The Importance of Logic and Critical Thinking

[yathrib]

http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2011/03/th ... -thinking/


The Importance of Logic and Critical Thinking

* By Curtis Silver Email Author
* March 10, 2011 |



“Critical thinking is a desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to consider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and hatred for every kind of imposture.” – Francis Bacon (1605)

As parents, we are tasked with instilling a plethora of different values into our children. While some parents in the world choose to instill a lack of values in their kids, those of us that don’t want our children growing up to be criminals and various misfits try a bit harder. Values and morality are one piece of the pie. These are important things to mold into a child’s mind, but there are also other items in life to focus on as well. It starts with looking both ways to cross the street and either progresses from there, or stops.

If you stopped explaining the world to your children after they learned to cross the street, then perhaps you should stop reading and go back to surfing for funny pictures of cats. I may use some larger words that you might not understand, making you angry and causing you to leave troll-like comments full of bad grammar and moronic thought processes. However, if you looked at the crossing the street issue as I did — as a logical problem with cause and effect and a probable solution — then carry on. You are my target audience.

Or perhaps the opposite is true, as the former are the people that could benefit from letting some critical thinking into their lives. So what exactly is critical thinking? This bit by Linda Elder in a paper on CriticalThinking.org pretty much sums it up:

Through critical thinking, as I understand it, we acquire a means of assessing and upgrading our ability to judge well. It enables us to go into virtually any situation and to figure out the logic of whatever is happening in that situation. It provides a way for us to learn from new experiences through the process of continual self-assessment. Critical thinking, then, enables us to form sound beliefs and judgments, and in doing so, provides us with a basis for a ‘rational and reasonable’ emotional life. — Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines, Winter, 1996. Vol. XVI, No. 2.

The rationality of the world is what is at risk. Too many people are taken advantage of because of their lack of critical thinking, logic and deductive reasoning. These same people are raising children without these same skills, creating a whole new generation of clueless people.

To wit, a personal tale of deductive reasoning:

Recently I needed a new transmission for the family van. The warranty on the power train covers the transmission up to 100,000 miles. The van has around 68,000 miles on it. Therefore, even the logic-less dimwit could easily figure that the transmission was covered. Well, this was true until the dealership told me that it wasn’t, stating that because we didn’t get the scheduled transmission service (which is basically a fluid change) at 30,000 and 60,000 miles the warranty was no longer valid. Now, there are many people that would argue this point, but many more that would shrug, panic, and accept the full cost of repairs.

I read the warranty book. I had a receipt that said the fluid was checked at 60,000 but not replaced. A friend on Twitter pointed out the fact that they were using 100,000 mile transmission fluid. So logically, the fluid would not have to be replaced under 100,000 miles if it wasn’t needed, right? So why the stipulation that it needed to be replaced at 60,000 and the loose assumption that not doing that would void the warranty? So I asked the warranty guy to show me in the book where the two items are related. Where it explicitly says that if you don’t get the service, the transmission isn’t covered. There were portions where it said the service was recommended, but never connecting to actual repairs. Finally the warranty guy shrugged, admitted I was right and said the service was covered.

In this case, valid logic equaled truth and a sound argument. I used very simple reasoning and logic to determine that I was being inadvertently screwed. I say “inadvertently” because I truly believe based on their behavior that they were not intentionally trying to screw me. They believed the two items were related, they had had this argument many times before and were not prepared to be questioned. While both the service manager and the warranty guy seemed at least junior college educated, proving my argument to them took longer than it should have between three adults.

However, valid logic does not always guarantee truth or a sound argument. This is where it gets a little funky. Valid logic is when the structure of logic is correct in the way of syntax and semantics rather than truth. Truth comes from deductive reasoning of said logic. For example:

All transmissions are covered parts. All covered parts are free. Therefore, all transmissions are free. This logic is technically valid, and if the premises are true, then of course the conclusion must be true. You can see here however that it’s not always true, though in some situations it could be. While the logic is valid, not all transmissions are free, only those covered by the warranty. So based on that, saying all transmissions are free is not sound logic.

To take it one step further:

All Daleks are brown. Some brown things are Cylons. Therefore, some Daleks are Cylons. Sci-fi fan or not, you probably know that this is not true. The basic lesson here is that, while the logic above might seem valid because of the structure of the statement, it takes a further understanding to figure out why it’s not necessarily true: That is, based on the first two statements it’s possible that some Daleks are Cylons, but it’s not logically concludable. That’s where deductive reasoning comes on top of the logic. The underlying lesson here is not to immediately assume everything you read or are told is true, something all children need to and should learn.

This is the direct lesson that needs to be passed on to our children: that of not accepting the immediately visible logic. While not all problems are complex enough to require the scientific method, some of them need some deduction to determine if they are true. Take the example above — how many kids would immediately be satisfied with the false conclusion? Sure, it’s a bit geeky with the examples, but switch out bears for Daleks and puppies for Cylons. That makes it easier, and takes the actual research out of it (to find out what Daleks and Cylons are respectively) but many people would just accept that in fact some bears are puppies, if presented with this problem in the context of a textbook or word problem.

Maybe I’m being paranoid or thinking too doomsday, whatever, but I think this is an epidemic. Children are becoming lazier and not as self sufficient because their parents have a problem with watching a three year old cry after they tell her to remove her own jeans, or ask her to put away her own toys (yes, organizational logic falls under the main topic). These are the same parents who do their kid’s science project while the kid is playing video games. These kids grow up lacking the simple problem solving skills that make navigating life much easier. Remember when you were growing up and you had the plastic stacking toys? Well, instead of toys for early development like that, parents are just plopping their kids down in front of the television. While there is some educational type programming on television, it’s just not the same as hands-on experience.

My father is an engineer, and he taught me logic and reasoning by making me solve simple, then complex, problems on my own. Or at least giving me the opportunity to solve them on my own. This helped develop critical thinking and problem solving skills, something a lot of children lack these days. Too often I see children that are not allowed to solve problems on their own; instead their parents simply do it for them without argument or discussion. Hell, I am surrounded by adults every day that are unable to solve simple problems, instead choosing to immediately ask me at which point I have to fill the role that their parents never did and — knowing the solution — tell them to solve it themselves, or at least try first.

One of the things I like to work on with my kids is math. There is nothing that teaches deductive reasoning and logic better than math word problems. They are at the age where basic algebra can come into play, which sharpens their reasoning skills because they start to view real world issues with algebraic solutions. Another thing is logic puzzles, crossword puzzles and first person shooters. Actually, not that last one. That’s just the reward.

Since I weeded out the folks that don’t teach their kids logic in the first two paragraphs, as representatives of the real world it’s up to the rest of us to spread the knowledge. It won’t be easy. The best thing we can do is teach these thought processes to our children, so that they may look at other children with looks of bewilderment when other children are unable to solve simple tasks. Hopefully, they will not simply do the task for them, but teach them to think. I’m not saying we need to build a whole new generation of project managers and analysts, but it would be better than a generation of task-oriented mindless office drones with untied shoelaces, shoving on a door at the Midvale School for the Gifted.

h/t to @aubreygirl22 for the logical conversation.

[seemslikeadream]

Someone has to invent a way to speed up this "logical and critical thinking" thing or else we're doomed.

[Project Willow]

^^ I'm sure the release of an app is imminent.

[Allegro]

I’ve needed a refresher!
’Just now saw on Bad Astronomy How to get kids to think critically

Via io9 I saw a wonderfully-done and highly engaging series of short videos teaching kids the basics of critical thinking. Each one is great, with good pacing and solid info that teenagers can use to sort fact from fiction.

A valuable argument | Critical Thinking Part 1


Broken Logic | Critical thinking Part 2


The Man who was made of straw | Critical thinking Part 3


Getting Personal | Critical thinking Part 4


The Gambler’s Fallacy | Critical Thinking Part 5


A precautionary tale | Critical Thinking Part 6

[AlicetheKurious]

All transmissions are covered parts. All covered parts are free. Therefore, all transmissions are free. This logic is technically valid, and if the premises are true, then of course the conclusion must be true. You can see here however that it’s not always true, though in some situations it could be. While the logic is valid, not all transmissions are free, only those covered by the warranty. So based on that, saying all transmissions are free is not sound logic.

The logic is perfectly sound. If not all transmissions are covered by the warranty, then the problem is not with the logic, but with the first premise, "All transmissions are covered parts," which is false. Sheesh. Physician, heal thyself, FFS.

[Searcher08]

There is the question of WHICH LOGIC ARE YOU USING ?

Because there are more than one. Is the one binary true / false logic traditionally used the only one?

No, it isnt.

From Wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_logic

In quantum mechanics, quantum logic is a set of rules for reasoning about propositions which takes the principles of quantum theory into account. This research area and its name originated in the 1936 paper by Garrett Birkhoff and John von Neumann, who were attempting to reconcile the apparent inconsistency of classical logic with the facts concerning the measurement of complementary variables in quantum mechanics, such as position and momentum.

Quantum logic can be formulated either as a modified version of propositional logic or as a noncommutative and non-associative many-valued (MV) logic.[1][2][3][4][5]

Quantum logic has some properties which clearly distinguish it from classical logic, most notably, the failure of the distributive law of propositional logic:

p and (q or r) = (p and q) or (p and r),

where the symbols p, q and r are propositional variables. To illustrate why the distributive law fails, consider a particle moving on a line and let

p = "the particle is moving to the right"
q = "the particle is in the interval [-1,1]"
r = "the particle is not in the interval [-1,1]"

then the proposition "q or r" is true, so

p and (q or r) = p

On the other hand, the propositions "p and q" and "p and r" are both false, since they assert tighter restrictions on simultaneous values of position and momentum than is allowed by the uncertainty principle. So,

(p and q) or (p and r) = false

Thus the distributive law fails.

Quantum logic has been proposed as the correct logic for propositional inference generally, most notably by the philosopher Hilary Putnam, at least at one point in his career. This thesis was an important ingredient in Putnam's paper Is Logic Empirical? in which he analysed the epistemological status of the rules of propositional logic. Putnam attributes the idea that anomalies associated to quantum measurements originate with anomalies in the logic of physics itself to the physicist David Finkelstein. However, this idea had been around for some time and had been revived several years earlier by George Mackey's work on group representations and symmetry.

[AlicetheKurious]

There is the question of WHICH LOGIC ARE YOU USING ?

Because there are more than one. Is the one binary true / false logic traditionally used the only one?

No, it isnt.

From Wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_logic

In quantum mechanics, quantum logic is a set of rules for reasoning about propositions which takes the principles of quantum theory into account. This research area and its name originated in the 1936 paper by Garrett Birkhoff and John von Neumann, who were attempting to reconcile the apparent inconsistency of classical logic with the facts concerning the measurement of complementary variables in quantum mechanics, such as position and momentum.

Searcher, the rules of our traditional logic may or may not apply to the rather esoteric and controversial theory of quantum mechanics, but that's not relevant here. The subject of the OP is the importance of being able to use critical thinking to recognize the logical flaws in an argument, no matter how subtle or skillfully hidden, in order to avoid being hoodwinked.

[Allegro]

.
It must be true. I heard it on the Internet.
— Bad Astronomy | June 20th, 2012 11:52 AM

So you hear some claim on the Internet — say, vaccines will make you grow a second head — and you’re not sure if it’s true. What do you do?

This is not a trivial question. The greatest strength of the ‘net is that it gives everyone a voice, and the greatest weakness of the ‘net is that it gives everyone a voice. Because not everyone has a good grasp of reality, any claim, no matter how ridiculous, will have its supporters online somewhere. If you have no familiarity with a topic and stumble on some crackpot’s website about it, you might not know what they’re saying is baloney.

At Lifehacker, Alan Henry wrote an outstanding article about all this. And I don’t just say this because he quoted me extensively in it, though of course there is that. He also talked with David McRaney from You Are Not So Smart who also has excellent advice, and then wrapped it all up in a readable and IMO very important article on how to make sure the Internet isn’t duping you.

The most important thing I have to say on this is: just because you’re smart doesn’t mean you’re right. This is an incredibly common fallacy, and one I see a lot. In many cases, the opposite is true, especially when it comes to closely-held beliefs. Smart people hear a claim and decide to check up on it, and then fall victim to the bias of only reading articles that support their pre-existing belief. It’s maddening, but well-documented, and leads to things like outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases in places where people are better educated on average. Like Boulder.

In the Lifehacker interview I recommended following the scientific consensus as a default position. Why? Because when scientists agree on something, it’s almost always because there is overwhelming evidence to support it, research indicating it’s correct, and vast amounts of experience going into accepting that conclusion. That doesn’t mean it’s always right 100% of the time, of course, but that’s the way to bet. Also, it makes a lot more sense to go with the consensus of people who have experience in a topic versus the opinions of people who don’t.

And like I said, that should be your default position, not your entrenched one. There should always be some room for doubt, some allowance for data not yet seen, evidence not yet collected.

But there are times when that room is small indeed. I can list lots and lots and LOTS of topics where that’s the case.

So go read the article at Lifehacker, and remember that even though you’re smart — hey, you’re reading Bad Astronomy, so that’s self-evident — you might be wrong.

But of course, you already knew that.

[Canadian_watcher]

several issues come to my tiny mind when I read the above, and also the Lifehacker article recommended within it.

First was the hyperbolic opening of the posted piece, above "..vaccines will make you grow a second head." That is almost ad hominem (something the Lifehacker article warns a person to watch out for in drawing the conclusion of whether or not the writer is a reliable source.) Nobody is saying vaccines will make you grow a second head. People are claiming that there is added mercury in them, that they might be carcinogens, and that they contribute to autism (among other things).

The rest are from the article at Lifehacker:

The article recommends that in order to overcome confirmation bias, you should google search the term at hand along with any synonym for the the word "hoax." Fine, I guess, except then you're going to get a lot of biased research in the other direction, at least that's what happened when I tried it.

The article suggests that some good venues for finding the 'true science' are at Wikipedia, Snopes, Phys.org and Science Daily. This strikes me as being akin to the Church recommending you turn to the bible for the real story. Or Eli Lily telling you to search their website for proof that their drugs are safe.

They do recommend searching scientific journals, which I agree with, although there again we are met with the resistance that all science meets with: outside of the box thinking rarely gets published in mainstream journals. Also, journal articles are notoriously difficult for the layman to find & then understand.

All in all I believe people do sorely need to learn how to discern what is good science and what is bad, but that has always been a difficult task, maybe moreso now with the information overload we all suffer. Mainstream news itself with the 'butter good, margarine bad/butter bad, margarine good' type stories every other day (that come out of rigorous, non-anecdotal science labs) serves to blur the 'truth.'

No matter how much evidence we gather, it seems that the truth has become perverted to mean "beliefs about what is true." The truth itself exists but in another dimension and if anyone glimpses it they are dismissed as a crackpot who cannot repeat and measure their experience.

[brekin]

Interestingly these videos fail to teach a crucial step in
practical Logic which readers of this forum should be familiar with;
asking Qui Bono or "Who benefits?"

These Logic videos above are propaganda with a specific
purpose created by TechNyou.
http://technyou.edu.au/

About us

TechNyou was established to meet a growing community need for balanced and factual information on emerging technologies. We are funded by the Australian Government Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education (DIISRTE). We operate in partnership with the University of Melbourne, where our office is based.
Services

TechNyou has a free information service and an outreach program to help raise awareness about and engage the public on emerging technologies and their associated issues, for example GM foods, stem cells, genetic testing, gene therapy, cloning and nanotechnologies. We conduct professional development workshops for teachers and students, presentations to community groups and set up interactive information booths at public events.

It is obvious they are using the guise of basic Logic lessons to cow people into looking to industry and the establishment for evidence for controversial technologies (GMO foods, irradiation, nanotech, etc) which they have special interests and conflicts in. For example in the following transcripts to the Logic videos look at the industries and examples they use.

This really is jut a TED-y version of the 1950's and 1960's heavy industry propaganda education films. These films aren't about applying Logic but suspending judgment, not making connections, and not thinking critically or using your intuition.

http://technyou.edu.au/fun-stuff/videos ... anscripts/

Critical Thinking Part 3 – The Man Who Was Made of Straw

Straw-man arguments are off-topic, oversimplified, exaggerated, or subtly twisted versions of your argument, that others can easily knock over, while still appearing logical.
For example, perhaps you're discussing whether vaccinations can help reduce the number of people who fall sick from a particular virus.
In response, another person puts forward a counter-argument claiming pharmaceutical companies make large profits by selling vaccines.
The focus of the argument is being shifted from the benefits of
vaccination to profiteering.
It's also easy to think everybody agrees with your starting premises.
But, misunderstandings or false premises can be slipped in.
For example, you can say that the measles make you sick, the measles vaccine contains the measles virus and therefore the measles vaccine
makes you sick.
On these simplified facts this conclusion is logical.
But the premises might not be so solid.
You need to show that the measles vaccine which contains the same virus is present in the form that makes you sick.
The measles vaccine actually contains a broken form of the virus that reproduces slowly and doesn't make you sick.
This is a subtle, but rather significant difference.
Even oversimplifying a disagreement down to for and against, true or false, black and white, may be used to mislead you.
Remember, there can be more than one solution.

Critical Thinking Part 4 – Getting Personal

It's hard to listen to people we don't like, and difficult to disagree with those that we trust and admire.
But there's a difference between who a person is and what they're saying.
For example, you might not like a particular fossil fuel company because of past illegal and unethical behavior.
A smiling representative from the company comes on television and claims their chemical research division has discovered an environmentally friendly 'clean' form of petrol.
It's too easy to be suspicious of their actions.
After all, you don't like them.
They could be lying to make money.
The company's history may imply it's actions could warrant closer attention and further discussion.
But you can't logically claim that they're wrong based on that argument alone.
Linking your dislike with your disbelief is playing the player, not the issue.
You can't be an expert on all things and how you feel about a person can be a tempting first step in deciding if you trust them.

But arguments based on who you trust and who you suspect, just aren't valid.
We turn to experts when we're looking for good advice.
However, claiming a conclusion is logically true because an expert made the claim, is a poor argument.
Climate change is not a concern because experts say so, it's a concern because the facts and the logic indicate that global warming is a sound conclusion.
That doesn't mean that we should ignore
experts, instead we need to ask questions to better
understand the facts and the logic that they use.

Critical Thinking Part 5 – The Gambler’s Fallacy

For example, seeing a flash of lightning and hearing a boom of thunder
makes it seem like as if the thunder was caused by the lightning.
And there are plenty of reasons to believe that's true.
But what if you ate a hotdog and then got sick.
Was it the hotdog, or was it something else entirely?
Medicine is full of such head scratching questions.
People take pills and feel better.
But a lot of logic and probability is needed to determine whether the pills were truly responsible.
Just because one thing follows another, even if it happens a few times, does not necessarily mean that they're linked.
There could be other factors, or it could simply be coincidence.
To know for sure you have to test the circumstances again and again,
looking for those other factors that could disprove the link.
This reinforces confidence that your pattern is true.
This is what science does.
So while our brains see patterns, and this is often very useful, it takes science to prove that these patterns are real.

Critical Thinking Part 6 – A Precautionary Tale

Not acting until you have a good idea of any adverse consequences is called the precautionary principle.
This happens every day.
Products are tested before they go to market, to prove that they're safe.
Because there's a chance that they're not.
But it's difficult to remove all concerns about the risks associated with every single action.
Let alone those based on the complex series of tests and observations required by science.
And here we run into some confusion about how science works.
Some say global warming and evolution aren't facts, they're just theories.
But there's no 'just' about it.
In science the word theory doesn't mean 'I reckon' it means a well tested rule, which is based on logic, explains repeated observations, and has been used to make accurate predictions.
This makes them incredibly useful and difficult to ignore.
Newton's theory of gravitational attraction, is a theory.
It explains how objects with mass move the way they do.
It's a theory so useful that some three hundred years after it was first
published, it's still used to send objects from Earth to the far reaches of the solar system.
Observable or proven facts are only part of science.
When we're faced with the risks, it's natural to want to wait until there's a hundred percent certainty about it.
Unfortunately, that's impossible.
The best that can be achieved is that given all our current theories, repeated testing, logic, and the facts, that we're reasonably confident something is safe.
And this is where the precautionary principle can be misused.
Waiting for more information is useful but waiting for that unattainable one hundred percent certainty, prevents anybody from doing anything.
Consider mobile phones and fears that their radiation emissions may cause cancer.
If we choose to wait until mobile phones were proven to be one hundred percent safe, or not, we would have no mobile phone technology.
Cancer is not something to be taken lightly, and concerns should never be dismissed.
But waiting for irrefutable data, which is logically impossible, is a bad way to make decisions.
And by doing so, we may lose amazing opportunities or encounter new risks.
Asking about risks is sensible.
But demanding one hundred percent safety, stops technology from evolving.

[Wombaticus Rex]

...brekin, you have made this thread into a wonderful thing just now. Look at the shiny nightmare you just unpacked there. Hot damn.

There are days when I think my highest accomplishment would be not thinking or speaking at all. RI is a uniquely perfect venue for a spiral conversation on Thinking Too Much. In retrospect, Thinking Too Much is what got me here, innit? And don't we have someone, every 14 days, channel the obligatory rant on how we're all neutered post-modernists who can't Do Anything about the taxonomy of horror we catalog here? (Or "masturbating into a broken mirror," that was another particularly vivid version of the eternal lament. Never gonna un-see that one! Also concerned about how she knew I liked to do that.)

I was quite impressed at a young age by the absurdity of Logic, and my main attraction to the field was the perverse joy of using it to categorically state obvious falsehoods. I am grateful that my mentors were honest with me: the point of learning Logic is not to discern the truth, but to disguise a lie. The point is not educated citizens, the point is fast-talking lawyers.

I think that teaching critical thinking is an insanely dangerous thing to do, because you are deluding your students into fancying themselves critical thinkers.

Salvador Dali's "Critical Paranoia" has more to offer than the Trivium.

[brekin]

Here is a list of some of the other handy videos TechNyou produces:

List in alphabetcial order (Video Name, Length)
http://technyou.edu.au/fun-stuff/videos ... anscripts/

Evolution
Food Security
Future Technologies and their possible impacts: Utility Fog
Nanotechnology and Health: Nanoimaging
Nanotechnology and Health – Nanoparticle diagnostics
Nanotechnology Health and Medicine – Transdermal Patches
Regenerative Medicine 02:29
Synthetic Biology Explained 06:35
The AI Singularity by Buck Shlegeris & Dani Murach
Vertical Farming 02:20
What is Nano gold? 04:26
Would you eat Synthetic Meat? 02:02
Critical Thinking Part 1 – A Valuable Argument 02:21
Critical Thinking Part 2 – Broken Logic
Critical Thinking Part 3 – The Man Who Was Made of Straw
Critical Thinking Part 4 – Getting Personal
Critical Thinking Part 5 – The Gambler’s Fallacy
Critical Thinking Part 6 – A Precautionary Tale

Would you eat Synthetic Meat?

Meat is an excellent source of protein and quite tasty.
But at what cost?
The resources required to feed nine billion people meat, are vast.
Even if it's just the wealthy ones.
Many people are rejecting the cruelty of factory farming and practices like live animal export.
And though they haven't been surveyed, it's likely the billions of primary providers, cows, sheep, pigs, fish and the rest, are dead against it.
Could synthetic meat be the solution?
It is meat, not tofu-based meat substitutes.
And despite the name, not really synthetic.
It’s actual animal cells.
Tissue engineers take a sample from a live adult animal and ideally that's all they have to endure.
Then they grow the adult stem cells in vats of nutrient rich broth, convert them to muscle cells, because meat is muscle, and grow the mono-biodegradable scaffold.
The only hitch is muscle cells need exercise to survive and you can't run these ones around the paddock.
You can stimulate them with tiny electrical impulses, but on an industrial scale, it's prohibitively expensive.
Research continues.
Thus far, the biggest cut contains millions of cells and is roughly the size of a contact lens.

But when synthetic meat becomes a mainstream reality, will you eat lab-grown steak?
And will knowing that no animals were harmed in the making of your burger, change the way you relate to animals?

Sadly their nifty by gosh GMO videos series don't have transcripts I can post yet. Because their pro-GMO message is delivered in a rhyming Dr. Seuss style they are howlers of industry brainwashing: "We tweak tiny model fruit flies like tiny control panels" "So we cautious all luddites that stand in the way, perhaps missing advancements that may save the day"

GMO Part 1 - What Is It?


GMO Part 2 - What Could It Do?

[JackRiddler]

The most important thing I have to say on this is: just because you’re smart doesn’t mean you’re right.

Absolutely. All the damn time. In this society it's further complicated because "smart" is routinely conflated with making lots of money.

In the Lifehacker interview I recommended following the scientific consensus as a default position. Why? Because when scientists agree on something, it’s almost always because there is overwhelming evidence to support it, research indicating it’s correct, and vast amounts of experience going into accepting that conclusion. That doesn’t mean it’s always right 100% of the time, of course, but that’s the way to bet. Also, it makes a lot more sense to go with the consensus of people who have experience in a topic versus the opinions of people who don’t.

And like I said, that should be your default position, not your entrenched one. There should always be some room for doubt, some allowance for data not yet seen, evidence not yet collected.

Sure. All obvious. What is he leaving out? I'd say: the most dramatic cause of fallacy among practicing scientists, or people who purport to be scientists. Culture. Sociology. Conformity to values or myths of a culture, or such as are set forth by a society's needs, rather than to empirical observation.

First of all, science is a funded activity. It's not that you can't attempt to pursue any question, but funders determine what will be funded, and thus funders have the greatest influence over what questions will interest the greatest number of scientists. Example: "How do I locate an isolated gene to which I can attribute a given syndrome?" becomes a more popular question than, "What kind of environment is best for those suffering from said syndrome, or alternatively might serve to cause it?" Also, "What are the effects of this drug to which my funder owns the patent" is much more important than "What are the effects of this drug to which my funder does not own the patent?"

Furthermore, "science" is highly respected. Many forms of rules-setting, myth and pseudo-science aspire to the title of science. And I'm not talking about what Phil Plait would normally think of as pseudo-science, like astrology. I'm talking about disciplines that long-ago colonized universities and dispense the society's hegemonic ideology as if it were science: the usual understandings of economics, business administration, international relations, and to an extent sociology, politics, and human biology and psychology. Plait should be at least as publicly wary about the "findings" of covertly-funded think-tanks purporting to use game theory as a justification for the Inevitable Next War, or of hedge funds hiring rocket scientists to construct complex derivatives on scientific principles, as he is of Dr. Quack's Miracle Crystal Cure Institute.

But there are times when that room is small indeed. I can list lots and lots and LOTS of topics where that’s the case.

I'm sure he can! Evolutionary history and the mechanics of motion up to galactic scales are excellent examples. So are geology and meteorology. Cosmology, on the other hand...

A segment of the scientific community also has not reacted well to the organized attack on science - my favorite example is the constant failure by scientists in the popular discourse to distinguish between evolutionary history and evolutionary theory, apparently for fear that this gives more of an opening to creationists, at least within the all-important Idiot Demographic - but that's a story for a different post.

.

[Joe Hillshoist]

I have a funny feeling my mum worked on those TechNyou videos, if not she worked with the people who produced them in various science teaching related things (well I'm pretty sure she did but will have to check), and whats more we talked about alot of this stuff over the last few years and my opinions which influenced her a little I'm sure were informed by the discussions I've had here among many other things.

So there you go.

I think that teaching critical thinking is an insanely dangerous thing to do, because you are deluding your students into fancying themselves critical thinkers.

Thats a pretty important point, perhaps its possible to get around it by also teaching the idea that critical thinking needs to be self assessed all the time, I dunno tho:

Salvador Dali's "Critical Paranoia" has more to offer than the Trivium.

How? Spell it out (please).

[Wombaticus Rex]

Well, in that Critical Paranoia is an open-ended method and the Trivium is a closed loop. Rhetorical Logic is a matter of satisfying requirements and thereby winning arguments, where Critical Paranoia is more corrosive and fertile, but...basically...exactly what you said about "the idea that critical thinking needs to be self assessed all the time."

I think that's a cool idea for a sci fi novel, you know? I'd rather teach kids the gnawing fear of cognitive bias, sensory bandwidth, and their own splintered attention spans.

More seriously, though, I think that "self-assessment" is possible but it's a community effort. I think vanishingly few of us are capable of maintaining machinery that complex without a manual. The biggest reason I have advocated the Trivium (everyone knows I #occupy a lot of sides, right?) is because of the group synthesis work it encourages. In school, I and my fellow inmates were called upon to give answers on a stimulus-response level but few of the kids I was in classes with would speak up and voice their opinions -- and stick up for them. Being able to practice that in a safe environment is very valuable...just like martial arts, really: the dojo should be as peaceful as a rock garden even during training. Things change when they get to America, though. (Fight Church.)

Since I haven't linked to this document yet, I should: one of my favorite primers on cognitive bias, with the added bonus of being about the end of the world, too.

http://singularity.org/files/CognitiveBiases.pdf

Take the URL with a grain of salt, it's unfortunate that Yudkowsky is a True Believer (and yea, an Apostate of the Flesh and Heretic unto the Hedonists) he's a brilliant mind and unusually clean writer.