How Logical Are You? (Psychology of Reasoning) 10 Problems With How We Think. By Ross Pomeroy By nature, human beings are illogical and irrational. For most of our existence, survival meant thinking quickly, not methodically. Making a life-saving decision was more important than making a 100% accurate one, so the human brain developed an array of mental shortcuts. Though not as necessary as they once were, these shortcuts -- called cognitive biases or heuristics -- are numerous and innate. Pervasive, they affect almost everything we do, from the choice of what to wear, to judgments of moral character, to how we vote in presidential elections. Ross Pomeroy summarizes ten widespread faults with human thought at Real Clear Science. 1. Thousands of graduate students know this fallacy all too well. 2.
Sit back, relax, and read about Linda: Linda is thirty-one years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. Now, which alternative is more probable? 1. 2. If you selected the latter, you've just blatantly defied logic. 3. 4. 5. 6. No mistake was made, of course. 7. 8. 9. 10. Logical Fallacies Explained With Fun Animal Illustrations: An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments. Have you ever found yourself on the losing side of an argument you couldn’t even understand? It’s likely that that argument was one of the many examples in the recently released online guide, An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments. This absolutely endearing read, authored by programmer Ali Almossawi and illustrator Alejandro Giraldo, uses fun animal illustrations to demonstrate logical fallacies; like being guilty by association or appealing to someones ignorance. Not only do Almossawi and Alejandro put together a fascinating collection of bad arguments, they also explain them exceptionally well.
Their animal based examples are quite funny and frequently poke fun at common arguments we hear every day for, in hindsight, ridiculous reasons. Did we mention you can read the entire book online for free? Above: Slippery Slope A slippery slope attempts to discredit a proposition by arguing that its acceptance will undoubtedly lead to a sequence of events, one or more of which are undesirable. Are you smart enough to solve this famously difficult puzzle? | Sciencedump. One hundred green-eyed logicians have been imprisoned on an island by a mad dictator. Their only hope for freedom lies in the answer to one famously difficult logic puzzle. Can you solve it? Test yourself and your friends with this puzzle First off, do not click the video link just yet! Here's the puzzle: Imagine there's an island somewhere in the world that's controlled by a mad dictator who keeps one hundred people imprisoned.
The rule is that any prisoner can approach the guards at night, and ask the leave, but only if they have green eyes. As human rights organisations world wide try to get the prisoners freed, you alone are selected to try and find a way to save all those people. What do you tell the prisoners to help them escape that awful island? Other variations of the puzzle to test your friends The answer is in the video Now that you've read the puzzle, and had some time to think, I'm sure you came up with a solution to help those poor innocent people.
Could we do without cause and effect? – Mathias Frisch. Do early childhood vaccinations cause autism, as the American model Jenny McCarthy maintains? Are human carbon emissions at the root of global warming? Come to that, if I flick this switch, will it make the light on the porch come on? Presumably I don’t need to persuade you that these would be incredibly useful things to know. Since anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions do cause climate change, cutting our emissions would make a difference to future warming. By contrast, autism cannot be prevented by leaving children unvaccinated. Now, there’s a subtlety here. In short, a working knowledge of the way in which causes and effects relate to one another seems indispensible to our ability to make our way in the world. Popular now How often do ethics professors call their mothers? How bad experiences in childhood lead to adult illness Does Earth have a shadow biosphere?
There were two reasons for this. This is all very puzzling. Daily Weekly It’s an appealing idea. But not so fast! Explore Aeon. Dinosaurs, Man...What Does It All Mean? Have you ever thought about dinosaurs? No, I mean really thought about them. And not just things like: Were velociraptors really smart enough to open doors? The dino hole goes much deeper than that, my friends. For instance, if scientists cloned a dinosaur, is the clone actually a dinosaur?
What does it mean to wake up one day and have an asteroid smear extinction across your world? And if dinosaurs became birds, does that mean dinosaurs never really went extinct? Leonard Finkelman thinks about dinosaurs a lot. These days, Finkelman is a professor at Linfield College in Oregon where he teaches—among other topics—a class called “The Philosophy of Dinosaurs.” Click to Open Overlay Gallery Paleontology depends on the idea that scientists can make logical assumptions about the past world through observations of the present. But before Mossbrucker and his fellows could cut the T-Rex apart, National Geographic’s contracted special effects team had to put it together. But of course he did. A Guide to Logical Fallacies: The "Ad Hominem," "Strawman" & Other Fallacies ... Here at Open Culture, we like to think we keep discussions reasonable. Not every site can say that; if you’ve ever dared to scroll down into the comments on Youtube (to pick an example purely at random) you know what I mean.
But on that very same repository of streaming videos and shouting matches, you can also find a helpful aid to your debates both online and off: PBS Idea Channel’s “Guide to Common Fallacies.” When humans talk, sometimes we adhere to the rules of logic, and sometimes we break from them. In everyday life it doesn’t matter that much either way, but, in the heat of an argument, and especially amid the potential conflagration of an internet argument, consistency is all. Under such conditions, someone who commits even a common logical fallacy may well do so without realizing it, and if you feel like educating them, you can reply with a link to whichever of these videos covers the fallacy they used: Related Content: Does Math Objectively Exist, or Is It a Human Creation?
Top 10 Thinking Traps Exposed — How to Foolproof Your Mind, Part I. Our minds set up many traps for us. Unless we’re aware of them, these traps can seriously hinder our ability to think rationally, leading us to bad reasoning and making stupid decisions. Features of our minds that are meant to help us may, eventually, get us into trouble. Here are the first 5 of the most harmful of these traps and how to avoid each one of them. 1.
“Is the population of Turkey greater than 35 million? Lesson: Your starting point can heavily bias your thinking: initial impressions, ideas, estimates or data “anchor” subsequent thoughts. This trap is particularly dangerous as it’s deliberately used in many occasions, such as by experienced salesmen, who will show you a higher-priced item first, “anchoring” that price in your mind, for example. What can you do about it? Always view a problem from different perspectives. 2.
In one experiment a group of people were randomly given one of two gifts — half received a decorated mug, the other half a large Swiss chocolate bar. 3. 4. Are We Becoming Morally Smarter? When Beliefs and Facts Collide (Reason: To what extent are our beliefs based on evidence?) The Indian miracle-buster stuck in Finland (Reason: Why is reason so hard to accept?) 2 June 2014Last updated at 19:23 ET By Samanthi Dissanayake BBC News, Helsinki An Indian man who made his name exposing the "miraculous" feats of holy men as tricks has fled the country after being accused of blasphemy.
Now in self-imposed exile in Finland, he fears jail - or even assassination - if he returns. When a Hindu fakir declared on live television that he could kill anybody with tantric chanting, Sanal Edamaruku simply had to take him up on the challenge. As both were guests in the studio, the fakir was put to the test immediately. The channel cancelled all subsequent programming and he began chanting on the spot. He has spent his life as a prominent member of India's small band of miracle-busters, men who dedicate their life to traversing the country demystifying certain beliefs.
It's a nation often associated with profound spirituality, but rationalists see their country as a breeding ground for superstition. Sanal Edamaruku shows how to seemingly produce ash from mid-air. How do we really make decisions? (ntuition, reason: How rational are we?) 23 February 2014Last updated at 21:28 ET By Toby Macdonald Producer, Horizon: How You Really Make Decisions With every decision you take, every judgement you make, there is a battle in your mind - a battle between intuition and logic.
And the intuitive part of your mind is a lot more powerful than you may think. Most of us like to think that we are capable of making rational decisions. We may at times rely on our gut instinct, but if necessary we can call on our powers of reason to arrive at a logical decision. We like to think that our beliefs, judgements and opinions are based on solid reasoning. But we may have to think again. Prof Daniel Kahneman, from Princeton University, started a revolution in our understanding of the human mind. His insight into the way our minds work springs from the mistakes that we make.
This is the part of your mind that you are aware of. Daniel Kahneman's insights into the mind spring from the systematic errors we make all the time “Start Quote. The 12 cognitive biases that prevent you from being rational. Street Epistemology : An Interview with Peter Boghossian (Faith, reason: Are faith and reason mutually incompatible?) Peter Boghossian is a full-time faculty member in the philosophy department at Portland State University. He is also a national speaker for the Center for Inquiry, the Secular Student Alliance, and the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.
Peter was kind enough to answer a few questions about his new book, A Manual for Creating Atheists. 1. What was your goal in writing A Manual for Creating Atheists? My primary goal was to give readers the tools to talk people out of faith and into reason. 2. Almost everyone can relate to having had conversations with friends, family, coworkers, where you are left shaking your head and wondering how in the world they can believe what they believe—conversations where they fully and uniformly dismiss every fact and piece of evidence presented to them. 3. Confirmation bias—although I think it’s less that they’re using a logical fallacy and more that the entire way they’ve conceptualized the problem is fallacious. 4. 5. 6. Yes. Dr.