything, however, it's rather preaching to the choir. True Believers won't look at this stuff. Too many words. Something is needed with catch-phrases, sound-bytes and pictures.

MartyBanks wrote:These are great and everything, however, it's rather preaching to the choir. True Believers won't look at this stuff. Too many words. Something is needed with catch-phrases, sound-bytes and pictures.

You don't understand. The True Believers got there first with sound-bytes, pictures, and catch-phrases.

psikeyhackr wrote:A lot of so called logic is semantic bullshit.

You need to filter out THE TYRANNY OF WORDS

THE TYRANNY OF WORDS by Stuart Chase
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 06,00.html

But a brief grounding in semantics is a life work in itself. Modern semantics dates from 1923, when two English professors. C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards, wrote a book called The Meaning QJ Meaning, followed by Ogden's invention of an 850-word vocabulary called Basic English. Indicative of the complexity of semantics is the fact that while Ogden is an orthologist and psychologist and Richards is an esthetician, important contributions have been made by a Polish mathematician, Count Alfred Korzybski, and a Harvard physicist, Percy Williams Bridgman. Semantics ranges from the equator of Basic English through the lush tropics of political bunkum to the North Pole of James Joyce's word-coining.

I struggled through most of Korzybski's Science and Sanity decades ago but I never heard of The Tyranny of Words until last year. So if this society really wanted most people to think straight why isn't the book common knowledge. The culture is designed to keep most people confused.

Sci-fi writers like Heinlein and A.E. van Vogt were into General Semantics in the 50s. It got incorporated into their works.

http://www.roger-russell.com/sffun/nulla.htm

psik

For everyone else, Korzybski's work is recognized as pseudo-science, and should be approached as the bullshit it is.

Since scientists claim intelligence is hereditary, then how could one possibly posit that reading is the road to critical thinking. Comprehending the contents and overall implications of it and how to apply the contents would have to be somewhat already present in the individual, or else the parroting would amount to indoctrination not "the critical insight" of what is read. Just my opinion.

skipbond wrote:Since scientists claim intelligence is hereditary, then how could one possibly posit that reading is the road to critical thinking. Comprehending the contents and overall implications of it and how to apply the contents would have to be somewhat already present in the individual, or else the parroting would amount to indoctrination not "the critical insight" of what is read. Just my opinion.

Do you really suggest a binary either-or to the formation of 'critical thinking'? I don't see much in the way of critical thinking there, unless it's wrapped in a willingness to footnote everything with the words 'just my opinion'.

My justification for this is that developing a skill requires practice. If you think there's some intrinsic 'intelligence' cast in stone, as it were, then practice is pointless, isn't it? Everything worth doing requires a combination of innate ability and concerted practice. Intelligent-but-lazy people never achieve much of anything except by dumb luck. Neither do hard-working morons, if twenty-seven eight-by-ten colored glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one means are any measure of success.

EDIT: Corrected photo size from AR

skipbond wrote:Since scientists claim intelligence is hereditary, then how could one possibly posit that reading is the road to critical thinking....

It's called 'Education'.

Cito di Pense wrote:

skipbond wrote:Since scientists claim intelligence is hereditary, then how could one possibly posit that reading is the road to critical thinking. Comprehending the contents and overall implications of it and how to apply the contents would have to be somewhat already present in the individual, or else the parroting would amount to indoctrination not "the critical insight" of what is read. Just my opinion.

Do you really suggest a binary either-or to the formation of 'critical thinking'? I don't see much in the way of critical thinking there, unless it's wrapped in a willingness to footnote everything with the words 'just my opinion'.

My justification for this is that developing a skill requires practice. If you think there's some intrinsic 'intelligence' cast in stone, as it were, then practice is pointless, isn't it? Everything worth doing requires a combination of innate ability and concerted practice. Intelligent-but-lazy people never achieve much of anything except by dumb luck. Neither do hard-working morons, if twenty-seven eight-and-a-half-by-eleven glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one means are any measure of success.

Happy Birthday. This post's for you!

THWOTH wrote:

skipbond wrote:Since scientists claim intelligence is hereditary, then how could one possibly posit that reading is the road to critical thinking....

It's called 'Education'.

I also don't get what skipbond was saying.
Presumably a child with very smart parents might have stellar potential, but without education and stimuli the child will never reach its full potential.

skipbond wrote:Since scientists claim intelligence is hereditary, ...

They don't claim that.

Scientists claim that hereditary is just one of the factors which contributes what we measure as 'intelligence'.

This thread (except for the last few entries) is like wandering through the Cambrian section of the museum. Lots of extinct posters.