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How To Teach a Healthy Dose of Skepticism?
Posted by
kdawson
on Fri Jun 13, 2008 09:57 AM
from the doubt-early-and-often dept.
from the doubt-early-and-often dept.
c0d3h4x0r writes "It's no accident that 'whatcouldpossiblygowrong' is one of the most common tags applied by this community to stories about proposed ideas or laws. The ability to spot and predict faults is a big part of what makes a great engineer. It starts with having a healthy skepticism about the world, which leads to actual critical thinking. Many books and courses teach critical thinking skills, but what is the best way to encourage and teach someone to maintain a healthy dose of skepticism? Is it even a teachable skill, or is it just an innate part of the geek personality?"
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Linux: Why Microsoft Cozied up to Open Source at OSCON 325 comments
This year at OSCON it seemed that you couldn't throw a stone without hitting someone from Microsoft (and in fact, I'm sure several people did). They were working very hard to make themselves known, and working desperately to change public opinion of Microsoft's involvement in the open source community. Linux.com's Nathan Willis took a look at what they were preaching, with a hefty dose of skepticism, and tries to postulate what the "angle" is. Of course, the powers that be at Microsoft may have finally seen the writing on the wall and felt the pressure from Google enough to alter their strategy a bit. For now I guess we'll have to wait with guarded optimism (or laughable contempt, depending on how old/jaded you are).
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Fail a lot? (Score:5, Interesting)
Generalize from your own experience and realize we are all flaming idiots but by using tools such as logic and the scientific method we can start to approach a modicum of cleverness. Then from that point on trust only 10% of what you hear and 50% of what you see, break a bunch of stuff while learning how not to break stuff as badly, and apply your skills to future problems.
Oh, and I would recommend reading 'Why People Believe Weird Things' by Michael Shermer. He describes this in great detail and even describes one of his own epic failures (he was abducted by aliens - kinda hard to own up to for a skeptic.)
Re:Fail a lot? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Fail a lot? (Score:5, Insightful)
-Otto von Bismarck
=Smidge=
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Re:Fail a lot? (Score:5, Funny)
"Stupidity is often punishable by death. Sentecse is carried out immediately. There is no appeal."
That said- teach "Errors Course". Engineers of my generation heard a lot about errors, disasters, etc. caused by bad process, math, theory, materials. Who can forget the cheesy 8mm film of the Tacoma Narrows bridge failing ? Who can forget the Challenger exploding on takeoff, and the Columbia breaking up on re-entry ? And who isn't fascinated with the classic case of the "Unsinkable Titanic" sinking. On it's maiden voyage ?
Learning from mistakes is, as others have noted, often the best teacher.
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Re:Fail a lot? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Fail a lot? (Score:5, Interesting)
And so it goes to smell, touch, heat from breath, all these things are what you rely on to detect the dragon. But I have convenient mechanisms implemented to thwart your attempts at detecting my dragon.
This leads to a great quote:
But I digress on religion, it applies to so much more than that. This book did instill an advanced "see it to believe it" mentality on me and I thank Sagan for that. What's even more shocking is how much I remember of the book since I read it when it came out around 1998.
Really though, I'd just teach people to question everything internally. Be smart about it and seek more information or data if there's any doubt. And really question those who get upset when you question them.
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Re:Fail a lot? (Score:5, Funny)
Which is why I don't believe that invisible monsters could possibly make fresh tomatoes bad for you.
Um... hang on a second, I need to go visit the little boys room.
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Re:Fail a lot? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Fail a lot? (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know. What's the difference between a universe full of other races that we've never heard from and a universe inhabited solely by us.
I'm a fan of Carl Sagan, but I do find it kind of amusing that he would easily reject one idea that there is no evidence for (God), but so willingly embrace another idea for which there is no evidence (intelligent extraterrestrial life).
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Re:Fail a lot? (Score:5, Insightful)
Bert
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Re:Fail a lot? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why amusing? It's a perfectly logical, rational conclusion based on the available evidence. No one has ever provided any evidence or test to show that there is a supreme, omnipotent being watching over us. Nor has anyone ever provided any evidence to indicate how such a being could come into existence in the first place. The best anyone has ever offered is simply, "God/Vishnu/Chutulu/whatever has always existed." That is no evidence.
On the other hand, we have absolute, concrete evidence for what it takes for life to form. Granted, we have only a single data point, our planet, but using that as our reference, we can now search the cosmos for other bodies which exhibit similar conditions and explore them for signs of life, intelligent or otherwise. We can of course also listen for signs of intelligent life through radio waves or other sources. In other words, we are looking for evidence of other beings because we know that at least in one case, our planet, such beings exist and if intelligent life exists on this ball of rock, then there is a probability that life exists somewhere else under similar conditions.
This is where skepticism comes into play. If someone says "X product can do Y job better, and more cheaply, than a name brand product", they have to prove it. Until such time, people should remain skeptical of unsubstantiated claims. Why do you think the folks who produce supplements are so adamant about not having to prove the claims they make? They know that if subjected to scientific testing, their products would be shown not to do what the manufacturer claims.
The same thing occurs with Sagan's (and others) stances on religion and why ID is not a scientific principle. Those concepts do not stand up to scientific rigor. If you want to believe that there is a God (or Gods), then by all means, go ahead. But don't equate a belief in something for which there is zero evidence to support said belief with an idea for which evidence already exists.
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I Seek Wisdom and Its Bastard Son, Truth (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Fail a lot? (Score:5, Interesting)
James Randi has a very easy and entertaining experiment that he often uses on high school and college classes. He asks every student to provide their name and birthday, and in turn promises a personalized horoscope for each of them. A couple of days later, he shows up and passes out the horoscopes. Each student reads his/her horoscope, then Randi asks for a show of hands for the people who feel that their horoscope is very accurate. Typically an overwhelming majority of students raise their hands. Then Randi asks each student to switch horoscopes with the person next to them, and of course the horoscopes are all identical.
The first step to skepticism is to show people how easily they can fool themselves by wishful thinking. Randi's experiment (or something similar) would be a great lesson for students.
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Re:Fail a lot? (Score:5, Funny)
Learn from that one!
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And when are we being too critical? (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it's the whole bikeshed thing; they won't approve until they change the color.
But the point is well taken that people drink the Kool-Aid far too often without even considering what they're swallowing. Often, it's a reflection of their personal bias. They are willing to believe what their church/political party/government says because it conforms to their previously internalized beliefs. And belief usually translates to identity; people become what they believe. So when their leader tells them, for example, that global warming is not real, they believe what they're told despite evidence to the contrary. To not believe is a threat.
But this goes well beyond the obvious examples of politics and religion. Scientists are the worst examples of group-think. They are taught something and repeat it and hold it to be fact even when confronted with good alternative explanations.
As child, I could see that the continents of North and South America could plausibly fit up to Africa, yet my science teacher dismissed the idea that they were once joined. As we all now know, they were, in fact, once joined.
Personally, I think that shaming and embarrassing mistaken beliefs should come back into fashion. When people feel embarrassed about silly beliefs, they will start to question what they're told.
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Re:And when are we being too critical? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:And when are we being too critical? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:And when are we being too critical? (Score:5, Interesting)
But this goes well beyond the obvious examples of politics and religion. Scientists are the worst examples of group-think. They are taught something and repeat it and hold it to be fact even when confronted with good alternative explanations.
You obviously don't know too many scientists, this sounds like you've been accepting ID propaganda without skepticism. Scientific careers are made by finding problems with other scientists ideas, that is how you make your name in science. The idea that scientists march in lock-step and ignore new alternative explanations is completely laughable. Individual scientists may do that, but scientists as a group do not. Sour-grapes from the ID proponents because their claims are scientifically unconvincing do not make a worthy "alternative explanation". The design-as-alternative-to-evolution debate came and went over 100 years ago and nothing new has been added since then, get over it. Similarly, the debate over the germ theory of disease ended a long time ago too, but no one in their right mind would expect modern scientists to countenance crackpots who would argue it is invalid based on demonologic apologetics.
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Re:Fail a lot? (Score:5, Funny)
You could pull a few strings here and there as well.
"Hey I saw a meatball in that light socket, take this fork and get it.
I'll even give you half of it!"
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Re:Fail a lot? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Fail a lot? (Score:5, Insightful)
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It just comes naturally with experience (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It just comes naturally with experience (Score:5, Interesting)
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Step 1 (Score:5, Informative)
Education from a young age (Score:5, Interesting)
Then I sat down with him, told him the rules for watching it, and emphasized one point:
"This is fun to watch, but remember - people lie."
At every level of life, when he was exposed to school, encountered any institution, or group, I would ask him, "How do you know this is true?"
I introduced him to the concepts of logic while playing games, and we made our own puzzles based on these concepts.
He is grown now, and has one awesome built-in BS detector.
Re:Education from a young age (Score:5, Insightful)
In general, teach your children to think. Give them tools they can use later in life.
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It's teachable. Actually, it's even easy. (Score:5, Insightful)
The very simple reason is that people who think are harder to govern than people who don't. What is wanted is people who can do their job, preferably well, but don't have any interests outside of it.
The reason why we get laws proposed that have glaring flaws is that those flaws are often what is wanted. The great majority of people does either not care or swallows the snakeoil and the promise of safety, simply because they were never taught to contemplate "what could possibly go wrong".
It's pretty much how Homer put it. We elect politicians so we don't have to think. Unfortunately, he's not alone with this point of view.
Re:It's teachable. Actually, it's even easy. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's terribly difficult to be a leader when you're following the opinion polls for all your decisions, for one thing. That's a big circle of people wanting the politician to do the thinking, and the politician wanting the people to do the thinking. Eventually we need to figure out that no thinking gets done that way, and only mimicry.
Clinton was renowned for following polls while in office. G.W. Bush likely also follows polls, but from his narrowly selected portion of the total US constituency. I'm not sure we've had someone in the office of President who actually did any leading since Eisenhower. Perhaps Kennedy or Reagan lead, but most modern holders of the office have been followers elected to lead.
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Probably teachable... (Score:5, Interesting)
Back to the question though, I find a healthy dose of skepticism from reading the various newsletters out there to be quite useful.
The James Randi Education Foundation (JREF) at http://www.randi.org/ [randi.org] has a weekly column they put out that is usually a good read discussing various "woo-woo" ideas and why, rationally, they fail as well as links to other such things. It's a decent enough starting point I suppose.
The Skeptical Environmentalist (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe it's just not human nature? (Score:5, Interesting)
Herman Gering admitted that the Nazi party used basically the same trick. The argument that you are being attacked, that other people are the cause of all your problems seems to be very compelling, perhaps because evolution makes the world competitive by nature and because if it's someone else's fault, it's not yours.
A lot of men in particular seem to have a hard time admitting they are wrong too. Even if you point out how stupid their beliefs are, people have a hard time accepting it. So, when ideas come along that are even quite blatantly stupid people tend to latch on to them if they support their existing point of view.
I think the only way to counter it is to teach philosophy and rational thinking from an early age. People seem to literally not know how to think, how to form a logical argument or dissect one in a rational manner.
It's a natural biproduct of critical thinking (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course I am a graduate of The Evergreen State College which has no grade system so apply salt liberally.
Read books on it (Score:5, Interesting)
Carl Sagan (Score:5, Informative)
This book gives you a deep fundamental understanding of science and the scientific method. The chapters focus on debunking a variety of outrageous pseudoscience. Ideas from UFOs to conspiracy theories to the Lost City of Atlantis are swept away by convincing arguments. Once you read enough of this, the higher meaning presents itself. Don't let the nonsense comfort you falsely. Be skeptical and trust in science. It is the most reliable methodology for getting to the truth.
Few books really changed my outlook in life. This is one of them. Read the reviews at Amazon. You will see I'm not alone. For me, in this crazy world, science really has become a candle in the dark.
Science classes (Score:5, Interesting)
Pseudo-skeptics vs. skeptics (Score:5, Insightful)
A true skeptic is skeptical of both points of view, and does the critical thinking necessary to form his/her own opinion. This is harder to teach since it comes from experience, which is harder to come by in this sheltered world of ours.
It's not about teaching it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parents are too quick to pass the baton to religion, new-age hokum, or just feel-good Oprah-ness in order to make their kids feel good about the world. They just want things to be easy, and don't have the personal fortitude to usher their kids through the slightly challenging phase of learning to apply their natural reasoning skills to topics that are somewhat less immediately tangible than what happens when you touch something hot. Issues like "what happens when one state taxes high tech entrepeneurs more than the the state next door" or "what happens when you let a gene pool get too shallow" or "what happens when you use GOTO statements in your code because it lets you get to lunch earlier that day" aren't any different than "what happens when you dump a hot oatmeal bowl in your lap," but require a little more discipline to digest.
The platform for rational thought is already there. You have to kill it, though, or slowly suffocate it throughout child development, in order to make it something that it feels like work to wake it back up later. Just keep it alive in the first place, and we wouldn't have such a mixed bag cultural messes to deal with. We wouldn't be seeing the strange, sad dance of a politician twisting and turning while explaining why he's suddenly between churches while running for president... since he wouldn't have been glued to a crazy church in the first place. Think how much less noise and distraction we'd have without all that nonsense.
How could you get a job? (Score:5, Insightful)
Here be Dragons - video on critical thinking (Score:5, Informative)
[Sceptic] Brian Dunning has put together a video on how to think critically. Itâ(TM)s called Here Be Dragons, and itâ(TM)s a pretty good primer into how to think. Itâ(TM)s about 40 minutes long, and free to use (with some caveats; see the site). I think this would do well in a classroom. Any teachers out there? I know itâ(TM)s too late for most school sessions, but you can download the movie (and a high-res version too) and keep it handy for the next year. http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2008/06/11/here-be-dragons/ [badastronomy.com]
Skepticism is just a starting point (Score:5, Insightful)
As a person in education... (Score:5, Insightful)
The only way to teach others to be skeptical is to give reasons for skepticism. With middle school students (experience teaching algebra/pre-algebra), I would start off easy:
Me: What's the square root of ?
Students: *Silence*
Me: Thought so. The answer is "flower".
Students: *laughter*
Me: What? Something wrong?
Student: Ya, "flower" is not a number.
Me: And?
Student: A square root needs to be a number.
Me: Does it?
Student: YA! Duhhh!
Me: Prove it. Show me how multiplying two flowers doesn't make .
It's humorous, but I threw silly things like that in all the time. Answers the students knew couldn't be right. That gave them the courage to call me out when they thought I was wrong. I then required more of them:
Me: is the correct answer to Students: How do you know?
Me: I just know. I'm the teacher.
Students: Ya, but you lie sometimes.
Me: I do. So what do you do when you think I'm lying?
Student: We show you why we think you're lying. Me: So show me.
Student: *walks up to the board and does the math*
In this situation, it doesn't matter whether or not the student is right in her/his distrust, but that s/he was willing to check my work.
This is a tactic I use to teach and ingrain skepticism in every class I've ever taught.
Teaching to question (Score:5, Interesting)
While I will admit I try to encourage skepticism about things like warrantless wiretaps, Gitmo, PATRIOT ACT (from a Constitutional viewpoint, as yesterday shows us, these programs are open to more than one interpretation) I hope that getting the kids to look at our (US) government policies leads them to ask themselves if they agree, if they "work", if they disagree, what else we could do, etc. Devil's advocate is a useful tool for me and I hope by presenting different views and getting them to think it over for themselves they can form their own opinions. I realize at age 10 this is near impossible as abstract thinking skills just aren't there yet, but the 7th graders can handle quite a bit of these topics and I only hope they are walking away with the ability to question their world in a meaningful way.
So to teach skepticism I actively look back at U.S. history (and world history) and get them to question why we did what we did. What were the outcomes? What were the motivations? Why did this happen? Could things have been different? If I wanted them to parrot God Bless America and engage in hero worship of their leaders, I guess I could teach things much differently, and in effect REMOVE all skepticism... but that's not teaching, that's conditioning. While I admit all teaching really is conditioning, I hope they condition themselves more than spit back my opinions, which I try to mask with varying degrees of success. Does it work? Guess we'll have to wait and see
Use an issue which was big once but now forgotten. (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not hard. One classic approach for use in schools is to take some political issue which was a big deal in its day but is forgotten now. Obtain material written about the subject from many points of view, some sensible, some totally bogus, and with various degrees of stridency. Have students read through all the material and then write a brief evaluation of the various positions, listing the arguments, which ones they think are good, which ones seem bogus, and explain how they made that decision.
The Free Silver issue is a good example. Once upon a time, the "free and unlimited coinage of silver" was a big issue. This was an early attempt at an "economic stimulus package" in a hard-money system. There's a famous speech by William Jennings Bryan ("I will not allow this nation to be crucified upon a cross of gold"), there were political cartoons, and there's plenty of material available. This is for high school level students.
In earlier grades, teach skepticism of advertising. Teach how to read an ad. What are they trying to sell you? What are they telling you? What aren't they telling you? Use old TV commercials from the Internet Archive as teaching tools. Teacher handbook: "Ogilvy on Advertising".
Teaching my kids Skepticism (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead I approach every disagreement as an opportunity for a proof. "Why do I have to eat my broccli?" "Well I guess you don't, but it is pretty hard to find iron that is more easily digestable. You need iron levels in your blood to be high enough so it can process oxygen more efficiently or you will find yourself lacking energy, being tired, and even potentially becoming pale and sick. There are other ways to get the vitamins you need, but to me Broccli is worth it because it is actually pretty good, and convenient because it is right her on the table."
Sure he may still not eat the broccli, but at least I tried to appeal to his logical side and gave him a reasonable and easy to understand stance. Always honoring his questions, and answering with real logic and real science means that whenever someone CAN'T answer with something real, he will imediatly have red flags.
While "Because I said so" would probably make a lot of kids get their nutrition today, my approach will hopefully inspire him to THINK about his nutrition, and question risk/reward and give hom practice evaluating trade-offs.
Re:Is this really... (Score:5, Insightful)
In brief, people can think "This may not work", "This probably won't work", or "This will never work" before they have any evidence.
The skeptic will go with the evidence more readily. The cynic will be biased towards the negative, but can be convinced by the evidence. The pessimist will be surprised at success even when success should have been expected.
Of course, there are optimists to the other side of skeptics on that list. They'll favor success until the evidence proves them wrong, but will favor success the next time.
Then there are "true believers" on either end who either will be convinced of failure or convinced of success even after the outcome is clear to everyone else. They'll twist the evidence and the logic to their conclusion before they allow their conclusion to change with the evidence and logic.
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Since you brought up religion ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Since you brought up religion ... I saw a quote in todays' paper asking about whether people believe in bad luck on Friday the 13th (Today is Friday the 13th, btw). One wman said "Oh no, I have God watching over me, I don't have to worry. I don't believe in superstitions."
My irony meter pegged. Of course, critical thinking and logic are anathema to anyone who believes in god.
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I can prove that wrong (logically, of course) (Score:5, Insightful)
Given 1: I believe in God.
Given 2: I am an excellent computer engineer, with dual degrees in computer engineering and computer science.
Given 3: Earning dual degrees in computer engineering and computer science and working as a computer engineer require strong critical thinking and logical skills. They also require having taken classes in logic and critical thinking.
Step 1: Earning computer science and computer engineering degrees and working in the computer engineering field require logical and critical thinking skills (Given 3), and I work in this field and have those degrees (Given 2). Therefore, it follows that I have logical and critical thinking skills.
Step 2: I have logical and critical thinking skills (Step 1), and I believe in God (Given 1). Therefore, there exist some people who believe in God and have critical thinking and logical skills.
Conclusion: I have disproved your statement that "critical thinking and logic are anathema to anyone who believes in god" by counterexample. QED.
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Re:I can prove that wrong (logically, of course) (Score:5, Funny)
Thank you!!
-an atheist
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Re:I can prove that wrong (logically, of course) (Score:5, Insightful)
For example, a person may be a brilliant mathematician, engineer, or computer scientist, and able to reason through complex logic structures present in those fields. However, when it comes to personal relationships, they may repeatedly enter into abusive situations (domestic violence, alcoholism, drug abuse, etc.), with an emotional need for acceptance outweighing the sensibility to avoid such encounters. They may even reason through those situations, attempting to create a logical basis that things are not as bad as they may be. However, it can still be argued that they are making irrational decisions lacking critical judgment.
Essentially, intelligent people come up with intelligent reasons to believe in irrational things. Again, not citing religion specifically, but I believe that while the grandparent's idea that religion and logic can't co-exist is incorrect, I believe the assumption of logic and critical thinking in all areas of one's life based on logic and critical thinking in one area of a person's life is also a flawed argument.
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Re:Since you brought up religion ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Fine, come up with definitions for "love", "art", and "beauty" that EVERYONE can agree with and we'll talk. Spirituality has a different meaning for each of us, and I reserve the right to remind both theists and non-theists of this at any time. Just 'cause you don't agree with my take on it, or I with you, doesn't mean either of us needs to be insulting.
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