Its also worth remembering that such stories are in any case often dubious. 2. This concise and engaging text teaches the basic principles of good reasoning through an examination of widely held beliefs about the paranormal, the supernatural, and the mysterious. By explaining what distinguishes knowledge from opinion, science from pseudoscience, and evidence from hearsay, How to Think about Weird Things helps the reader develop the skills needed to tell the true from the false and the reasonable from the unreasonable. Yes, if there was an ancient Martian civilisation, then we might discover what appeared to be a huge face built on the surface of the planet. We want, as far as possible, to be reasonable. Rather, his texts were later creatively interpreted to fit what subsequently happened. Definitely something I'd recommend for a course on critical thinking using multiple sources, or even a textbook course of study solely by itself. Study and Critical Thinking Skills in College, 7th Edition. Topics will include creationism and evolution, medical . The Mars face, on the other hand, provides an example of weak or non-existent evidence. Still, if we count only Simons hits and ignore his misses, its easy to create the impression that he has some sort of gift. We're available through e-mail, live chat and Facebook. Upon arriving, she comes to question everything she thought she knew about him, and herself. We've been thinking from the moment we're born, but are we thinking in the most efficient way? The RationalWiki portal provides many excellent articles on pseudoscience. 5. Some very interesting case studies to go along with your critical thinking education here. It explains step-by-step how to sort through reasons, evaluate evidence, and tell when a claim (no matter how strange) is likely to be true. Daves friends present him with a great deal of evidence that hes mistaken. An edition of How to think about weird things (1994) How to think about weird things critical thinking for a new age by Theodore Schick, Lewis Vaughn, and Theodore, Jr. Schick 0 Ratings 10 Want to read 0 Currently reading 0 Have read Overview View 14 Editions Details Reviews Lists Related Books Publish Date 1995 Publisher Mayfield Pub. We've been thinking from the moment we're born, but are we thinking in the most efficient way? Many people believe in extraordinary hidden beings, including demons, angels, spirits and gods. The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has always been a mystic. If you've ever found yourself randomly having a sudden but striking realization about something totally random well, you're not alone. So now consider our report of the UFO hanging over the nuclear power construction site. Publisher. I ended up asking my prof if there were better books out there that discussed critical thinking. Perhaps the most obvious strategy we can employ when a belief in which we have invested a great deal is threatened is to start explaining away the evidence. Edit. Their testimony is even backed up by hard evidence that radar blip. Clearly this therapy has some benefits! But the truth is that such accumulated anecdotes are usually largely worthless as evidence. How to think about weird things : critical thinking for a new age: 1. on the Internet. Granted, no one likes the guy who brings logic to the party, so you might not want to start off every statement with, "well, actually". Lives have certainly been lost. How to Think About Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New Age, 7th Edition ISBN10: 0078038367 | ISBN13: 9780078038365 By Theodore Schick and Lewis Vaughn 2014 Purchase Options: Lowest Price! The Atlantic article The Cognitive Biases Tricking Your Brain (2018) by Ben Yagoda provides a great introduction to thinking that can lead us astray, including confirmation bias. Jefferson believed that he had arrived at the most parsimonious explanation for meteorite claims, and was not just wrong, but spectacularly so. Full text of Michael Shermer's talk: Why People Believe Weird Things at TED Talks conference. Often, when were presented with strong evidence that our belief is false, we can easily change our mind. Save up to 80% versus print by going digital with VitalSource. And, of course, nature is occasionally going to throw up the face-like patterns just by chance. But when it comes to pinning down precisely why such beliefs are or arent reasonable, even the most intelligent and well educated of us can quickly find ourselves out of our depth. My book Believing Bullshit: How Not to Get Sucked into an Intellectual Black Hole (2011) identifies eight tricks of the trade that can turn flaky ideas into psychological flytraps and how to avoid them. This concise and engaging text teaches the basic principles of good reasoning through an examination of widely held beliefs about the paranormal, the supernatural, and the mysterious. However, abandoning a belief isnt always so easy. Interesting but certainly not bulletproof; however, most of the analysis is MUCH less biased than the Physics instructors that assigned it as a class text book.. This is a very serious attack on critical thinking itself. Language How to Think About Weird Things Critical Thinking for a New Age by Theodore Schick, Lewis Vaughn, and Theodore, Jr. Schick. She tells them that August is nice, and deflects when people call her a saint or suggest that Mr. Tushman asked her to be nice. For example, while most would pooh-pooh belief in fairies, Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of the quintessentially rational detective Sherlock Holmes, actually believed in them and wrote a book presenting what he thought was compelling evidence for their existence. It's about as entertaining a book on the subject as one could find, and includes a lot of epistemology, informal logic, and philosophy of science. Three thumbs up. Coherence is something that Schick and Vaughn, later in their book (in chapter 4), insist is a crucial elementto any reasonable persons claim to knowledge (75): Ordinarily, if a proposition fails to cohere with the rest of our beliefs, we are not justified in believing it. Well worth a subscription. However, later photos revealed the face to be just a hill that looks face-like when lit a certain way. It's probably best you don't try it. The class itself completely changed how I think about all things in life (in fact was the most life changing moment I think in my life so far) and I'm sure this was also due to this book in some ways. 3. I think its interesting that Schick and Vaughn, as they get into the meat of their book,put at front and center, ala Thomas Kuhn, the importance of paradigms, which I would put this way: The example that they use is an excellent one, for it illustrates how your worldview can lead to incorrect inferences with regards to data and evidence: On hearing of a meteorite dropping to Earth, Thomas Jefferson famously declared that he would sooner believe thatindividuals bearing witness to such a thing were lyingas to believe that rocks actually fall out of the sky. See whats possible with some nonbinding experiments, Whether its to recover after a late night or to boost your learning abilities, theres a science to napping effectively, Forget the ideal of work/life balance your needs and interests are much richer than that, and your life can be too. They believe in the literal truth of the Biblical account of creation: that the entire Universe is under 10,000 years old, with all species being created as described in the Book of Genesis. Schick and Vaughn are also good at drawing out additionalimplications surrounding claims. . . Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.Learn more how customers reviews work on Amazon. He can provide 100 examples of his predictions coming true, including one or two dramatic examples. I used this as a textbook when I taught critical reasoning. One or two will exhibit face-like patterns just by chance, even without divine intervention. The former US president Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy were reported to have consulted an astrologer before making any major political decision. A long list of anecdotes about patients whose condition improved after a faith healing session can seem impressive. William Salomone. He is director of philosophy at the Department of Continuing Education at the University of Oxford, and editor of Think, the Royal Institute of Philosophy journal. McGraw-Hill Connect is a subscription-based learning service accessible online through your personal computer or tablet. But when they tried to drive nearer, they discovered that, weirdly, no matter how fast they drove, they couldnt get any closer. She seems fully aware of this and knows that she will have to push Macbeth into committing murder. Brief content visible, double tap to read full content. Observe 2. The particular ordering of the fossils is supposedly accounted for by different ecological zones being submerged one after the other, starting with simple marine life. I ended up asking my prof if there were better books out there that discussed critical thinking. How to think about weird things From discs in the sky to faces in toast, learn to weigh evidence sceptically without becoming a closed-minded naysayer by Stephen Law From the UFO photo archives of Gordon MacDonald Stephen Law is a philosopher and author. As science keeps reminding us, reality often is weird. But its far more likely she would appear with a wet coat and umbrella and tell me its raining if thats true than if its false. Nearby, a sinister secret lurks in the depths of a government lab. If some alternative medicines really work, casually dismissing them out of hand and refusing to properly consider the evidence could also cost lives. The police officer Ross Denson drove over to investigate and saw what he described as something half the size of the Moon hanging over the plant. He is the author of Doing Philosophy: An Introduction through Thought Experiments, the editor of The Philosophy of Science: From Positivism to Post-modernism, and has published articles in several fields of philosophy including: philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, philosophy of religion, philosophy of language, meta-philosophy, epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics. Babies are fucking made of milk. Publisher's Summary. this is antiquated by its nature, a book that presumes that its pure thinking of facts and logic and reason is the supreme way to humor matters of superstition and faith, or even other truths. We tend significantly to underestimate how prone to illusion and deception we are when it comes to the wacky and weird. He has also contributed to a number of volumes in Open Courts Philosophy and Popular Culture series as well as Blackwells Philosophy for Everyone series. Your email address will not be published. When you figure out that you are a brain controlling a body. It was the book required for my critical thinking course.
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