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posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday August 19 2015, @12:01PM   Printer-friendly
from the think-about-it dept.

"We aren't teaching students how to think critically!" So goes the exasperated lament you have probably heard and possibly uttered. The thing is, that's a crazy hard thing to do. It may seem like a logic class should teach you to think in a more disciplined way, for example, but the sad fact is that those mental habits are very unlikely to transfer [PDF] beyond the walls of the logic course. There are many different styles and contexts of critical thinking, and there is no magic subroutine that we could insert into our mental programming that covers them all.

But despair is not the only option. Effective coursework can build important and useful critical thinking skills. Doug Bonn at the University of British Columbia and Stanford's N.G. Holmes and Carl Wieman focused on good scientific, quantitative thinking when teaching a group of first-year physics students. And like good critically thinking educators, they put their strategy to the test and published the results so they can be evaluated by others.

Original article from Ars Technica .

[Related]: How to improve students' critical thinking about scientific evidence


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Wednesday August 19 2015, @01:25PM

    by Thexalon (636) on Wednesday August 19 2015, @01:25PM (#224962)

    Critical thinking, imho, means that students genuinely realize and accept that every issue has two or more viewpoints, held with equal sincerity by their respective proponents.

    Yes and no.

    That two or more viewpoints may be sincerely held is true. But it is vitally important to remember that that fact doesn't mean that all viewpoints have equal merit: some viewpoints are demonstrably wrong, others have no evidence whatsoever, and still others are more about polite masking of really ugly motivations than they are about a search for truth. The primary reason to learn critical thinking is to be able to recognize all of those.

    * You demonstrate that a viewpoint is wrong by either (a) showing that the chain of logic is fallacious, or (b) showing that the premises are incorrect.
    * You demonstrate that a viewpoint has no evidence by noticing that none was cited, asking for that evidence, and getting no or poor evidence at all in response. Or alternately, by demonstrating that there's a closed circle of citations, where Bob cites Mike who cites Jim who cites Bob without any evidence outside the closed circle (such as a repeatable experimental result).
    * You demonstrate that a viewpoint is really a polite masking by following the viewpoint to its logical conclusions and seeing what actions are implied. For instance, if a viewpoint strongly suggests that genocide would be a great idea, then it's time to be very suspicious about the motivations of that viewpoint.

    What you are advocating is training people to do is argue like lawyers or debaters regardless of their actual viewpoints. What I'm interested in training people to do is have a finely tuned baloney detection kit, and demonstrate a willingness to turn that baloney detection kit against their own viewpoints to catch themselves when they screw up.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
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  • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 19 2015, @02:20PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 19 2015, @02:20PM (#224989)

    You demonstrate that a viewpoint is wrong by either (a) showing that the chain of logic is fallacious, or (b) showing that the premises are incorrect.

    Wrong. By doing so you show that the argument of your opponent is invalid, but you don't disprove the viewpoint.

    Example: I hold the viewpoint that 1+1=2. I prove it from the premise that 2+2=5, by doing an integer division of that equation by two, giving (2+2)/2 = 2 (because 5/2=2 in integer division), and then using the distributive law to obtain 2/2+2/2 = 2, that is, 1+1=2. Voila, I've shown that my viewpoint that 1+1=2 is right.

    Now you come and find that my chain of logic is flawed (because integer division does not give an equivalent equation), and moreover my premises are incorrect (because certainly 2+2≠5). If you were right in the claim I quoted, you would now have demonstrated that 1+1=2 is wrong.

    So how do you demonstrate a viewpoint to be wrong? Well, by showing that it contradicts facts the opponent accepts as true. I just did exactly that with your claim (well, actually I just assumed that you consider 1+1=2 a valid fact; if you happen to believe that 1+1=2 is wrong, my example won't be convincing).

    • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday August 19 2015, @05:11PM

      by Thexalon (636) on Wednesday August 19 2015, @05:11PM (#225089)

      Quite correct. I should have stated that the specific argument presented in favor of a particular viewpoint was thus refuted.

      If, however, all arguments in favor of a viewpoint are thus refuted, and there is an opposing viewpoint that has not been refuted in the same way, then it is a safe assumption that the viewpoint supported only by bad arguments is in fact wrong. Without that, you would be forced to reach the conclusion that no viewpoint can ever be disproven, which I believe we can agree is untrue.

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
  • (Score: 2) by bradley13 on Wednesday August 19 2015, @02:35PM

    by bradley13 (3053) on Wednesday August 19 2015, @02:35PM (#224997) Homepage Journal

    You are absolutely right: all viewpoints are not equal. However, refusing to understand an opposing viewpoint limits your ability to refute it, counter it, or whatever else is necessary. If you don't know how the other side things, what motivates them, you have handicapped yourself.

    Not unimportant: understanding an opposing viewpoint may also cause you to realize that your viewpoint is the incorrect one. We all have a tendency to cling irrationally to certain beliefs.

    I'm not really wanting to make everyone into a lawyer. However, the best proof that you have understood a viewpoint (even if you vehemently disagree with it), is your ability to state the arguments of its proponents. If you can't do that, then you haven't understood it.

    --
    Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 19 2015, @04:25PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 19 2015, @04:25PM (#225062)
      Winning hearts is often more important than winning minds.

      Because most people don't actually use their minds ;). Most people haven't learned to think critically and logically. For example many will not think and immediately go "NO YOU ARE WRONG!" to claims like "babies are less important than a fertile pair of parents, saving the parents is usually better for the species than saving their babies".

      Winning the argument and not converting the person to your side is often pointless.

      The ability to win arguments through logic becomes more valuable if we can teach more and more people to think well and logically. Perhaps we will make more progress with studies like these.
    • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday August 20 2015, @12:49AM

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Thursday August 20 2015, @12:49AM (#225227) Journal

      However, refusing to understand an opposing viewpoint limits your ability to refute it, counter it, or whatever else is necessary.

      That's not the case. I have spent 40+ years on this planet in the company of racists. I have racists in my family, I have met many racists. I have read more racist speech than I would have ever thought. But I still don't understand racism. I don't get it. It. Does. Not. Compute. But it does not limit my ability to fight it at all. And it must be fought.

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.
      • (Score: 2) by danmars on Thursday August 20 2015, @05:35PM

        by danmars (3662) on Thursday August 20 2015, @05:35PM (#225504)

        You say that you are not limited in your ability to refute or counter it due to your inability to understand. What if your lack of understanding makes your attempts to counter it mistargeted? What if your attempts to fight racism take a completely unhelpful tack because you don't understand what you're fighting?

        I recommend you listen to this. You could read the transcript if you prefer, but the audio is a lot better.

        http://www.npr.org/2014/11/14/363896136/the-silver-dollar-lounge [npr.org]

        Here's part that's especially relevant to you:

        VAN DER KOLK: Have ever gotten criticism from black folks?

        DAVIS: Of course, absolutely. Now, black people who are friends of mine who know me understand where I'm coming from. Some black people who have not heard me interviewed or who have not read my book, some of them jump to conclusions and prejudge me, just like the Klan. I've been called an Uncle Tom, I've been called an Oreo. I had one guy from a NAACP branch chew me up one side and down the other saying, you know, we've worked hard to get 10 steps forward and here you are sitting down with the enemy having dinner and you're putting us 20 steps back.

        I pull out my robes and hoods and say look, this is what I've done to put a dent in racism. I've got robes and hoods hanging in my closet by people who've given up that belief because of my conversations of sitting down to dinner and they gave it up. How many robes and hoods have you collected? And then they shut up.

        • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday August 20 2015, @07:57PM

          by Phoenix666 (552) on Thursday August 20 2015, @07:57PM (#225552) Journal

          You say that you are not limited in your ability to refute or counter it due to your inability to understand. What if your lack of understanding makes your attempts to counter it mistargeted? What if your attempts to fight racism take a completely unhelpful tack because you don't understand what you're fighting?

          It's also possible to over-intellectualize beliefs that stem from the lizard brain. Sometimes a stupid bigot is just a stupid bigot. It makes as much sense to try to parse their thought processes as to sift through a puddle of vomit.

          The extreme moral relativism that was spawned by post-modernism really has done enormous damage to the project of human advancement.

          --
          Washington DC delenda est.
  • (Score: 2) by linuxrocks123 on Thursday August 20 2015, @08:32PM

    by linuxrocks123 (2557) on Thursday August 20 2015, @08:32PM (#225566) Journal

    You demonstrate that a viewpoint is really a polite masking by following the viewpoint to its logical conclusions and seeing what actions are implied. For instance, if a viewpoint strongly suggests that genocide would be a great idea, then it's time to be very suspicious about the motivations of that viewpoint.

    No, you don't. You engage the argument, not the person making it.

    https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem [yourlogicalfallacyis.com]