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skeptic class

Virgil

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has anyone developed a class on skepticism/ critical thinking for highschool or college. I would like to do same and hear about your work


thanks

Virgil
 
I see you haven't gotten any responses. I guess you are breaking new ground.

Would you be interested in some suggestions? I would consider basing a skepticism class on Carl Sagan's baloney detection kit from his book "The Demon Haunted World", or maybe the whole chapter called "The Fine Art Of Baloney Detection".

I would have the class discuss the tools that Sagan lists, then practice, practice, practice their application.

~ Jeff
 
i had a "science and pseudoscience" class developed. went pretty well.
(oops, and i was supposed to send the rest of it to Merc. mmm, in may for sure :)
 
Sorry, just saw this thread. Yeah, I have two different classes--one a survey course, the other an inquiry-based course (currently teaching that--and will be teaching the survey course again this summer). PM an e-mail address and I'll dig up the stuff that I can. And yeah, Bug_Girl's course looks great, too!
 
My science teacher does not teach a skeptics class, but he is one of the biggest skeptics I have ever met. In the beginning of the year he spent a section of ouer class (we even had a test on it) talking about skeptics and credulous people and talking of the importance of skeptisim in science. He says it is a welcome relief to have a student as skeptical as him in his class.
 
Virgil said:
has anyone developed a class on skepticism/ critical thinking for highschool or college. I would like to do same and hear about your work
Click to expand...

I haven't, but (as always) I have an opinion on it.

I think that the ultimate course in skepticism would be identical to a course in logic that includes the informal fallacies. Sagan's BDK is ok, I guess, but it is only a subset of what would be covered in a one-year study in formal logic.

Now I have developed some materials on that

Logic (Discussion thread)
Logic Notes (Closed, to preserve the continuity of the notes)

I see that I haven't written anything on that in about a year :( . I think I'll get it going again, and even copy them to JREF, if there is any interest.
 
Bpesta22. -
I recall being upset by JAP's early example in that book, about moving a mountain by truck. I thought his answer was off by several orders of magnitude. This rather dented my confidence about the rest.
I must reread it.
 
www.skeptic.com used to have details of courses in their archives somewhere but I can't find the link now. I know the Baloney Detection Kit booklet they sell has course details listed. It's a very reasonable $5 too.
 
I've been playing with this idea for a while and do have the bones of a unit written, with few resources though.

What I propose is that once I have the time, I'm going to sit and flesh it out properly and then try to implement it in a Multistrand course in a Qld. school (they have the flexibility that I can do this with).

I was then going to endeavour to post this on the JREF - maybe even as part of the site, if it were professional enough - with a commentary on how it was developing.

With this interest, I'll be looking at getting other members of the forum to help. Stay tuned. I'll be resurrecting this idea towards the end of the year.

Athon
 
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