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"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
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Wednesday August 19 2015, @02:35PM
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
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
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
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:
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday August 20 2015, @07:57PM
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.