thinking

http://news.yahoo.com/analytic-thinking-promote-atheism- Good article

I wonder if anyone can help enlighten me about this: http://cbcl.mit.edu/news/files/caltech-6-05.html ...which suggests that individual neurons in the brain have been shown to 'think', or more accurately, respond to particular images by firing. The reasoning seems quite wrong from what I've...

The question is not so stupid as it looks like. Imagine I'm one of those "standard" people. I live in a rich country, say, USA. I earn a lot. I believe in: 1. Creationism. It does no harm to me. I still earn lots of money. 2. UFO abductions. Whatever, it doesn't affect my everydays life. Not at...

I know that a lot of skeptics like to believe that critical thinking exercises can help us all to determine fact from falsehood. What kind of evidence is available from studies that prove that people who practice these different critical thinking exercises are less likely to be duped by...

I once asked a philosophy professor “What is philosophy about?” He said philosophy is “radically critical self-consciousness”. This was 35 years ago. Only in the last five years have I begun to understand that statement I took a number of courses in philosophy three decades ago but it was not...

So, I've been watching Cosmos all afternoon and while watching the episode "The persistence of memory" Carl Sagan mentioned that animals have feelings, but what separates us from them is that we have thoughts. He went on to say that animals, such as reptiles, don't think, but instead follow...

Last June...the Vice President described the insurgency as being pretty well over... http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/30/cheney.iraq/ It was another Administration "slam dunk" (to quote George Tenent)...the VP, seemingly fed up with reality based analysis, was using wishful thinking analysis to...

Now, I watched a documentary about the book on BBC4 last night and I learned about the book and they completely debunked the book's supposed facts, while showing that the people who believe the book to be factual, badly misinterpeted the book. Anyway, I believe as long as I don't take it as...

Anyone know of studies examining students who have been taught critical thinking, either by infusing critical thinking in regular classes, or by taking specific critical thinking classes?

I just booked one of the last balcony rooms on the cruise because TAM4 was my first skeptics event (because I didn't realize they existed before), and now I'm hooked. I am as single as a guy can be, but I took a gamble and booked for 2 people. So, the deal is, I have to come up with the name...

Thinking about homeopathy today for no particular reason, and I was struck by a thought. There is no progress being made in homeopathy. Whatever it is…and I believe it has no merit…it seems to me that it is essentially a stagnant field. As poor as “modern” medicine can be, it strives to learn...

I'm sure everyone has seen the TV commercial for the online credit-check service, with the "spokesmodel" sitting there in front of a scale that goes from 450 to 850. Why such weird numbers? Why wouldn't your "credit score" simply be a 1-100 scale or somesuch?

Although I'm not sure what category my ability would fall under. I can confidently state that I have the amazing ability to negate any psychic or medium. I can demonstrate this with any psychic or medium. 1- What, SPECIFICALLY, you claim to do as a demonstration of your abilities? I can...

So I was thinking on the way to work, that once I was on my bike on an all night 8-hour ride with no sleep, and despite the fact that I was exhausted, I was very much awake. So I was thinking that maybe the body diverts bloodflow to make sure the brain is kept happy and alive and all. That got...

I'm using Shermer's Weird Things to teach critical thinking and we are covering ch 3.What I need is some links to preposterous claims for students to critique. I have Penta Water and a few others, but I need some quantum morphic field resonating biomagnetic remotely viewed stuff to make the point.

I'm thinking about buying a 9800pro graphics card. But my motherboard only supports 4X AGP. Is that a problem? I currently have a ti4200 graphics card (64mb version). I have an XP1800 and 768mb of RAM. So will I have any noticeable difference if I went up to an 9800 pro?? Also do these...

WTF sort of political slogan is that?

Recently, it came to my mind that "believers" has lots of music, songs in praise of their believes. My curious mind turn to question whether the sceptical, logical enjoys the same. Some search on the web found nothing... Then I found this. Here's a website containing some poem of free...

For those who believe this to be the case, the world is in a tragic state. It is corrupted and possibly beyond repair. It is therefore not particularly difficult to identify the problems of the world, to project our own meaning on them, and to suggest solutions. However, the solutions we...

There is a general tone of sarcasm and superiority around skeptic circles. Any believer is automatically attacked and ridiculized. Why on earth do we expect them to face facts when they are diminished in such a punitive way? Are we nuts? If anything, this kind of behaviour only repels them...

Sen. Ken Toole (D - Helena) introduced this joint resolution (http://data.opi.state.mt.us/bills/2005/billhtml/SJ0008.htm) to the Montana State Legislature yesterday, granted, it's only a joint resolution and it probably won't pass, but it's a start: 2005 Montana Legislature SENATE JOINT...

Okay folks, hard question for you. What does the phrase critical thinking mean to you? I don't want you to google for a definition. What I'm interested in is finding out what you folks think it means. When you have read the phrase in the past what meaning have you given to the words...

What is thinking? 1. When I put a word "house" in front of your eyes and a picture of a house pop up in your brain. Did you think? 2. Is recalling something from memory considered thinking? 3. Is imagining up a picture of a ficticious house thinking? 4. Recalling and Imagining a house...

Excuse me while I vent, but I am getting really annoyed with people in our society who lack basic critical thinking skills. A case in point (albeit not a very good one) is my local car repair shop. Instead of trying to figure out the problem my car is apparently having with it's electrical...

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/WeirdNews/2004/08/27/605228-ap.html You just have to wonder what the manufacturer was thinking.

Hey, all... Maybe this should go in the Arts & Lit section, but I am in need of lots and lots of critical-type thought here, so hopefully this thread's presence on this page will help things in that regard. Okay. So, in the second half of the twentieth century especially, art--and, especially...

Making decisions based on rules has the advantage of concerving thinking time. But in human circles, such rule-based thinking can lead to injustice. When are we as morally obligated to overide Christians overide rule-based thinking? Also, can rule based thinking lead God to commit an...

Congolese liberation church celebrating Christmas in the last week of May because The Annunciation allegedly happened in August and presumably even virgin births take 9 months... What has gone wrong here? Iranians are flocking to foreign gurus in translation, defying their ayatollas to...

Hi All Towards the end of last year Richard Saunders informed you of our efforts to take critical thinking into the science classrooms by creating a school science show called Mystery Investigators. We look at paranormal claims, reproduce them, and use these claims in a fun way to demonstrate...

They've covered this topic quite a bit on NPR over the last week, including the Science Friday show. Recent studies have indicated some new information on the cholesterol/heart attack connection, it's treatment, and the effects of the new statin-type drugs. Seems the previous model was that...