Teaching "Critical Thinking" in Education?

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Immanuel Can
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Re: Teaching "Critical Thinking" in Education?

Post by Immanuel Can »

Well, in practice, I agree...it does.

But wilful ignorance is not something we can beat. If someone is just plain obdurate, then he's going to be like that. I know of no cure.

What we can do is offer the concept, show how it works in practice, and invite people to take it into their own "toolkit" of thinking strategies. Without that offer, they don't even have a chance to think rationally. And I think that's still worth our time. What we cannot do is force anyone to do so.

Not all of the resistance is from hard-headedness, though; some is from sincere fear. In those cases, I have some sympathy. What I mean is that some people are actually terrified by the undermining of their basic prejudices that is a natural part of critical thinking. (I've frequently met such people.) They shut down and don't want it, because they fear the vertigo of unknowing that happens between old thought and better understandings.

Now, I realize that for most, such vertigo is temporary, and they could fight through it by using logic to help them find their feet again. And yes, I wish they would be willing to try, and I think it would make them happier if they did. Still, they are too terrified; and I sincerely wonder if they might not sometimes be right, in their own case -- maybe they just can't get buy without the old certainties, and they aren't smart enough to find better ones themselves. In that case, they might be best left as they are, rather than cut adrift for the very next propagandist to mislead.

So I think we can only offer. I don't want to insist. Whether they will take up the offer of critical thinking is up to their personal courage and sense of their own readiness; and that, I admit, you and I cannot control.
surreptitious57
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Re: Teaching "Critical Thinking" in Education?

Post by surreptitious57 »

Be aware of any logical fallacies especially the most common ones such as argumentum ad populum
So realise that the validity of an argument is dependant on how sound it is not on how popular it is
Course an argument can be both sound and popular although one is not conditional upon the other
And also avoid dogmatism as much as possible unless there is actual proof to support a hypothesis
Lastly realise the difference between evidence and proof : evidence is partial / proof is absolute
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Lev Muishkin
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Re: Teaching "Critical Thinking" in Education?

Post by Lev Muishkin »

Ned wrote:"These 'rules' of thinking should be on the top of curriculum from the kindergarten on.

I call it the rules of "Critical Thinking".

It is all about asking the right questions and insisting on answers.

1. how do you define it?
2. is your definition based on reliable observation and logic?
3. how do you know?
4. what have you observed?
5. how reliable are your sources?
6. are there contradictions between these concepts?
7. between a concept and your observations?
8. what is the cause-and-effect chain?
9. what happened before that?
10. what happened after?
11. is that the simplest explanation (Ockham's Razor)?
12. What probability do you assign to it?
13. What other reasonable explanation can you imagine?
14. Is there a limit to human understanding?
15. Are we mentally equipped to observe and understand ALL of reality?
16. How small are we compared to infinite space and infinite time?
17. How many times have we been lied to before by authorities in politics and in religion?

If you are in the habit of asking these questions, then you are less likely to hold simplistic, extreme views."

===================================================================

My questions are the following:

- To what extent have these rules been taught to you in your own education?
- Do you think it would be a good idea to teach these rules and their application in a separate class?
- Can you describe how such a class would be conducted?
- What chance do you think is there that it will ever happen?
- What effect would it have on society in the short and in the long run?
- Would you add to/change/delete any of these rules?
This is a confused indisciplined list.
From the start you fail to state clearly what it is for, except for "thinking".
Point 1) has an unstated, ill defined "IT".
Point 2) switches from "thinking" or "IT", to "definition". Then you bring in "logic". Why? As the relationship between the signified and the signifier is arbitrary, you are confusing a word with the object is describes. Reality is not in the word.
Point 3) How do you know? Know what? How to "think?"; What "IT" is; or how to define a thing?
I could go on breaking down each step, but without knowing what you are even trying to do, It is impossible to say what all the points are for.

There are plenty of other who are thought this sort of stuff through long before you. So your attmept to re-invent the wheel looks poor in comparison to, say Carl Sagan's "Balony detector".

http://www.inf.fu-berlin.de/lehre/pmo/e ... aloney.pdf
http://users.tpg.com.au/users/tps-seti/baloney.html

Numerous summaries exist on the Internet, and can be reduced to nine points.
http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/03 ... arl-sagan/
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Teaching "Critical Thinking" in Education?

Post by Immanuel Can »

Lastly realise the difference between evidence and proof : evidence is partial / proof is absolute
The problem with this is, of course, that "proof" if "absolute" as you say, only happens in thinking systems that are "closed" to the empirical and are self-referential, such as mathematics. In "open" situations, such as experimental science, we only every have "evidence," which is probabilistic, not absolute.

In other words, "proof" is not a reasonable demand in real-world situations, and hence not widely useful in what is ordinarily called "critical thinking," which tends to involve real-world propositions, not merely mathematical calculations.
tbieter
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Re: Teaching "Critical Thinking" in Education?

Post by tbieter »

thedoc wrote:
Immanuel Can wrote:The Law of Non-Contradiction is the basic starting point, I would suggest.

Could you specify the exact wording of that law, when it was passed into effect, who voted on it, and how is it enforced?
The law of non-contradiction[edit]
The law of non-contradiction (alternately the 'law of contradiction'[4]): 'Nothing can both be and not be.'[2]
In other words: "two or more contradictory statements cannot both be true in the same sense at the same time": NOT(A = NOT-A).
In the words of Aristotle, that "one cannot say of something that it is and that it is not in the same respect and at the same time". As an illustration of this law, he wrote:
It is impossible, then, that "being a man" should mean precisely not being a man, if "man" not only signifies something about one subject but also has one significance ... And it will not be possible to be and not to be the same thing, except in virtue of an ambiguity, just as if one whom we call "man", and others were to call "not-man"; but the point in question is not this, whether the same thing can at the same time be and not be a man in name, but whether it can be in fact.
—Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book IV, Part 4 (translated by W.D. Ross)[3]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_tho ... tradiction
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HexHammer
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Re: Teaching "Critical Thinking" in Education?

Post by HexHammer »

No amount of "principal" questions can make up for superior cognitive abilities and excessive amount of experience/knowledge. Even a retard can learn to parrot those questions.

If you truly has the ability to critically think then solve this:

I have a brilliant doctor friend, who told me a story he heard in a auditorium filled with fellow doctors at Panum (Danish educational institute ..or something)
2 garbage men, who had been in the business for 2 decades, who had suffered foul orders through out their career, took on a vacation to Turkey and went to the perfume streets.
As they walked the one would become ill, and in the end fell to the ground. The helpful perfume sellers would aid the poor man with their smelling salts, but only making him go to a deeper coma.
The other garbage man would realize it was the thick odor in the street that caused the problem, and pulled his friend out to cleaner air, which helped and he would awaken from the coma.

Conclusion: each their scent.
Ned
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Re: Teaching "Critical Thinking" in Education?

Post by Ned »

It's time to resurrect this thread.

Rereading it again, I see that the thread was hijacked pretty well from the beginning.

Not what I had hoped for when I started it.

Education is the key word to remember. It's even in the thread title!
Impenitent
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Re: Teaching "Critical Thinking" in Education?

Post by Impenitent »

education is student driven

-Imp
Pluto
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Re: Teaching "Critical Thinking" in Education?

Post by Pluto »

"simplistic, extreme views"
Do we have examples? They could be necessary in giving us a broad picture of where we are. We live in a fascistic society but think that it isn't.
raw_thought
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Re: Teaching "Critical Thinking" in Education?

Post by raw_thought »

The first thing to teach is the difference between validity and truth.
Here's a valid and true argument.
1. All men are mortal.
2. Socrates was a man.
3. Therefore Socrates was mortal.
Here's a valid argument that is not true.
1. All Martians eat snakes.
2. Bob is a Martian.
3.Therefore Bob eats snakes.
Here's a true argument that is not valid.
1. Nixon was president.
2. Lincoln was president
3. Therefore Eisenhower was president.
Ned
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Re: Teaching "Critical Thinking" in Education?

Post by Ned »

There are many typical mistakes people make in logical deductions, sometimes innocently, but often deliberately, with intent to mislead. We have to be aware of these mistakes both in our own thinking and in arguments presented to us. My favourite examples for illogical thinking these days involve political and military leadership:

“Canada won't join missile defence plan” Last Updated Thu, 24 Feb 2005 21:32:18 EST CBC News OTTAWA

“Canada has said no to the U.S. missile defence program, Prime Minister Paul Martin announced Thursday. The outgoing U.S. ambassador to Canada reacted swiftly, saying the decision to defend North America now rests with Washington. "We simply cannot understand why Canada would in effect give up its sovereignty – its seat at the table – to decide what to do about a missile that might be coming towards Canada," said Paul Cellucci. “


The ‘illogic’ in this example is the following:

Premise 1....If p then q....If you join a decision making process then you are a sovereign country (TRUE by definition of sovereignty)
Premise 2....Not p..........Canada did not join the decision making process (TRUE)
Conclusion...Not q..........Therefore Canada gave up her sovereignty (FALSE)

In mathematics we say that 'p' is a sufficient but not a necessary condition. The form of this logical argument is invalid.

Canada could have said 'yes', but decided not to. Therefore Canada is a sovereign country. Again, the premises don’t support the conclusion.
raw_thought
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Re: Teaching "Critical Thinking" in Education?

Post by raw_thought »

Premis 1 should be," if and only if P ( and in all circumstances ) then Q".
1. If P then Q.
2. Not Q
3. Therefore not P
is valid.
1. All dogs are mammals.
2. That is not a mammal.
3. Therefore it is not a dog.
Modis Tollens
Premis 1 (if and only ) is false.
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