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Huh? Are you saying that math and logic are not useful in a wide variety of subjects?

• webmaven 3y ago
  Of course they are useful, but the utility is broader than you think. Those skills are just as easily used for rationalization, eg. "Lies, damn lies, and statistics."
• chongli 3y ago
  I’m a math student. Of course I think math and logic are useful. They’re still subject expertise. They will not help you analyze a painting or a piece of music or a poem. They also generally won’t help you evaluate scientific claims unless you also have enough scientific background. If someone says “humans will set foot on Mars within 30 years”, you’re going to have a hell of a time determining whether that’s reasonable unless you know a lot about: rocketry, physics, space travel, radiation, astronomy, human anatomy, nutrition, engineering, economics, and many other subjects! If you’re just a math/logic wiz and not an expert in those other areas, you may be inclined to say “they’ve already put rovers on Mars, should be easy to get humans there!” because there’s nothing impossible or illogical about the question.
  • some_random 3y ago
    Critical thinking isn't about evaluating the claim "humans will set foot on Mars within 30 years" by examining rocketry, physics, space travel, etc. It's about asking questions like "who is telling me this, why would they say this, what other beliefs do they have that might influence this one, what do other people say about this claim?" It's universally applicable but gets more effective the more you know about a given topic.
    • SamoyedFurFluff 3y ago
      That’s tautological about whether or not the claim itself has merit. It only says if the claim doesn’t have merit, here is a set of motivations that might have biased the claim. But there’s no way to determine just from that whether the claim has merit. It goes double for the vast majority of the way we get information: ad hoc through conversations with other humans. If a neighbor tells me it’s thunder storming tomorrow, therefore I should postpone putting up my new fence plans, I’m not going through a bizarro world decision matrix involving surveying the neighborhood for validity!
      • some_random 3y ago
        You are massively overthinking this. Critical thinking isn't some giant flowchart of questions and rules that you have to run on every single thing you ever hear or think in your entire life, that's obviously insane. Frankly I don't understand how you could even think that. Critical thinking is just saying "Hey this neighbor has a history of lying to me and my other neighbor said that they tried to get a court order to stop them from putting up a fence. Maybe I should check the forecast before canceling my fence building plans".
        • chongli 3y ago
          Critical thinking is just saying "Hey this neighbor has a history of lying to me and my other neighbor said that they tried to get a court order to stop them from putting up a fence. Maybe I should check the forecast before canceling my fence building plans". How is that not an application of domain knowledge (know your neighbours) with a bit of intelligence? How do you teach people to do that in general? How do you teach people to deal with questions when they lack domain knowledge?
          • some_random 3y ago
            Again, you're massively overthinking this. Then entire point is to not blindly accept things and instead actually evaluate claims. You can do that with domain knowledge you have, which appears to what what you're calling all knowledge. If there exists some kind of knowledge that isn't domain knowledge, I'm sure you could find a use for it too.