Vehicle for delivering skeptical message

[Skeptic Ginger]

I'm not entirely convinced that science education is as big a piece of the puzzle as is often proposed. I think we need to change the way science is taught, though. I would like to emphasize the 'wonder' elements, and that science is a profession of asking questions, rather than just doing calculations.

This is just making science more attractive. No argument there.

I didn't say science education was the key, I said expanding the principles of the scientific process as they apply to everything in life was the key. IE teaching critical thinking, not just teaching how one performs a research project.

I think this is true. However, the problem is that on an individual basis, if we want, say, highschool teachers to encourage skepticism, my concern is that we will end up with a bunch of cheesy amateur magicians. ie: as bad as I am.

J Randi's approach of demonstrating the fallacies of some of the paranormal woo is not what my post was about. It can certainly be used, but there's a lot more such as exploring marketing techniques, propaganda techniques, logic and logic fallacies, debate techniques like spotting straw men and so on.

Right. What I'd like to learn from you about this is what you mean in your bolded paragraph above. Two questions:

1) is there any evidence that critical thinking education translates into real-world skepticism?

2) what do we know about the efficacy of teaching critical thinking?

re: question #2. What we do know, is that as people become more educated, they are more likely to believe in the paranormal. They also score higher on critical thinking indexes.

So a third contingent question follows: if there is no relationship between critical thinking skills and real-world skepticism, what do we know about encouraging the latter?....

Your first question is really, "does knowing critical thinking skills mean those skills will be used?"

Well we know you can't use them if you don't know them. So you teach critical thinking skills and if a second problem arises that those skills are not then used, you have to first analyze what is preventing their use, and address that.

As far as your second question, it is asking about the effectiveness of teaching methods. Lots of research has been done in this area.

Here are links to 2 groups, The American Educational Research Association (AERA)

a national research society, strives to advance knowledge about education, to encourage scholarly inquiry related to education, and to promote the use of research to improve education and serve the public good.

and the Institute of Education Sciences

The Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002 established within the U.S. Department of Education, The Institute of Education Sciences (IES). The mission of IES is to provide rigorous evidence on which to ground education practice and policy. This is accomplished through the work of its four centers. Grover J. (Russ) Whitehurst was appointed to a 6-year term as the first Director of the Institute in November 2002.

They have accompanying sources of research in education where you can find all sorts of research on methodology and some research on the outcomes of teaching critical thinking. Respectively they are, Open Access Journals in the Field of Education and ERIC which

provides free access to more than 1.2 million bibliographic records of journal articles and other education-related materials and, if available, includes links to full text. ERIC is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences (IES).

 

[Skepiroth]

I am a scientist and I like detective shows but I am also the one person who selected "magic". I selected it because magic is entertaining and people like to be entertained and therefore is the best way to get the message out. Personally I do not think many people who are not already skeptical would watch a detective style debunking show and even fewer would pick up a scientific journal to read about homeopathy being BS (if disproving woo stuff was front page material, any idiot could get published in Nature).

 

[blutoski]

Your first question is really, "does knowing critical thinking skills mean those skills will be used?"

Well we know you can't use them if you don't know them. So you teach critical thinking skills and if a second problem arises that those skills are not then used, you have to first analyze what is preventing their use, and address that.

No, you misunderstood: my question is as stated. But I will rephrase it for clarity:

"How do we know that critical thinking is a proxy for skepticism. What if increasing critical thinking makes people more likely to believe in magical explanations?"

For example, rhetoric is a logical exercise, but for centuries, it has been the most powerful tool of evangelists. Christian apologetics is applied critical thinking. Intelligent design is a product of critical thinking.

As far as your second question, it is asking about the effectiveness of teaching methods. Lots of research has been done in this area.

[links provided]

I think I was hoping that somebody could throw me a bone. I'm an immunologist. When people ask me specific questions, I try not to say: "Here's a link to Google" or "Here's a link to Medline". Assume for the sake of discussion that I don't have an education degree, or that I didn't believe that teaching critical thinking increases skepticism. How would you convince me?

 

[CFLarsen]

It is futile to discuss this, since we still don't know what "organized skeptical movement" T'ai Chi is talking about.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

No, you misunderstood: my question is as stated. But I will rephrase it for clarity:

"How do we know that critical thinking is a proxy for skepticism. What if increasing critical thinking makes people more likely to believe in magical explanations?"

For example, rhetoric is a logical exercise, but for centuries, it has been the most powerful tool of evangelists. Christian apologetics is applied critical thinking. Intelligent design is a product of critical thinking.

We have to be operating with a different definition of critical thinking. This makes no sense to me at all.

Since when is rhetoric an exercise in logic? False logic maybe. If one is using critical thinking skills, one would be able to see through rhetoric and get to the real points to determine if they were valid.

Perhaps an example would clear this up but one way or another I have to say your definition of critical thinking cannot be correct given what you have posted above.

Try Wikipedia's definition and let's clear this up or we'll get nowhere in this discussion.

I think I was hoping that somebody could throw me a bone. I'm an immunologist. When people ask me specific questions, I try not to say: "Here's a link to Google" or "Here's a link to Medline". Assume for the sake of discussion that I don't have an education degree, or that I didn't believe that teaching critical thinking increases skepticism. How would you convince me?

Both of those organizations have volumes of research results at your fingertips. Just use the journal/bibliography search engines and type in whatever you are looking for. It ain't a bone it's the whole food dish. Try 'critical thinking' and you'll get volumes of research titles on testing teaching methods. Look for 'outcomes of teaching critical thinking' and you'll get more outcome oriented results.

As long as we are each using a different working definition of 'critical thinking', there is no way to find the results you are looking for.

How about you provide a citation for the claim you made that more education correlated with more magical thinking or whatever you labeled it? I'd like to see what exactly was measured to reach that conclusion and how repeatable the results were. I can't imagine an evolutionary biologist or a cosmologist becoming more convinced of creation stories or astrology the more they were educated.


BTW, I'm in the field of infectious disease. My knowledge base isn't as strong in immunology as I'd like it to be. If it has to do with infection, I can usually give you those bones. I may ask for some of yours sometime. Just thought I'd mention that.

 

[Cuddles]

I would question how effective magic can be. Yes, it demonstrates how people can be fooled, but it shows how they can be fooled by a magician. I think many people don't equate this with fooling themselves, or even being fooled by other non-magicians. I have seen this happen with optical illusions, where someone saw one in a book and thought it was really clever, but when they saw a natural equivalent they simply refused to believe that the lines were straight because the example in the book was designed to fool them, while the natural one wasn't.

 

[StewartP]

I would question how effective magic can be. Yes, it demonstrates how people can be fooled, but it shows how they can be fooled by a magician. I think many people don't equate this with fooling themselves, or even being fooled by other non-magicians. I have seen this happen with optical illusions, where someone saw one in a book and thought it was really clever, but when they saw a natural equivalent they simply refused to believe that the lines were straight because the example in the book was designed to fool them, while the natural one wasn't.

There is a vid on YouTube that shows someone bending a fork. The voiceover is Randi's and it's obvious (to me) that it is a demonstartion of how sleight of hand can be used to fake psychic phenomena.

However, looking at the comments to the vid, most of the viewwers missed the point and thought it was a kewl demo of mind power.

 

[Arkan_Wolfshade]

It is futile to discuss this, since we still don't know what "organized skeptical movement" T'ai Chi is talking about.

I'm fully on board with CF here. What is, "the message of the organized skeptical movement"?

 

[RSLancastr]

Quick, to the Doubtmobile!!

 

[CFLarsen]

We still don't know what "organized skeptical movement" T'ai Chi is talking about.

We still don't know what "message" T'ai Chi is talking about.

 

[blutoski]

We have to be operating with a different definition of critical thinking. This makes no sense to me at all.

Since when is rhetoric an exercise in logic? False logic maybe. If one is using critical thinking skills, one would be able to see through rhetoric and get to the real points to determine if they were valid.

No, rhetoric is solid logically, but its 'assumptions' are different than those skeptics accept as true, so we disagree with the results.

Perhaps an example would clear this up but one way or another I have to say your definition of critical thinking cannot be correct given what you have posted above.

Try Wikipedia's definition and let's clear this up or we'll get nowhere in this discussion.

Seems consistent to me, except, again, be mindful that Wikipedia is not the best place to go for definitions.

Both of those organizations have volumes of research results at your fingertips. Just use the journal/bibliography search engines and type in whatever you are looking for. It ain't a bone it's the whole food dish. Try 'critical thinking' and you'll get volumes of research titles on testing teaching methods. Look for 'outcomes of teaching critical thinking' and you'll get more outcome oriented results.

I'm not looking to reinvent the wheel: hasn't *somebody* already read this material and reviewed it for quality? Isn't there maybe a meta-study or essay with references that could put it together? Do I have to spend the next six months hunting down references, getting inter-library loans, and so on?

I get the same response when I ask for proof of homeopathy: "There's thousands of studies." Can they name one? No. "Check Medline, it's all there." Thus endeth the lesson. This sounds like a frustrating non-answer, is all. Now it's *my* job to disprove somebody else's claim?

As long as we are each using a different working definition of 'critical thinking', there is no way to find the results you are looking for.

Sure, I guess. I don't think we're actually quibbling over definitions. I gave examples, not definitions. FWIW: the man who taught my first course in critical thinking was a PhD in philosophy. His thesis was on a logical proof for the Trinity.

How about you provide a citation for the claim you made that more education correlated with more magical thinking or whatever you labeled it? I'd like to see what exactly was measured to reach that conclusion and how repeatable the results were. I can't imagine an evolutionary biologist or a cosmologist becoming more convinced of creation stories or astrology the more they were educated.

Galup poll 2001. As reported in Skeptic magazine Vol 10 No 2, p55. An exception, though, was "belief in possession by the devil," which dropped with increased education.

Also: the effect seems to be reversed for *graduate* science degrees. There's a rise in belief in the undergraduate years, then a whooshing dropoff for science grads.

 

[Harlequin]

There are certainly many individual organisations claiming to take a sceptical approach to the paranomal. CSICOP and JREF to name but two.

I think the best way is through science, ie, true scepticism. Note that this involves doing experiments! This means that the real sceptics of ESP, PK etc are the parapsychologists. Anyone can put forward plausible reasons for why paranormal phenomena appear to exist but actually do not, for example false memories, but its another thing to test whether these explanations hold up. Science doesn't just involve throwing out hypotheses. You have to test them too.

There's more to science than just "doing experiments". Those experiments must also be part of a rigorous scientific method. Unfortunately, your precious parapsychologists almost always miss that part...

I'd say they are doing something that looks to the layman like science, but is actually just free advertising for woo-ism. Thanks, but no thanks.

 

[blutoski]

We still don't know what "organized skeptical movement" T'ai Chi is talking about.

We still don't know what "message" T'ai Chi is talking about.

I think the question makes sense. There is are NFPOs based in the US, with international representatives. They have objectives, which is essentially "the message." Specifically, CSICOP, Skeptic Society, and JREF. I would also include CFI, except it's probably already accounted for as part of CSICOP.

 

[blutoski]

There's more to science than just "doing experiments". Those experiments must also be part of a rigorous scientific method. Unfortunately, your precious parapsychologists almost always miss that part...

I'd say they are doing something that looks to the layman like science, but is actually just free advertising for woo-ism. Thanks, but no thanks.

And the previous poster is probably not aware that many high profile skeptics have found their way to skepticism through exactly that research. They found the experiments to be either shoddy with positive results, or quality with negative results. After decades of this, the conclusion is that there's not a lot of actual research going on among the parapsychologists: just a lot of confirmation-seeking and demonstrations.

 

[CFLarsen]

I think the question makes sense. There is are NFPOs based in the US, with international representatives. They have objectives, which is essentially "the message." Specifically, CSICOP, Skeptic Society, and JREF. I would also include CFI, except it's probably already accounted for as part of CSICOP.

Yes, but are these what T'ai is talking about?

We don't know, because T'ai refuses to tell us.

 

[blutoski]

And the previous poster is probably not aware that many high profile skeptics have found their way to skepticism through exactly that research. They found the experiments to be either shoddy with positive results, or quality with negative results. After decades of this, the conclusion is that there's not a lot of actual research going on among the parapsychologists: just a lot of confirmation-seeking and demonstrations.

And also: skeptics have done experiments on the parapsychologists' methods, and we have good knowledge of which protocols work and which don't. If/when a known-appropriate protocol is followed, and results are positive and significant, it will be of tremendous value to humanity.

An example of this 'experimenting on the experiments' is when JR sent volunteer magicians into the parapsychology research experiments and they were not caught. In fact, they were published as positive results, which was a demonstration of the weakness of the protocols. Did they change the protocols? Nope.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

No, rhetoric is solid logically, but its 'assumptions' are different than those skeptics accept as true, so we disagree with the results.





Seems consistent to me, except, again, be mindful that Wikipedia is not the best place to go for definitions.




I'm not looking to reinvent the wheel: hasn't *somebody* already read this material and reviewed it for quality? Isn't there maybe a meta-study or essay with references that could put it together? Do I have to spend the next six months hunting down references, getting inter-library loans, and so on?

I get the same response when I ask for proof of homeopathy: "There's thousands of studies." Can they name one? No. "Check Medline, it's all there." Thus endeth the lesson. This sounds like a frustrating non-answer, is all. Now it's *my* job to disprove somebody else's claim?






Sure, I guess. I don't think we're actually quibbling over definitions. I gave examples, not definitions. FWIW: the man who taught my first course in critical thinking was a PhD in philosophy. His thesis was on a logical proof for the Trinity.






Galup poll 2001. As reported in Skeptic magazine Vol 10 No 2, p55. An exception, though, was "belief in possession by the devil," which dropped with increased education.

Also: the effect seems to be reversed for *graduate* science degrees. There's a rise in belief in the undergraduate years, then a whooshing dropoff for science grads.

You have over a 1,000 posts. You want me to spoon feed something to you but you can't even provide a link to your citation?

Comparing some fool who claims homeopathy is supported by research and all one need do is search Medline is hardly the same as asking if teaching critical thinking results in using critical thinking and me providing a link to two very specific data bases on education research.

Let's back up here. What do you mean by "rhetoric is solid logically" and what assumptions are you talking about that skeptics accept as true? Whether you believe we are using the same definition of critical thinking or not, you are not making any sense to me.

Critical thinking is a system of evaluating evidence using scientific principles and rules of logic. When you use critical thinking skills, you arrive at the best conclusion based on the evidence. There is some evidence that can be interpreted from different viewpoints. In such cases there may not be a scientific consensus, but there isn't some definition of critical thinking that gives you non-evidence based conclusions.

Not using critical thinking skills gives you false conclusions. Using them gives you the best chance of reaching correct conclusions. You seem to be claiming there are recognized beliefs that are in the category we refer to as "woo", but you don't seem to recognize that the way we know those beliefs are in the "woo" category is by using critical thinking skills.


And the guy with the "logical" proof for the Trinity wasn't using critical thinking. He would have been using false logic. Give me his argument and I'll point out the fallacy you missed.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Here is a list of common fallacies in pseudo logical thinking. I could not readily find a free version of your citation, blutoski. Unless I see the survey or more about it, I'm going to assume education in the survey doesn't correlate with science education. For example I wouldn't think they teach extensively about the scientific process with an MBA. Though they may teach some principles in marketing research, they may not teach how to apply the concepts more widely. Or the survey could have had religion topics interfering either by labeling religious beliefs as weird, which they are but many people ignore certain principles regarding analyzing the religion they were indoctrinated to.

I find it hard to believe without more evidence that the more educated you are the more likely you are to believe in ghosts, homeopathy and astrology for example.

 

[blutoski]

You have over a 1,000 posts. You want me to spoon feed something to you but you can't even provide a link to your citation?

AFAIK, there are no 'online' version of this citation. In any case, I didn't think it was controversial: Shermer has many times expressed his conviction that education merely gives people more facts to use when rationalizing their beliefs.

Comparing some fool who claims homeopathy is supported by research and all one need do is search Medline is hardly the same as asking if teaching critical thinking results in using critical thinking and me providing a link to two very specific data bases on education research.

I still think you're not understanding my question. This paragraph refers to two different questions I had: does teaching critical thinking have significant and long-lasting effects on a student's application of critical thinking (plausible, but the evidence I have seen is mixed), and secondly, does applied critical thinking have real-world applications that skeptics approve of? (I have only seen one example evidence of this latter connection presented, also in Skeptic, based on informal surveys)

In any case, you can prove my comparison flawed by producing some citations.

Let's back up here. What do you mean by "rhetoric is solid logically" and what assumptions are you talking about that skeptics accept as true? Whether you believe we are using the same definition of critical thinking or not, you are not making any sense to me.

Rhetoric was designed to be appealing by using legitemate syllogisms to direct the dialectic toward a specific conclusion. I can use Rhetoric to draw my opponent into Skepticism, and he is trying to use Rhetoric to draw me into, say, Creationism. This is different than sophistry or open debate formats.

Critical thinking is a system of evaluating evidence using scientific principles and rules of logic. When you use critical thinking skills, you arrive at the best conclusion based on the evidence. There is some evidence that can be interpreted from different viewpoints. In such cases there may not be a scientific consensus, but there isn't some definition of critical thinking that gives you non-evidence based conclusions.

I'd agree with you except for the "scientific principles" thing. Critical thinking is done in arts and humanities &c. Science does not have a special claim to critical thinking. It is a technique that applies to any discipline or topic of interest.

The debate about whether or not generalized skillsets such as critical thinking can have impacts on specialized fields is an old one, and as far as I know, unresolved. I'm gratified to be told that the truth is known, but have been very unsuccessful finding evidence, for asking.

My feeling from a few years listening to these suggestions is that what Skeptics mean is that they would like scientific thinking to be taught, not so much critical thinking.

Not using critical thinking skills gives you false conclusions. Using them gives you the best chance of reaching correct conclusions. You seem to be claiming there are recognized beliefs that are in the category we refer to as "woo", but you don't seem to recognize that the way we know those beliefs are in the "woo" category is by using critical thinking skills.

Mm. Well, this is a different discussion, though. I'm talking about the challenge that metaphysics presents for critical thinking and debate.

And the guy with the "logical" proof for the Trinity wasn't using critical thinking. He would have been using false logic. Give me his argument and I'll point out the fallacy you missed.

It's Dr. Kurt Priensperg, who is a PhD professor of philosophy. I'll see if I can locate his thesis, and you can show him where he's wrong. I'll also see if I can rummage up the college-level textbook on critical thinking that he authored.

In the meantime, my tutorial on critical thinking on our local skeptics' society website is based on his lectures and exercises: [critical thinking tutorial] Tell me if he's teaching false logic: I will update the site with appropriate corrections.

 

[blutoski]

AFAIK, there are no 'online' version of this citation. In any case, I didn't think it was controversial: Shermer has many times expressed his conviction that education merely gives people more facts to use when rationalizing their beliefs.

Just to follow up on this: the online Skeptic issues only go back to volume 11. This article predates the online repurposing.

However, I'm a little disappointed in your response to this, because it sounds like you feel you don't have to provide even one citation for your claim, on account of I only told you what volume, issue, and on page number my citation resided, whereas you expected better. I feel this is a very unfair transfer of the burden of proof and unreasonably assymetric expectations. I am particularly disappointed, since you're doing something we accuse others of doing: making a clam and shirking the responsibility for providing evidence.


I'd like to follow up with a few other citations (no links, sorry, they're paper copies in my file drawer, but certainly available in back-issues around the globe):

Belief in the Supernatural among Harvard and West African University Students, Nature 227, 971 - 972

Inevitable Illusions by M. Piattelli-Palmarini (the entire book's thesis is that reasoning errors and emotional foundations of belief are not altered by general education, but can be altered by specialized knowledge)

How We Believe by Michael Shermer. Shermer makes several statements to this affect in his book, which were composed from an organization contracted to pursue these findings for the purpose of the book, called Survey Sampling Inc. The endnotes for page 83 in my edition explain that the correlation between education and rational explanations for believing in God is .14 (weakly positive).

James Randi's Flim-Flam! reports that there is more belief for ESP among scientists than among psychologists, and this is discussed by Gilovich in How We Know What Isn't So. Gilovich proposes in much of his book that the mechanism that fuels effective skepticism is specialized knowledge, and that it is not always scientific knowledge. When we venture out of our scope of expertise, we are vulnerable to woo thinking.