critical thinking

Howdy all, I just wanted to let everyone know that Athon and I have got a thread going on over at the "The Amaz!ng Meeting! and other Skeptical Events" forum. We're looking to get people interested in getting involved in a workshop at TAM6 for educators. Here's the link...

You know the story, as we grow we are immerse in a world of Cinderella's, full of colorful characters with fancy personalities. Then we grow more and those stories are seen as nothing but fairy tale's, the real world is different and now we know better. But... In a fairytale there are this...

Sorry I'm late starting this, but the Cattywampus story reminded me of an Anthropolgy professer I had in college. He was from Germany and when he was in college he lived in abandoned Nazi bunkers. I thought of him while reading the story because on his tests he would write "Take one or two...

I've talked to my girlfriend and she has agreed to take some of her time to read a few articles about the basics of critical thinking, skepticism, logic, fallacies and such. After which she has also agreed to read some threads on this forum and then practice these skills with real discussions...

I am multi-cultural, trilingual, and consider myself to be a person of slightly above average intelligence (115 IQ, nothing special). My whole life I have always felt as if the education system was letting me down; I was never challenged and easily lost interest in my classes even through honors...

What fraction of the general population do think employ some reasonable form of critical (logical) thinking skills in their daily lives? Then, perhaps you may wish to comment on what fraction of folks you associate with both at work and privately do so. (OK -- I made the question too long ...

I try to go by the evidence. A lot of people who don't agree with my political views wrongly accuse me of not being skeptical in politics and I accuse a lot of them of the same. So just to change the subject to a lighter fare (;) not necessarily) and discuss changing long held views when the...

Hi, I wasn't sure if this went here or in General Skepticsm, so if it needs to be moved, I apologize for the error. I'm new to skepticsm and critical thinking, after being a woo for a long time. I've been debating at this woo board for a while, and have run into quite a few problems and issues...

Yesterday I picked up "Maybe Yes, Maybe No: A Guide For Young Skeptics" by Dan Barker. I must say that I am very pleased! This book is short and to the point. It begins in cartoonish way telling the story of a skeptical child who is confronted with friends who make claims about a haunted...

In a demonstration of the powers of Homeopathy, after reading through the forums, and checking up on the various ingredients, I took a bottle (32 doses) of Hyland's Calms Forte in front of my class. They were suitably awed by this, swearing that I was endangering my life. One student asked to...

Hi everyone, This is just a general call out for some of your thoughts, ideas, and suggestions. Between May 7th and 11th of this year, I'll be teaching a course on skepticism, pseudoscience, and critical thinking to a class of about 20 students from grades 8 through 12 (in Canada that's...

I'm a (fairly new) science teacher in the UK and I've now been asked to write a scheme of work for Year 9 entitled "Ideas and Evidence", which is intended to be a sort of "How Science Works" module (see http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/schemes2/secondary_science/sci09m/?view=get) - i.e. teaching...

I've been creating, using, and modifying lessons in skepticism and critical thinking. Various lessons include presentations, video clips, worksheets, and weblinks. They can all be found here: http://homepage.mac.com/phyzman/skepticism/ Current lessons include - Wiseman's Three-color Mind...

A friend passed along some information about the CFI Summer Camp for 2007. Unfortunately, also passed along were statements from a really dumb woo forum. These people call the camp "brainwashing" and are screaming "profiteering!" because of the cost. Granted this is coming from a group of...

Today I decided to try a lesson on dowsing with a few classes, since it's the last week and we've finished the actual course. Since I couldn't get hold of sticks or wire rods on short notice, I went with using a pendulum. I was quite impressed with the effect I got from it - when testing I got...

On Thursday I decided to digress from the current topic of study with my Year 10 Set 2 class and did a lesson on critical thinking. The lesson involved several demonstrations - I gave out identical horoscopes (thanks to Athon) and revealed them to be the same after getting ratings of 8 or 9 out...