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It's a difficult problem to crack. My current line of thinking is that we need to improve critical-thinking amongst the population. People with critical think
by CodeGlitch 6y ago
It's a difficult problem to crack. My current line of thinking is that we need to improve critical-thinking amongst the population. People with critical thinking will question the things they hear and read, and with an unfiltered source of information (E.g. the Internet) will be able to determin fact from fiction.
I used to think they we should censor bad information (E.g. 5G causes COVID), but that's just not going to work in the modern era.
- BrianOnHN 6y ago> I used to think they we should sensor bad information (E.g. 5G causes COVID) Can you describe these sensors?
- CodeGlitch 6y agoI obviously meant "censors". Now go away troll :)
- greesil 6y agoHow would you improve critical thinking at scale?
- BrianOnHN 6y ago> improve critical thinking at scale What's the timeline to measure this? Decades? A lifetime?
- greesil 6y agoYou're asking the wrong question. What measurement would you use to measure success?
- CodeGlitch 6y agoYeah - not an easy task. Teach it in school along with the usual 3 R's.
- CamperBob2 6y agoNot to get overtly political, but one of the two major parties will do literally anything to prevent that. Their ideology interprets critical thought as a direct assault, and they respond accordingly.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y agoAs far as I know, critical thinking is an explicit part of the school curriculum everywhere in the US. Do you know of an area where it's not taught?
- CamperBob2 6y agoSee my other reply. Edit: for the benefit of the downvoters, here's a concrete example of what I'm talking about: https://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teaching_now/2012/06/texas_gop_no_more_critical_thinking.html https://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teaching_now/2012/06/texas... From the bottom of the page: A spokesman for the Republican Party of Texas said that the "critical thinking skills" language should not have been included in the document after the words "values clarification," reports Talking Points Memo. The members of the subcommittee "regret" the mistake, he told TPM—however, since the platform was approved, "it cannot be corrected until the next state convention in 2014." They regret the mistake, it sounds like, so I guess it's all good. Nothing to see here.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y agoI see it, but even deeply conservative states do teach the principles of critical thinking. Picking Alabama as a random example (https://www.alsde.edu/sec/sct/COS/2016%20Revised%20Alabama%20English%20Language%20Arts%20Course%20of%20Study.pdf https://www.alsde.edu/sec/sct/COS/2016%20Revised%20Alabama%2...): * their curriculum explicitly aims to develop "lifelong, critical thinkers" * they feel "reading, writing, and critical thinking continue to play central roles in the development of literate individuals" * students learn to "Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, assessing whether the reasoning is valid and the evidence is relevant and sufficient; identify false statements and fallacious reasoning" I understand that you're saying beliefs such as creationism don't stand up to any real critical thought, and I agree. But I feel the same way about many beliefs that left-leaning people tend to hold.
- cambalache 6y agoYou wont, human nature is more or less fixed, cognitive skills are normal distributed, we are not blank slates. You first recognize that the problem is difficult, recognize you cannot social-engineer humans without infringing their rights and you try to come up with some basic rules with the implicit understanding that A) They are not perfect B) They are not immutable, and you start working from there. This is the total opposite to what it is happening now in the way the powerful groups are managing this new global, social landscape.
- watwut 6y agoI don't think it is just lack of critical thinking on the part of general public. I think that there are also some cultural contributors - it is often deemed uncivil or rude to call lie a lie. And if you want to appear impartial, you will need to make things sound middle - softening some stances and making others stronger. You cant actually distinguish fact from fiction by logic alone. You need specialized knowledge for that, the rest of us you need to decide who to trust. People who gravitate toward conspiracy theories tend to be intelligent and tend to question things they read. They then proceed to build wild theories, beyond possibilities of dumb people.