Tag Archives: critical thinking

This is useful not only as a primer on recognizing and rebutting science denialism but also as a contribution to critical thinking in general.I should be obvious by now that dismissing something as "conspiracy theory" without an adequate foundation is just another means of discrediting opponents and  achieving narrative control. But there are conspiracy theories out there that need debunking based on sound reasoning grounded in evidence.Crazy UncleA history of FLICC: the 5 techniques of...

As the Canadian experience shows, deciding which episodes qualify as "recessions" can be debated. The safest course of action is to make it clear what definition you are using, and apply it consistently across regions. This is logic and critic thinking 101, and also fundamental to math application. While it is basic for thinking critically, it is key for doing science.This is a big problem for economics since economics is not regarded as a pure science but an applied science. Macroeconomics...

This is indicative of a much larger problem than AIPAC. It's the basis of attacks grounded in sophistry that uses invalid logic. The aim is to attack an opposing party or cohort "X." The logic used runs thus. X is against Y. Y has a property. Therefore X is against everyone/everything having that property. This is clearly wrong if Y is not identical to everyone/everything having that property, e.g, being Jewish, which in this instance is not the case. Y is represents only some of...

“We don’t teach anything,” says Nicolas Sadirac, head of École 42. “The students create what they need all the time.”... Who cares about another coding school? Schools around the world, from kindergarten up, are scrambling to figure out what skills kids need to thrive in the future. Disagreement abounds about which skills should be prioritized, and how they should be taught, but opinions coalesce around some mix of collaboration, creativity, critical thinking, communication, and...

Only marginally related but important, I think, in developing a curious approach that is also rigorous in any area using the Socratic method. Teachers, writers, and researchers know from experience that the ability to formulate good questions is the secret to success. Eric Schliesser suggests teaching that skill to philosophy students and he propose a way to do this.  While philosophy is about creative problem-solving and critical thinking, I would say that creative problem-solving and...

I've known writers who have the essay almost fully formed in their mind, and it just pours out on to the page. It's happened for me a few times. But most writing for me, and I suspect for others, starts from a place of less clarity. There's an idea, to be sure, and some support for the idea. But as you try to put the ideas into concrete words, you become aware of a lack of precision in what you are saying, of a failure to capture what you really mean to say, of holes and inconsistencies in...

We need courses devoted to such matters because we are living in a time where the dangers to informed and rational thought are not so much bad or sloppy thought but a poisoning of the flow of reliable information. It is not the transition from premises to conclusion that is often at fault but the premises themselves.... A sound argument is one whose logical form is valid and whose premises are true. The conclusion of a sound argument then follows from the premises and is true both...

Short and important.Economic Sociology and Political EconomyThe Sociology of Quantification: Seeing like Numbers Oleg Komlik | founder and editor-in-chief of the ES/PE, Chairman of the Junior Sociologists Network at the International Sociological Association, a PhD Candidate in Economic Sociology in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Ben-Gurion University, and a Lecturer in the School of Behavioral Sciences at the College of Management Academic StudiesSee alsoStatistical...

Chris Dillow is writing bout the dialectical approach in contrast to the categorical approach and apparently doesn't realize it even though he is a Marxian economist. What is is saying is to adopt the principle of rational inquiry in one's own thinking by critiquing oneself and becoming one's own interlocutor and devil's advocate. This is fundamental to critical thinking, in contrast to dogmatic thinking, for example.Stumbling and MumblingRationalism, rationality & reasonablenessChris...

Philosophy matters. Just ask Bill Miller. Bill started his professional journey as a philosophy graduate student at Johns Hopkins. He became a Wall Street legend. Based on my conversations with students and parents over many years, this is not the typical narrative associated with a humanities major. But Bill tells this story well. Known for his analytical acumen and iconoclastic approach to markets, Bill attributes much of his success to the habits of mind he developed studying the works...