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Critical thinking needs to be taught in schools. Either that or the society of the future is going to be hugely screwed. If we teach kids critical thinking, th

Critical thinking needs to be taught in schools. Either that or the society of the future is going to be hugely screwed. If we teach kids critical thinking, they will not only be able to recognise scam, they will also stop being religious, which is another good thing. I wonder why we still don't have critical thinking in schools.

swayvil 2y ago
Critical thinking won't save you. Emotion trumps rationality. This stuff plays on emotions.
- danparsonson 2y ago
  ...which critical thinking skills help you to notice, so that you are less likely to fall prey to it.
  - kibwen 2y ago
    The point, perhaps, is that you can't use reason to convince someone to be more reasonable. Humans are fundamentally emotional animals, and if you want to get them to start valuing reason, you have to use emotional arguments to do so, by definition.
aprilthird2021 2y ago
Critical thinking doesn't make people less religious nor should less religious people be a goal in society. I struggle to explain, but I feel like our data-obssessed society has completely thrown out the baby with the bathwater when it comes to these things. No one labels themselves with a religion or political party because there is a flaw in each one and anything with a flaw can't be correct, scientifically, so we just don't believe in any grand purpose to our lives, don't believe in any world leaders, don't believe in any shared tenets, and basically are all lonely and weak (because we abandon every group with a flaw). The result of critical thinking shouldn't be a worse off society...
- wat10000 2y ago
  We don’t reject religion because of “a flaw.” We reject it because the fundamental basis of it is unsupported. It’s not “a flaw” when a house has no foundation. There is no baby, only bathwater.
  - foxglacier 2y ago
    Nonsense. Religion serves some needs of the human mind. It's like saying having friends is fundamentally flawed. We don't need friends but we spend hours saying pointless words to each other and somehow feel good about all that wasted time. Humans have these emotional needs. We're not robots that can just program ourselves to be pure truth and productivity machines.
    - krapp 2y ago
      Humans are capable of having friends and fulfilling emotional needs without believing in the supernatural. Like many people, you may have been indoctrinated into believing that only religion is capable of fulfilling these needs, providing community, a moral framework or a sense of purpose or value to life, but that isn't true, it's part of the propaganda of theism.
      - foxglacier 2y ago
        Just about every reasonably long-lived society ever has had religion. For some reason. Even modern western atheists treat other ideologies like religions. Perhaps it provides comfort and a feeling of security, or provides a purpose when pure pragmatism would reveal that there's no point in living. Or perhaps we're such social animals that we extend that social thinking beyond what's rational, but we do do it nonetheless, even when we have community and morals. Maybe people with other higher purposes don't take to it so readily but not everyone has the luxury of, say, a successful career. You might have been brainwashed into believing that religion is caused by brainwashing.
        shigawire 2y ago
readthenotes1 2y ago
I think before we teach critical thinking we may have to provide food and shelter security for the students.
t-3 2y ago
Critical thinking is taught in schools though. People in the real world don't, by and large, fall for this shit. The very small fraction that do ends up being a rather large number in absolute terms when spread across the whole world though.
WalterBright 2y ago
Teaching math is a great foundation for learning how to think. Logical fallacies, for example, can be expressed as math.
- cynicalsecurity 2y ago
  Math teaches nothing in terms of critical thinking.
  - _proofs 2y ago
    this is fundamentally not true. while math has a tone of rote learning in the same sense one may learn grammars in their native tongue over time, formulating proofs or fluent articulations of quantities involves the same problem solving and critical thinking one also applies to thoughtful communication. math is communication, and the deeper you go, the more fluent you become, and the more open ended your application gets because you are problem solving, which is a direct consequence of applying critical thinking skills -- you have to consider your solution against a set of possible solutions, and determine pros, cons, and also attempt to disprove your own ideas. wild statement.
  - WalterBright 2y ago
    A implies B does not mean B implies A. I see failure to understand this in all sorts of critical thinkers.

swayvil 2y ago

Critical thinking won't save you. Emotion trumps rationality. This stuff plays on emotions.

danparsonson 2y ago
...which critical thinking skills help you to notice, so that you are less likely to fall prey to it.
- kibwen 2y ago
  The point, perhaps, is that you can't use reason to convince someone to be more reasonable. Humans are fundamentally emotional animals, and if you want to get them to start valuing reason, you have to use emotional arguments to do so, by definition.

aprilthird2021 2y ago

Critical thinking doesn't make people less religious nor should less religious people be a goal in society. I struggle to explain, but I feel like our data-obssessed society has completely thrown out the baby with the bathwater when it comes to these things. No one labels themselves with a religion or political party because there is a flaw in each one and anything with a flaw can't be correct, scientifically, so we just don't believe in any grand purpose to our lives, don't believe in any world leaders, don't believe in any shared tenets, and basically are all lonely and weak (because we abandon every group with a flaw). The result of critical thinking shouldn't be a worse off society...

wat10000 2y ago
We don’t reject religion because of “a flaw.” We reject it because the fundamental basis of it is unsupported. It’s not “a flaw” when a house has no foundation. There is no baby, only bathwater.
- foxglacier 2y ago
  Nonsense. Religion serves some needs of the human mind. It's like saying having friends is fundamentally flawed. We don't need friends but we spend hours saying pointless words to each other and somehow feel good about all that wasted time. Humans have these emotional needs. We're not robots that can just program ourselves to be pure truth and productivity machines.
  - krapp 2y ago
    Humans are capable of having friends and fulfilling emotional needs without believing in the supernatural. Like many people, you may have been indoctrinated into believing that only religion is capable of fulfilling these needs, providing community, a moral framework or a sense of purpose or value to life, but that isn't true, it's part of the propaganda of theism.
    - foxglacier 2y ago
      Just about every reasonably long-lived society ever has had religion. For some reason. Even modern western atheists treat other ideologies like religions. Perhaps it provides comfort and a feeling of security, or provides a purpose when pure pragmatism would reveal that there's no point in living. Or perhaps we're such social animals that we extend that social thinking beyond what's rational, but we do do it nonetheless, even when we have community and morals. Maybe people with other higher purposes don't take to it so readily but not everyone has the luxury of, say, a successful career. You might have been brainwashed into believing that religion is caused by brainwashing.
      - shigawire 2y ago

readthenotes1 2y ago

I think before we teach critical thinking we may have to provide food and shelter security for the students.

t-3 2y ago

Critical thinking is taught in schools though. People in the real world don't, by and large, fall for this shit. The very small fraction that do ends up being a rather large number in absolute terms when spread across the whole world though.

WalterBright 2y ago

Teaching math is a great foundation for learning how to think. Logical fallacies, for example, can be expressed as math.

cynicalsecurity 2y ago
Math teaches nothing in terms of critical thinking.
- _proofs 2y ago
  this is fundamentally not true. while math has a tone of rote learning in the same sense one may learn grammars in their native tongue over time, formulating proofs or fluent articulations of quantities involves the same problem solving and critical thinking one also applies to thoughtful communication. math is communication, and the deeper you go, the more fluent you become, and the more open ended your application gets because you are problem solving, which is a direct consequence of applying critical thinking skills -- you have to consider your solution against a set of possible solutions, and determine pros, cons, and also attempt to disprove your own ideas. wild statement.
- WalterBright 2y ago
  A implies B does not mean B implies A. I see failure to understand this in all sorts of critical thinkers.