#25942 - 06/22/09 01:29 AM
A Field Guide to Critical Thinking
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6Satan6Archist6
senior member
Registered: 10/16/08
Posts: 2233
Loc: Oregon
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I figured this would be a good companion piece to the "Open Mindedness" video. Though I am sure many here know what Critical Thinking is but it couldn't hurt to have something for people to refer to.
There are many reasons for the popularity of paranormal beliefs in the United States today, including: (1) the irresponsibility of the mass media, who exploit the public taste for nonsense, (2) the irrationality of the American world-view, which supports such unsupportable claims as life after death and the efficacy of the polygraph, and (3) the ineffectiveness of public education, which generally fails to teach students the essential skills of critical thinking. As a college professor, I am especially concerned with this third problem. Most of the freshman and sophomore students in my classes simply do not know how to draw reasonable conclusions from the evidence. At most, they've been taught in high school what to think; few of them know how to think.
In an attempt to remedy this problem at my college, I've developed an elective course called “Anthropology and the Paranormal.” The course examines the complete range of paranormal beliefs in contemporary American culture, from precognition and psychokinesis to channeling and cryptozoology and everything between and beyond, including astrology, UFO's and creationism. I teach the students very little about anthropological theories and even less about anthropological terminology. Instead, I try to communicate the essence of the anthropological perspective, by teaching them, indirectly, what the scientific method is all about. I do so by teaching them how to evaluate evidence. I give them six simple rules to follow when considering any claim, and then show them how to apply those six rules to the examination of any paranormal claim.
The six rules of evidential reasoning are my own distillation and simplification of the scientific method. To make it easier for students to remember these half-dozen guidelines, I've coined an acronym for them. Ignoring the vowels, the letters in the word “FiLCHeRS” stand for the rules of Falsifiability, Logic, Comprehensiveness, Honesty, Replicability and Sufficiency. Apply these six rules to the evidence offered for any claim , I tell my students, and no one will ever be able to sneak up on you and steal your belief. You'll be filch-proof.
Falsifiability
It must be possible to conceive of evidence that would prove the claim false.
It may sound paradoxical, but in order for any claim to be true, it must be falsifiable. The rule of falsifiability is a guarantee that if the claim is false, the evidence will prove it false; and if the claim is true, the evidence will not disprove it (in which case the claim can be tentatively accepted as true until such time as evidence is brought forth that does disprove it). The rule of falsifiability, in short, says that the evidence must matter, and as such it is the first and most important and most fundamental rule of evidential reasoning.
The rule of falsifiability is essential for this reason: If nothing conceivable could ever disprove the claim, then the evidence that does exist would not matter; it would be pointless to even examine the evidence, because the conclusion is already known - the claim is invulnerable to any possible evidence. This would not mean, however, that the claim is true; instead it would mean that the claim is meaningless. This is so because it is impossible - logically impossible - for any claim to be true no matter what. For every true claim you can always conceive of evidence that would make the claim untrue - in other words, again, every true claim is falsifiable.
For example, the true claim that the life span of human beings is less than 200 years is falsifiable; it would be falsified if a single human being were to live to be 200 years old. Similarly, the true claim that water freezes at 32 degrees F. is falsifiable; it would be falsified if water were to freeze at, say, 34 degrees F. Each of these claims is firmly established as scientific “fact”, and we do not expect either claim ever to be falsified; however, the point is that either could be. Any claim that could not be falsified would be devoid of any propositional content; that is, it would not be making a factual assertion- it would instead be making an emotive statement, a declaration of the way the claimant feels about the world. Nonfalsifiable claims do communicate information, but what they describe is the claimant's value orientation. They communicate nothing whatsoever of a factual nature, and hence are neither true nor false. Nonfalsifiable statements are proportionally vacuous.
There are two principal ways in which the rule of falsifiability can be violated - two ways, in other words, of making nonfalsifiable claims. The first variety of nonfalsifiable statements is the undeclared claim: a statement that is so broad or vague that it lacks any propositional content. The undeclared claim is basically unintelligible and consequently meaningless. Consider, for example, the claim that crystal therapists can use pieces of quartz to restore balance and harmony to a person's spiritual energy? What does it mean to have unbalanced spiritual energy? How is the condition recognized and diagnosed? What evidence would prove that someone's unbalanced spiritual energy had been - or had not been - balanced by the application of crystal therapy? Most New Age wonders, in fact, consist of similarly undeclared claims that dissolve completely when exposed to the solvent of rationality.
The undeclared claim has the advantage that virtually any evidence that could be adduced could be interpreted as congruent with the claim, and for that reason it is especially popular among paranormalists who claim precognitive powers. Jeanne Dixon, for example, predicted that 1987 would be a year “filled with changes” for Caroline Kennedy. Dixon also predicted that Jack Kemp would “face major disagreements with the rest of his party” in 1987 and that “world-wide drug terror” would be “unleashed by narcotics czars” in the same year. She further revealed that Dan Rather “may (or may not) be hospitalized” in 1988, and that Whitney Houston's “greatest problem” in 1986 would be balancing her personal life against her career.” The undeclared claim boils down to a statement that can be translated as “Whatever will be, will be.”
The second variety of nonfalsifiable statements, which is even more popular among paranormalists, involves the use of the multiple out, that is, an inexhaustible series of excuses intended to explain away the evidence that would seem to falsify the claim. Creationists, for example, claim that the universe is no more than 10,000 years old. They do so despite the fact that we can observe stars that are billions of light-years from the earth, which means that the light must have left those stars billions of years ago, and which proves that the universe must be billions of years old. How then do the creationists respond to this falsification of their claim? By suggesting that God must have created the light already on the way from those distant stars at the moment of creation 10,000 years ago. No conceivable piece of evidence, of course, could disprove that claim.
Additional examples of multiple outs abound in the realm of the paranormal. UFO proponents, faced with a lack of reliable physical or photographic evidence to buttress their claims, point to a secret “government conspiracy” that is allegedly preventing the release of evidence that would support their case. Psychic healers say they can heal you if you have enough faith in their powers. Psychokinetics say they can bend spoons with their minds if they are not exposed to negative vibrations from skeptical observers. Tarot readers can predict your fate if you're sincere in your desire for knowledge. The multiple out means, in effect, “Heads I win, tails you lose.”
Logic
Any argument offered as evidence in support of any claim must be sound.
An argument is said to be “valid” if its conclusion follows unavoidably from its premises; it is “sound” if it is valid and if all the premises are true. The rule of logic thus governs the validity of inference. Although philosophers have codified and named the various forms of valid arguments, it is not necessary to master a course in formal logic in order to apply the rules of inference consistently and correctly. An invalid argument can be recognized by the simple method of counterexample: If you can conceive of a single imaginable instance whereby the conclusion would not necessarily follow from the premises even if the premises are true, then the argument is invalid. Consider the following syllogism, for example: All dogs have fleas; Xavier has fleas; therefore Xavier is a dog. That argument is invalid; because a single flea-ridden feline named Xavier would provide an effective counterexample. If an argument is invalid, then it is, by definition, unsound. Not all valid arguments are sound, however. Consider this example: All dogs have fleas; Xavier is a dog; therefore Xavier has fleas. That argument is unsound, even though it is valid, because the first premise is false: All dogs do not have fleas.
To determine whether a valid argument is sound is frequently problematic; knowing whether a given premise is true or false often demands additional knowledge about the claim that may require empirical investigation. If the argument passes these two tests, however - if it is both valid and sound - then the conclusion can be embraced with certainty.
The rule of logic is frequently violated by pseudoscientists. Erich von Daniken, who singlehandedly popularized the ancient-astronaut mythology in the 1970's, wrote many books in which he offered invalid and unsound arguments with benumbing regularity ( see Omohundro 1976). In Chariots of the Gods? he was not above making arguments that were both logically invalid and factually inaccurate - in other words, arguments that were doubly unsound. For example, von Daniken argues that the map of the world made by the sixteenth century Turkish admiral Piri Re'is is so “astoundingly accurate” that it could only have been made from satellite photographs. Not only is the argument invalid (any number of imaginable techniques other than satellite photography could result in an “astoundingly accurate” map, but the premise is simply wrong - the Piri Re'is map, in fact, contains many gross inaccuracies (see Story 1981)
Comprehensiveness
The evidence offered in support of any claim must be exhaustive - that is, all of the available evidence must be considered.
For obvious reasons, it is never reasonable to consider only the evidence that supports a theory and to discard the evidence that contradicts it. This rule is straightforward and self-apparent, and it requires little explication or justification. Nevertheless, it is a rule that is frequently broken by proponents of paranormal claims and by those who adhere to paranormal beliefs.
For example, the proponents of biorhythm theory are fond of pointing to airplane crashes that occurred on days when the pilot, copilot, and/or navigator were experiencing critically low points in their intellectual, emotional, and/or physical cycles. The evidence considered by the biorhythm apologists, however, does not include the even larger number of airplane crashes that occurred when the crews were experiencing high or neutral points in their biorhythm cycles (Hines 1988:160). Similarly, when people believe that Jeanne Dixon has precognitive ability because she predicted the 1988 election of George Bush (which she did, two months before the election, when every social scientist, media maven and private citizen in the country was making the same prognostication), they typically ignore the thousands of forecasts that Dixon has made that have failed to come true (such as her predictions that John F. Kennedy would not win the presidency in 1960, that World War III would begin in 1958, and that Fidel Castro would die in 1969). If you are willing to be selective in the evidence you consider, you could reasonably conclude that the earth is flat.
Honesty
The evidence offered in support of any claim must be evaluated without self-deception.
The rule of honesty is a corollary to the rule of comprehensiveness. When you have examined all of the evidence, it is essential that you be honest with yourself about the results of that examination. If the weight of the evidence contradicts the claim, then you are required to abandon belief in that claim. The obverse, of course, would hold as well.
The rule of honesty, like the rule of comprehensiveness, is frequently violated by both proponents and adherents of paranormal beliefs. Parapsychologists violate this rule when they conclude, after numerous subsequent experiments have failed to replicate initially positive psi results, that psi must be an elusive phenomenon. (Applying Occam's Razor, the more honest conclusion would be that the original positive result must have been a coincidence.) Believers in the paranormal violate this rule when they conclude, after observing a “psychic” surreptitiously bend a spoon with his hands, that he only cheats sometimes.
In practice, the rule of honesty usually boils down to an injunction against breaking the rule of falsifiability by taking a multiple out. There is more to it than that, however: The rule of honesty means that you must accept the obligation to come to a rational conclusion once you have examined all the evidence. If the overwhelming weight of all the evidence falsifies your belief, then you must conclude that the belief is false, and you must face the implications of that conclusion forthrightly. In the face of overwhelmingly negative evidence, neutrality and agnosticism are no better than credulity and faith. Denial, avoidance, rationalization, and all the other familiar mechanisms of self-deception would constitute violations of the rule of honesty.
In my view, this rule alone would all but invalidate the entire discipline of parapsychology. After more than a century of systematic, scholarly research, the psi hypothesis remains wholly unsubstantiated and unsupportable; parapsychologists have failed, as Ray Hyman (1959:7) observes, to produce “any consistent evidence for paranormality that can withstand scrutiny.” From all indications, the number of parapsychologists who observe the rule of honesty pales in comparison with the number who delude themselves. Veteran psychic investigator Eric Dingwall (1958:162) summed up his extensive experience in parapsychological research with this observation: “After sixty years' experience with most of the leading parapsychologists of that period I do not think I could name a half dozen whom I could call objective students who honestly wished to discover the truth.”
Replicability
If the evidence for any claim is based upon an experimental result, or if the evidence offered in support of any claim could logically be explained as coincidental, then it is necessary for the evidence to be repeated in subsequent experiments or trials.
The rule of replicability provides a safeguard against the possibility of error, fraud, or coincidence. A single experiment concerns the production of nuclear fusion or the existence of telepathic ability. Any experiment, no matter how carefully designed and executed, is always subject to the possibility of implicit bias or undetected error. The rule of replicability, which requires independent observers to follow the same procedures and to achieve the same results, is an effective way of correcting bias or error, even if the bias or error remains permanently unrecognized. If the experimental results are the product of deliberate fraud, the rule of replicability will ensure that the experiment will eventually be performed by honest researchers.
If the phenomenon in question could conceivably be the product of coincidence, then the phenomenon must be replicated before the hypothesis of coincidence can be rejected. If the coincidence is in fact the explanation for the phenomenon, then the phenomenon will not be duplicated in subsequent trials, and the hypothesis of coincidence will be confirmed; but if coincidence is not the explanation, then the phenomenon may be duplicated, and an explanation other than coincidence will have to be sought. If I correctly predict the next role of the dice, you should demand that I duplicate the feat before granting that my prediction was anything but a coincidence.
The rule of replicability is regularly violated by parapsychologists, who are especially fond of misinterpreting coincidences. The famous “psychic sleuth” Gerard Croiset, for example, allegedly solved numerous baffling crimes and located hundreds of missing persons in a career that spanned five decades, from the 1940's until his death in 1980. The truth is that the overwhelming majority of Croiset's predictions were either vague and nonfalsifiable or simply wrong. Given the fact that Croiset made thousands of predictions during his lifetime, it is hardly surprising that he enjoyed one or two chance “hits”. The late Dutch parapsychologist Wilhelm Tenhaeff, however, seized upon those “very few prize cases” to argue that Croiset possessed demonstrated psi powers (Hoebens 1986a:130). That was a clear violation of the rule of replicability, and could not have been taken as evidence of Croiset's psi abilities even if the “few prize cases” had been true. (In fact, however, much of Tenhaeff's data was fraudulent - See Hoebens 1986b)
Sufficiency
The evidence offered in support of any claim must be adequate to establish the truth of that claim, with these stipulations: (1) the burden of proof for any claim rests on the claimant, (2) extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence, and (3) evidence based upon authority and/or testimony is always inadequate for any paranormal claim.
The burden of proof always rests with the claimant for the simple reason that the absence of disconfirming evidence is not the same as the presence of confirming evidence. This rule is frequently violated by proponents of paranormal claims, who argue that, because their claims have not been disproved, they have therefore been proved. (UFO buffs, for example, argue that because skeptics have not explained every UFO sighting, some UFO sightings must be extraterrestrial spacecraft.) Consider the implications of that kind of reasoning: If I claim that Adolf Hitler is alive and well and living in Argentina, how could you disprove my claim? Since the claim is logically possible, the best you could do (in the absence of unambiguous forensic evidence) is to show that the claim is highly improbable - but that would not disprove it. The fact that you cannot prove that Hitler is not living in Argentina, however, does not mean that I have proved that he is. It only means that I have proved that he could be - but that would mean very little; logical possibility is not the same as established reality. If the absence of disconfirming evidence were sufficient proof of a claim, then we could “prove” anything that we could imagine. Belief must be based not simply on the absence of disconfirming evidence but on the presence of confirming evidence. It is the claimant's obligation to furnish that confirming evidence.
Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence for the obvious reason of balance. If I claim that it rained for ten minutes on my way to work last Tuesday, you would be justified in accepting that claim as true on the basis of my report. But if I claim that I was abducted by extraterrestrial aliens who whisked me to the far side of the moon and performed bizarre medical experiments on me, you would be justified in demanding more substantial evidence. The ordinary evidence of my testimony, while sufficient for ordinary claims, is not sufficient for extraordinary ones.
In fact, testimony is always inadequate for any paranormal claim, whether it is offered by an authority or a layperson, for the simple reason that a human being can lie or make a mistake. No amount of expertise in any field is a guarantee against human fallibility, and expertise does not preclude the motivation to lie; therefore a person's credentials, knowledge, and experience cannot, in themselves, be taken as sufficient evidence to establish the truth of a claim. Moreover, a person's sincerity lends nothing to the credibility of his or her testimony. Even if people are telling what they sincerely believe to be the truth, it is always possible that they could be mistaken. Perception is a selective act, dependent upon belief, context, expectation, emotional and biochemical states, and a host of other variables. Memory is notoriously problematic, prone to a range of distortions, deletions, substitutions, and amplifications. Therefore the testimony that people offer of what they remember seeing or hearing should always be regarded as only provisionally and approximately accurate; when people are speaking about the paranormal, their testimony should never be regarded as reliable evidence in and of itself. The possibility and even the likelihood of error are far too extensive (see Connor 1986)
Conclusion
The first three rules of FiLCHeRS - falsifiability, logic, and comprehensiveness - are all logically necessary rules of evidential reasoning. If we are to have confidence in the veracity of any claim, whether normal or paranormal, the claim must be propositionally meaningful, and the evidence offered in support of the claim must be rational and exhaustive.
The last three rules of FiLCHeRS - honesty, replicability, and sufficiency - are all pragmatically necessary rules of evidential reasoning. Because human beings are often motivated to rationalize and lie to themselves, because they are sometimes motivated to lie to others, because they can make mistakes, and because perception and memory are problematic, we must demand that the evidence for any actual claim be evaluated without self-deception, that it be carefully screened for error, fraud, and appropriateness, and that it be substantial and unequivocal.
What I tell my students, then, is that you can and should use FiLCHeRS to evaluate the evidence offered for any claim. If the claim fails any one of these six tests, then it should be rejected; but if it passes all six tests, then you are justified in placing considerable confidence in it.
Passing all six tests, of course, does not guarantee that the claim is true (just because you have examined all the evidence available today is no guarantee that there will not be new and disconfirming evidence available tomorrow), but it does guarantee that you have good reasons for believing the claim. It guarantees that you have sold your belief for a fair price, and that it has not been filched from you.
Being a responsible adult means accepting the fact that almost all knowledge is tentative, and accepting it cheerfully. You may be required to change your belief tomorrow, if the evidence warrants, and you should be willing and able to do so. That, in essence, is what skepticism means: to believe if and only if the evidence warrants.
References
Connor, John W. 1984.. Misperception, folk belief, and the occult: A cognitive guide to understanding. SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, 8:344-354, Summer.
Dingwall, E.J. 1985. The need for responsibility in parapsychology: My sixty years in parapsychological research. In A Skeptic's Handbook of Parapsychology. 161-174. Ed. by Paul Kurtz. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.
Hines, Terence. 1988. Pseudoscience and the Paranormal. Buffalo N.Y.: Prometheus Books.
Hoebens, Piet Hein, 1981. Gerard Croiset: Investigation of the Mozart of “psychic sleuths” SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, 6(1):17-28, Fall
-------------- 1981-82. Croiset and Professor Tenhaeff: Discrepancies in claims of clairvoyance. SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, (2):21-40, Winter
Hyman, Ray. 1985. A critical historical overview of parapsychology. In A Skeptic's Handbook of Parapsychology, 3-96, Ed. by Paul Kurtz, Buffalo N.Y., Prometheus Books
Omohundro, John T. 1976. Von Daniken's chariots: primer in the art of cooked science. SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, 1(1):58-68 Fall
Story, Ronald D. 1977. Von Daniken's golden gods, SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, 2(1):22-35, Fall/Winter.
James Lett is an associate professor of anthropology, Department of Social Sciences, Indian River Community College, 3209 Virginia Ave., Ft.Pierce, Florida 34981, U.S.A.. He is author of The Human Enterprise: A Critical Introduction to Anthropological Theory.
T aken from Skeptical Inquirer.
_________________________
Ultimate Satanic Bad Ass of Ultimate Satanic Bad Assery PhD Esq. LLC Inc.^∞ DCLXVI°
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#35836 - 02/19/10 08:02 PM
Re: A Field Guide to Critical Thinking
[Re: Meq]
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contragenic
stranger
Registered: 02/10/10
Posts: 9
Loc: Phoenix,Az
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Thanks for this, I have to wonder though how it is that your curriculum slipped under the radar of the powers that be.There is good reason why logic and critical thinking are not taught in public schools k-12,because a dumb public is malleable and an educated public is not.I desire that you be allowed to continue your teaching,and not be censored in any way.
Again, much gratitude for this post.
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#35931 - 02/23/10 03:50 PM
Re: A Field Guide to Critical Thinking
[Re: 6Satan6Archist6]
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fleshlydesires
lurker
Registered: 01/14/10
Posts: 1
Loc: Georgia
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I love your statement about your freshman students, they were taught what to think not how to think. It took me a while to break free from that myself.
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#36102 - 03/05/10 07:09 PM
Re: A Field Guide to Critical Thinking
[Re: fleshlydesires]
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Leingod
stranger
Registered: 02/18/10
Posts: 7
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I actually disagree.. "critical thinking" doesnt necessarily make you any less malleable, if anything it makes people more predictable.
If one acts according to any paradigm, their reaction is as inevitable as any equation.
All critical thinking does is convince the thinker that they are smart and are thus able to make more capable decisions when in reality, the fundamental assumptions by which those decisions arise are to their disadvantage.
Critical thinking is like clothing yourself in tin and convincing yourself your wearing steel lol.. All it really is, is a poor attempt to rationalize the world so it can be dealt with at arms length. In a way its nothing but cowardice.
Strip away the logic and all we are is naked children with a superiority complex
Edited by Leingod (03/05/10 07:13 PM)
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#36114 - 03/06/10 05:37 AM
Re: A Field Guide to Critical Thinking
[Re: Leingod]
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Noctuary
pledge
Registered: 02/01/10
Posts: 92
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I actually disagree.. "critical thinking" doesnt necessarily make you any less malleable, if anything it makes people more predictable.
If one acts according to any paradigm, their reaction is as inevitable as any equation.
All critical thinking does is convince the thinker that they are smart and are thus able to make more capable decisions when in reality, the fundamental assumptions by which those decisions arise are to their disadvantage.
Critical thinking is like clothing yourself in tin and convincing yourself your wearing steel lol.. All it really is, is a poor attempt to rationalize the world so it can be dealt with at arms length. In a way its nothing but cowardice.
Strip away the logic and all we are is naked children with a superiority complex
Well what kind of thinking would you have us do? Retarded thinking? I don't think I have ever heard someone argue against thought. It's highly..retarded.
_________________________
Devils speak of the way in which she'll manifest
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#36115 - 03/06/10 06:16 AM
Re: A Field Guide to Critical Thinking
[Re: Leingod]
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Dimitri
veteran member
Registered: 07/13/08
Posts: 1357
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I actually disagree.. "critical thinking" doesnt necessarily make you any less malleable, if anything it makes people more predictable.
It does make you less malleable IF you know which questions to ask.
Critical thinking implies opening up for someone's ideas but at the same time think and relate to other information you have at hand to approve or disapprove a statement or idea.
I, however, do agree that a person is still malleable. The gift of a critical mind doesn't necessarily imply a person believes fewer illogical statements or ideas. A factor is the will to even question personal beliefs and ideas, something which very few people can and are willingly to do.
If a person cannot question his own ideas and beliefs, and only comment on others, then this person isn't critically thinking but only a mere "rebel without a cause".
Edited by Dimitri (03/06/10 06:18 AM)
_________________________
You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.
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#36116 - 03/06/10 06:18 AM
Re: A Field Guide to Critical Thinking
[Re: Noctuary]
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Leingod
stranger
Registered: 02/18/10
Posts: 7
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Your opinion does nothing other than prove that you do not understand the process behind, or function of, critical thinking.---Well what kind of thinking would you have us do? Retarded thinking? I don't think I have ever heard someone argue against thought. It's highly..retarded.
Simply assuming that because i dont agree with you, i must not be intelligent enough to actually understand the truth of it, only shows how ignorant and narrow minded you are.. how about rather than simply assuming that all those who differ from you must be stupid, you should for one minute, take the time to ask a question instead of immediately judging what you do not understand as having no value.
What i was talking about was not thinking in an open minded fashion, or not thinking at all, but rather keeping the thoughts fluid rather then forcing your attention into a paradigm forced on you by someone else that only defines your limitations according to a pre-conceived notion of what you "think" about any given thing.
You would be surprised what you can do when you dont bind your thought to any one thing or way of thinking... Letting go of an association doesnt make you an idiot.. your not going to go join an idiot club if you know better.. You wont just magically become stupid because of it either.
So saying, real critical thinking isnt something thats "thought out" its a box an individuals thinking takes place in, which is fine, but any time you identify an idea or perceive an association as arising from critical thinking, the only thing you do is build a tower that is bound to fall.
The majority of human behavior is not based on logic, but rather on perceived notions of logic that individual takes on, notions that are inevitably as meaningless as any other "idea of how things are". Basically im arguing against the self delusion of faulty reasoning, which seemingly only arises in people who take an idea or assumption about something over the direct example of it.
Edited by Leingod (03/06/10 06:38 AM)
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#36121 - 03/06/10 08:01 AM
Re: A Field Guide to Critical Thinking
[Re: Noctuary]
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Leingod
stranger
Registered: 02/18/10
Posts: 7
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Yeah, they are both pretty much the same opinion, the only difference is in your statement you didnt imply that i was stupid, but rather what i said was stupid and thus dismissed quickly.
Ahh i didnt see dimitri's post there.
The gift of a critical mind doesn't necessarily imply a person believes fewer illogical statements or ideas. A factor is the will to even question personal beliefs and ideas, something which very few people can and are willingly to do.
If a person cannot question his own ideas and beliefs, and only comment on others, then this person isn't critically thinking but only a mere "rebel without a cause".
This is just what i meant.. Actually, i think you said it even better than i did.
Critical thinking without questioning one's own beliefs in accordance with unbiased direct experience is just the swallowing of whatever junk someone else hands you, regardless of what label its given.
The primary difference between someone well versed in experience and experimentation in a subject and someone who accepts someone else's paradigm on a particular issue, is that the well versed person can explain their point of view a hundred different ways, a person who simply accepted someone else's paradigm can usually only see 3/5 examples of the subject and if you talk to them long enough you find those examples usually arnt based in a rational direct example, but rather in some kind of accepted opinion or philosophy.
An example of this could be, the paradigm, or philosophy based on an assumption that man only uses 10% of his brain. This of course is a myth, but to the person who assumes that this "fact" is true, their logic and point of reasoning stems from a very different faucet of relative "experience", making associations with causes that only correlate to certain degrees resulting in a partial and distorted view of the subjects based in that relative philosophy.
Theres other, deeper associations though that from one point of logic seem absurd and from another point of logic based in a different assumption can seem entirely rational.
So saying, separating the irrational from the rational, without direct experience and experiment, and without constantly questioning that rational in accordance with observable fact.. is just another religion built upon faulty premises.
Edited by Leingod (03/06/10 08:36 AM)
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#36128 - 03/06/10 02:46 PM
Re: A Field Guide to Critical Thinking
[Re: Asmedious]
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Leingod
stranger
Registered: 02/18/10
Posts: 7
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Im sort of saying that asmodious, but i more mean it in the sense that what is thought to be "objective" reasoning is often little more than the socially accepted subjective.
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#36131 - 03/06/10 04:21 PM
Re: A Field Guide to Critical Thinking
[Re: SkaffenAmtiskaw]
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Leingod
stranger
Registered: 02/18/10
Posts: 7
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Actually, my argument is your argument. I guess i just dont like poor logic, as the result of poor logic is just another religion.
Meh sorry for my rant
Edited by Leingod (03/06/10 04:24 PM)
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#45168 - 12/18/10 03:56 PM
Re: A Field Guide to Critical Thinking
[Re: 6Satan6Archist6]
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OrgasmicKarmatic
member
Registered: 08/01/10
Posts: 184
Loc: Grand Rapids, MI
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Just because they use equipment that has a legitimate purpose in actual science does not mean that what they are doing is scientific. I can use a speculum for fun but I wouldn't call what I do gynecology.
And yes, that is exactly what I am saying. These people, like so many others, have fallen into the trap of confirmation bias. Wherein one only recognizes evidence that supports the belief they have already chosen, even if the support is only imagined by the observer.
I can see that yes. I still find it interesting to watch, even if only for entertainment. I have experienced things that I just can't understand. Maybe one day these things will be uncovered and they will turn from unknown chaos to science. Only time will tell.
_________________________
You do that Romeo <3
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#46578 - 01/11/11 10:32 PM
Re: A Field Guide to Critical Thinking
[Re: 6Satan6Archist6]
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thedeadidea
member
Registered: 08/15/10
Posts: 123
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My only problem with this is with the notion of falsifiability. Where although Popper is accepted to an extent he is certainly not the most accepted explanatory power in philosophy of science. Most go with Kuhn's notion of paradigms and subscribe to a method of probabilistic induction.
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#46608 - 01/12/11 02:45 AM
Re: A Field Guide to Critical Thinking
[Re: ta2zz]
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6Satan6Archist6
senior member
Registered: 10/16/08
Posts: 2233
Loc: Oregon
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6, correct me if I'm off-base.
While I don't think I have ever heard of this Kuhn person I can say that you are not off-base on the first part of your reply. Indeed the piece on the OP was designed to be a "crash-course" of sorts in critical thinking and, as you also stated, not meant "to teach them the philosophy of science."
-------------------------------------------------
A simple search would show the connections of Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn to the subject. It would take about the same energy as typing the question here and helped save face.
Right, except for the fact that I am not concerned with saving face here. Someone brought up two people that I hadn't heard of before, and who were previously unmentioned in this thread, so I inquired about them.
Really I am more concerned with receiving an answer for the first question I asked. I probably couldn't care less who either of the people in question are. Just because I employ critical thinking skills doesn't mean I have no be familiar with every single person related to them.
_________________________
Ultimate Satanic Bad Ass of Ultimate Satanic Bad Assery PhD Esq. LLC Inc.^∞ DCLXVI°
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#46611 - 01/12/11 03:05 AM
Re: A Field Guide to Critical Thinking
[Re: 6Satan6Archist6]
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thedeadidea
member
Registered: 08/15/10
Posts: 123
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Karl Popper was a philosopher who wrote extensively one of his most if not the most notorious works is the work of falsification which extends itself as an all encompassing methodology of science. Not only attempting to serve as a term of demarcation between what is science and what is pseudo science. But also contributive to his theory on how scientific knowledge is built.
It might be noted that you did not premise falsifiability as dependent or contingent on Popper's understanding and build on of the terminology. Though the elaboration you provide I assumed was quite grounded in the ideas of falsification/falsifiability of Popper as a one to one correlation. But perhaps you are also trying to test me as if you are a PhD in anthropology with an investment on critical thinking and applying a scientific method to analyse cultural discourse I'd be surprised if you has not heard the name before. I'd also be surprised if it is merely a principle of falsifiability as some law of logical abstraction and not a reference to an adaptation of Popper's work.
In any event I think Thomas Kuhn brought to light the notion of paradigms in his seminal work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Which I think more correctly describes how scientific theories are adopted. Mainly because his method more easily allows the adhoc method of science to persists and more
accurately describes it and also opens the door for socio-historical pressures to also more readily be accountable in discourse of why a particular theory etc is accepted.
More so the notion of paradigms might be taken as simply large identified bodies of discourse with different contextual basis of evidences and practices encouraging interdisciplinary communication. But with regard to scientific paradigms the distinction is process of experimentation and probabilistic induction etc.
I think my main concern with falsification in principle, is that it is described as a foundational principle the way naive falsification works yet the way sciences work it is always on a more sophisticated model. Popper himself worked on the system for a great many years and made revisions to it which means a few different modes of falsification have entered discourse.
I think I also prefer paradigms simply because it allows a more readily accessible narrative to science and humanities as self contained information or discourse sets. Whilst falsification concerns itself with only science and thus as a comprehensive informational system and regails in the old synthetic vs analytic claim Quine blew out of the water with his work on the two dogmas of Empiricism.
Particularly with anthropology which I think blurs the line between humanities and science depending I suppose what you are dealing with as a cultural anthropologist of the history of rock and roll is a little different to one which assesses archeological evidence. .
@ Auto I might have over-analysed a little with everything else that is there and the premise that it is directly related to help college students assess evidence it fits the bill. But there is a notion in University that some teaching processes involve a reeducation. Re-Training people how to think (for young grasshopper cannot learn when his cup is full).
When paradigmatic theory or at the very least the notion of paradigms is also important in any discussion of the history of or anthropological theory itself I thought it perhaps more convenient and more significant notion.
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#46612 - 01/12/11 03:20 AM
Re: A Field Guide to Critical Thinking
[Re: thedeadidea]
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thedeadidea
member
Registered: 08/15/10
Posts: 123
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Christ on a stick I read your second page response and just started replying. Bugger it.
Right SPECIFIC to your first question several reasons with little to no elaboration.
1. Falsifiability is a term of demarcation that relates to a larger theory which does IN SOME PRESENTATIONS have problems. See naive falsification.
2. The work does not permeate or translate equally as well in discourse with humanities significant when dealing with anthropology whilst paradigmatic theory does allow a more readily available exchange.
3. Paradigms more readily allows an analysis which breaks down an analysis to allow for adhoc additions to a particular experiment or research project to improve its informational quality and description.
Perhaps my analysis is a little exaggerated but you can take of it what you will. I am not saying that the informational quality of this piece is poor or outright wrong merely providing honest feedback to my own preferential predilection of informational, interpretive theory, scientific methods across the board. Also my only contention was one out of what was it six presentation points which form the whole guide.
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#46636 - 01/12/11 01:46 PM
Re: A Field Guide to Critical Thinking
[Re: thedeadidea]
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6Satan6Archist6
senior member
Registered: 10/16/08
Posts: 2233
Loc: Oregon
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It might be noted that you did not premise falsifiability as dependent or contingent on Popper's understanding and build on of the terminology. Though the elaboration you provide I assumed was quite grounded in the ideas of falsification/falsifiability of Popper as a one to one correlation. But perhaps you are also trying to test me as if you are a PhD in anthropology with an investment on critical thinking and applying a scientific method to analyse cultural discourse I'd be surprised if you has not heard the name before.
It also might be noted that I didn't write this nor did I ever claim to. A reading of the thread will show I say the exact opposite, several times over. That is, someone else wrote this and I simply put it up for other people to reference.
Is this entire body perfect? Probably not. Nor do I think it pretends to be. However I think it does contain useful information to help the "layman", who doesn't have a strong grounding in scientific methodology, develop a more discerning eye for bullshit. Which, as has already been stated, was the point of the article in the first place.
_________________________
Ultimate Satanic Bad Ass of Ultimate Satanic Bad Assery PhD Esq. LLC Inc.^∞ DCLXVI°
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#46699 - 01/13/11 10:42 AM
Re: A Field Guide to Critical Thinking
[Re: 6Satan6Archist6]
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plover
stranger
Registered: 12/22/10
Posts: 7
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Let's think of benefit rather than truth.
Critical thinking leads to a certain benefit, namely capability to correctly predict unobvious falsifiable phenomena.
That being said, there has to be a reason why people think falsely.
Perhaps there is a benefit too in falsehood.
Imagine if I hated someone.
I can
1. Commit libel against him and risk getting caught and punished.
2. Not committing libel against him and that means not harming my enemies.
3. Have faith and truly believe that porn cause rape, and gun shot people by themselves.
The third way seems to have the advantage of 1&2 isn't it? Faith allow evil to say burn others' properties, extort money, and still not paying the full political costs of their acts.
Some muslims, for example, would burn churches and pubs in Indonesia. Obviously it's beneficial to harm others because it instill fear. Fear of others means power. And power is true wealth. But somehow they need something to justify the arsons. Hence, faith.
It's foolish then to simply think that faithful people as stupid. They're more devilishly smart than scientists and most sceptics. Well I talked with many to be frank.
Edited by plover (01/13/11 10:51 AM)
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#46759 - 01/14/11 06:19 AM
Re: A Field Guide to Critical Thinking
[Re: 6Satan6Archist6]
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plover
stranger
Registered: 12/22/10
Posts: 7
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What I am trying to say is that many opinions are popular are not due to critical thinking. Many are false.
However, thinking that people with those opinion are stupid or won't be successful will be another big mistake.
That's what skeptics and libertarian do. I thought satanists are better.
Does this make sense?
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#46761 - 01/14/11 08:38 AM
Re: A Field Guide to Critical Thinking
[Re: plover]
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Fabiano
member
Registered: 09/06/08
Posts: 374
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What I am trying to say ...
Just to add my 2 cents, "The art of controversy" by A. Schopenhauer is a good complement to critical thinking as descrtibed in the initial post.
The book exposes some common traps in which one can easily fall. The traps look like truth, seems logic but have a flawn. The way to avoid the traps are also exposed.
You can find the book content along with illustration of these trap on this site.
Enjoy!
Edited by Fabiano (01/14/11 08:43 AM)
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#47392 - 01/26/11 03:49 PM
Re: A Field Guide to Critical Thinking
[Re: Asmedious]
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myk5
member
Registered: 01/24/11
Posts: 137
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Critical thinking as explained in the first post, is well explained. But the consequences of applying that standard of critical thinking to magic are not explored. Likely because as quickly the claims to real made by the myths of religion fall apart rapidly in the face of critical appraisal, so too do claim of working with any supernatural power or 'magic'.
I like to distinguish soundness of reason from validity of reason, The distinction is the degree to which you permit an arguer their own facts. Which ideally should be inexcusable, but in practice and in the domain of 'metaphysics' it's almost impossible to make another question facts they have forged their very identity from.
So a Christian, for example, is unlikely with relinquish axioms relating to God, heaven and hell, for example. And if you want to pursue an argument with a Christian (for example - or a Traditional Satanist if you are anything else), really you can only do so if you allow yourself to agree to disagree with regard to their axioms.
So where the axioms cannot be agreed upon, you both are entitled to believe the argument of the other unsound. But invalid thinking, do their conclusions legitimately follow their evidence and argument? That can humiliate an opponent and is what is possible.
Confirmation bias is the boogy man in critical thinking. To explain simply, it is the tendency of any human to pay more attention to writing and facts that confirm that which they already believe, and to pay less attention to or even dismiss that writing or facts that are at odd with what you already believe.
If you are an Atheist, it is extremely easy to understand how the religious bigot you dislike, their belief system would be impossible without profound confirmation bias. It has been argued the usefulness of Astrology would be impotent if people refused to credit astrological predictions when they seem to be right, and ignore those prediction that are wrong or irrelevant.
As a magician, you must understand that any result you produce is indistinguishable from coincidence. You may find as I do that intentionally helping yourself believe in magic with 'intellectual decompression' or simply using confirmation bias to ignore failures and remember successes - it is part of what helps you be more successful.
Magic is a subjective art. It simply cannot withstand the rigors of scientific method (but then, quantum physics is not entirely dissimilar). A strategy common to Chaos magic is to focus on the result, because that is as close to binary - yes or no, as magic gets.
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#47504 - 01/29/11 08:00 AM
Re: A Field Guide to Critical Thinking
[Re: myk5]
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thedeadidea
member
Registered: 08/15/10
Posts: 123
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Magic is more than a subjective art... but yes tis different from run of the mill discourse. So point taken but critical thinking is not in and of itself designed to point necessarily to a definitive answer. Critical thinking is to do justice for oneself and the opinion that is offered in a frank analysis of what it is really trying to say and contexualising it's validity.
Obviously the same critical thinking techniques might not be taken lump sum as what is needed to understand chemistry and what is needed to understand say a historical piece work fundamnetally under different conditions. The inexplicable happens all to often and I am with Sam Harris on the need to make a meaningful distinction between the numinous and what is just plain silly.
To be honest there is nothing really to say about miracles or anything else in and of themself. I don't even dignify them as being a proof just a designated association to play into someone elses language game.
Take the link below :
http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/01/25/us-australia-blood-idUSSYD90620080125
It happened or more then likely did I take it as axiomatic the reporting is accurate but one can look up the peer reviewed literature on it.
Point being take the same girl and put her in front of an alter or a sacred site and bobs your uncle we have a fucking miracle. So I don't even neccessarily take the argument of miracle to be a proof positive claim for religion in the first place.
Edited by thedeadidea (01/29/11 08:02 AM)
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#53792 - 05/01/11 01:55 PM
Re: A Field Guide to Critical Thinking
[Re: COINTELPRO]
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Thule
temp banned
pledge
Registered: 04/30/11
Posts: 68
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It sounds like an interesting course, but why not create an elective based on thinking skills itself. Herein people are given reasoning problems and various excercises of the mind and taught some of the above evaluative methods.
I hate the term "critical". The reason is I have been studying to become a teacher in college. We are taught "critical pedagogy" which essentially is a form of Marxism. In this theory teachers are supposed to indoctrinate children in Marxism rather than allow them to think for themselves. Teachers are "agents of social change" and we are taught to hate 'those in power' and "tear down the existing power structure" which means white males.
My last class had many statements in the textbook which were hateful towards whites accusing them of creating the ghetto and saying all whites benefit from white privilege. There is never any evidence given for these statements, they are given as fact, Critical pedagogy teaches us to challenge the system and criticize it but when I challenged the hate speech in my book I was told that was not the proper place to do it.
Then the school implied that I would get "beat up" if I opened my mouth about the anti-white racism and implied that I won't be able to find a job as a teacher if I speak out against this nonsense.
Critical pedagogy is about turning children's brains off and indoctrinating them in hate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_pedagogy
It is related to critical race theory which is another Marxist theory dreamed up by Jewish Nationalists and Black Nationalists (racists) and is based on hating white people and destroying white society. As one college textbook put it "we need to destroy the existing white power structure"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory
So the irony here is that critical theory has become a code word for "hate" and Marxism rather than actual thinking. In fact these theories are anti-scientific and anti-thought.
So I almost cringe whenever I here the word "critical" in an educational context. That's why I like to say "thinking skills" or something. But it's like 1984 where our words are stolen to mean the opposite of their original intent.
But yes public school mainly is about teaching people to be good slaves and sheep. Elites send their children to private schools or home school them. The public schools are training people to flip burgers, work in factories and mow rich people's grass. So obviously these people are mostly taught how to do what they are told rather than be critical thinkers.
There is an epidemic in our society though with everything being dumbed down and less emphasis on actual ability. Guess where this comes from? Critical theory.
Check out some of the essays by Sandra Stotsky PhD in education:
http://www.city-journal.org/2009/eon1113ss.html
according to critical theory the goal of education is egalitarianism and actual free thought, academic achievement etc. takes a back seat.
This was used in the soviet union and created a "brain drain" and led to economic collapse. Now the US is heading in the same direction.
This is one reason for my private society work. Our society is going to hell in a hand basket so to speak. And they try to threaten me if I speak out against it. By why would any sane or rational person support something that is so utterly destructive to society? Personal greed and also they aren't sane or rational.
I also ask them where this hate comes from. They all seem to be jealous of anyone who does better than them and believe if they burn down their neighbor's house they will someone look superior in comparison. That's basically the philosophy of life at the highest levels of society now.
Edited by Thule (05/01/11 01:57 PM)
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#63114 - 12/29/11 04:09 AM
Re: A Field Guide to Critical Thinking
[Re: 6Satan6Archist6]
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Semyaza
lurker
Registered: 12/25/11
Posts: 1
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It's funny how the article contained within the first post is specifically designed to do the exact opposite of what it claims... That would be, destroy a person's ability to reason.
This issue of falsifiability is, essentially, the belief in nothing at all. The belief that, ultimately, nothing is true.
If that is so, why don't you go kill yourself? Because you don't really exist anyway.
"Critical Thinking" is not what it is made out to be, just as there is quite a difference between 'rational' thinking and logic or reason.
Take the term literally, "Critical Thinking".
TRUTH IS NOT THOUGHT, TRUTH IS KNOWING
... And if you don't know, don't worry.
I WILL PUT YOU IN YOUR PLACE
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