critical thinking

I believe that it's not to assume anything, but what do y'all think?

So, Julia Galef's first book, The Scout Mindset: Why Some See Things Clearly and Others Don't, has now been published. And, I would say it is a remarkably excellent book! 5 stars out of 5! But, I am NOT just saying that because she is a friend of mine: For several years, I gave myself a thought...

Confirmation Bias, Dunning-Kruger effect, Anchoring, Ostrich effect, Exaggerated Pessimism, and more. This is a 14 minute video on the common cognitive biases we see, especially now during the COVID-19 pandemic. Good lessons in good thinking, and how to avoid cognitive shortcuts that don't...

Critical Thinking. This implies that there are thoughts which are not critical, and thus should be categorized as such and then discarded as relevant to anything critical. Open of course to subjective interpretation, but by and large the subjective can be criticized through the process of show...

Hello. I haven't posted on here in quite a while; my last question set off a rather large post on about AA and religion. I was raised Catholic and didn't get around to any critical thinking until college courses on Philosophy. I am in awe at the way many here can debate so well. I want to...

Steven Novella has a The Great Courses course on skepticism called Your Deceptive Mind: A Scientific Guide to Critical Thinking Skills. Has anyone watched it? I think it was good stuff!

Daniel Dennett's seven tools for thinking Very useful stuff, especially #6 IMO. Dennett is indeed a careful thinker with a well-rounded mind.

Do you have any suggestions on any books I should read to improve my critical thinking skills?

What if Harry Potter had been raised in a Muggle household to understand the scientific method, skepticism, cognitive biases, logical fallacies, and other critical thinking skills... and then was set loose in Hogwarts and Magical Britain? The answer is the quite excellent fanfic, Harry Potter...

As a long time chess player, I often wonder just how beneficial chess is for the mind, for schoolchildren in particular. There are few things said as often by skeptics on this forum and elsewhere about the need for teaching critical thinking to children, and to people in general. Which leads me...

As usual, students have trouble learning something? Remove the requirement that they learn it. Or, at least try! We have already eliminated geography, elementary school history, spelling, grammar, foreign languages, art, music, even penmanship for heavens's sake. I don't know what else...

Defining "critical thinking" clearly- in ten points decalogue style! http://www.kungfuhobbit.com/2012/06/good-thinking.html Id be grateful for thoughts/feedback/critiques. (copied content below w/ possibly dodgy formatting) If you think it's good please spread the link! Good thinking Some...

Creationists Switch Tactics In Tennessee This isn't a totally new tactic, as creationists have been pushing to "teach the controversy" for a while, but promoting critical thinking while singling out climate change and evolution as areas of supposed scientific dispute does seem underhanded.

I've had a look at them and they're good, covering the basics of critical thinking, confirmation bias, patterns, logic, fallacies and bad arguments. Well worth 14 minutes Part 1: A valuable argument; covers basic logic and structured arguments iSZ3BUru59A Part 2: Broken Logic; more logic and...

I have spent half my week end on youtube looking for video on critical thinking. And then it hits me like a ton of bricks : all the video I was watching were from atheist or skeptic ! I tried to search more but found none. This is surprising to me. I would have expected a lot more video from...

For me one of the most frustrating arguments used by religious supporters and apologetics is the idea that the existence of god(s) or other statements of religious beliefs are subjective. This is usually phrased by comparing religious beliefs to subjective concepts such as having a favorite...

Hello everyone. I have a daughter in 9th grade, and she's a critical thinker. We've spoken about skepticism and critical thinking often. She has the opportunity to do a science project/experiment in the near future, and we've been discussing how helpful it would be to the advancement of...

Hi all, I am starting this thread because of I what I perceive to be abuses of this logical fallacy, and a recent conversation in this thread : http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=196349 We have all seen various ad hominem attacks being made, from simple name calling...

Every year I have to help my kids come up with two science fair project ideas and I get tired of flipping through all the same old ideas. We have done a couple of really creative ones over the years, and one kid already picked a pretty good one for this year, but I am having trouble finding...

I have a friend who believes that babies are delivered by friendly storks. (Well, I don't know if he does, but since he hasn't turned 3 yet it's at least possible that he might.) What evidence would he need to provide to convince you that this is true?

One of my favorite podcasters, Jan Irvin @ Gnostic Media has had a recent series of podcasts on critical thinking, the trivium, the quadrivium and a few other podcasts dealing with these topics. I'd post a link but my post count hasn't hit 15 yet so you'll have to decypher gnosticmedia AT...

Hey, everyone! I have a lot of experience with public speaking. I am very comfortable in front of audiences/crowds and can think on my feet. I want to put together a "Skepticism 101" lecture. Does anyone have advice or pointers on how to go about doing that? Once the lecture is put...

How does one go about encouraging the development of critical thinking to students? On the web I've not encountered much research on this. Perhaps you could point me to some relevant research or give an opinion? My interest is as an aspiring elementary school teacher. Thank you.

I was at the dentist the other day. As I sat in the chair, the dental hygenist started talking to me about a terrible car accident that happened nearby - a drunk driver crashed and killed several other people in the car, including some children. She made a comment like, "What's wrong with...

Thanks to all the links we've followed, all the information and thoughts on vaccinations me and my wife have read throughout this forum, we got our kids (ages 3 and double 2) their first vaccinations today, according to the Finnish public program. A year ago this would've been totally...

Hey, everyone! I have made adjustments to my "Critical Thinking 101" post. This is to help people learn the basics of critical thinking and skepticism. I would like any and all feedback on the adjustments I made and if anyone has suggestions to add something I missed or anything at all, I...

Hey everyone! I have put together a blog post entitled, "Critical Thinking 101". My goal with this post was to provide people with the basics for critical thinking and skeptisicm. I would really appreciate any and all feedback on this post. Here is the link to the post...

I'm sure I'm not alone here in having friends and relatives who believe in weird things. I count among my friends and relatives people who believe in therapeutic touch, talking to angels, 9-11 conspiracy theories, rice as a cure for cancer, channeling, chemtrails, reiki, and ESP. And that...

I saw this neat passage by Stanley Fish in the New York Times and I thought I would share it: Full article.

Howdy all, At Claus's suggestion, I decided to start this thread to pose a few questions concerning a proposed "unofficial" workshop at TAM6. There seem to be a decent number of teachers on these boards who want to some kind of explicit teacher-oriented workshop at TAM6; however, due to time...