(I've posted this before, but it's very relevant to this topic) Learning to filter guesswork and scams from robust claims is easily the most important skill th

(I've posted this before, but it's very relevant to this topic) Learning to filter guesswork and scams from robust claims is easily the most important skill that the general pubic needs to learn. It's hard to progress in any other topic if you don't understand the basic methods for filtering good information from the many mistakes, misinterpretations, scams and other bad data. Democracy and modern civilization itself requires at least some understanding of the scientific method. Sagan's warning in "The Demon-Haunted World"[1] was frighteningly prescient: I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness... Until the public "baloney detection kit"[2] (and uses it regularly), trying to teach other topics is probably a waste of time, especially when you aren't even speaking the same language[3]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Demon-Haunted_World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Demon-Haunted_World [2] https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/03/baloney-detection-kit-carl-sagan/ https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/03/baloney-detection-k... [3] http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2007/05/31/more-than-just-resistance-of-s/ http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2007/05/31/more-than-just-resi...