The Path to Critical Thinking Few of us are effective critical thinkers—who has time? The good news, says Stever Robbins, is that this skill can be learned. by Stever Robbins Can you write a refresher on critical thinking? We business leaders so like to believe that we can think well, but we don't. What's logic got to do with it? Purely emotional decision making is bad news. Critical thinking starts with logic. We also sloppily reverse cause and effect. There are many excellent books on logic. The trap of assuming You can think critically without knowing where the facts stop and your own neurotic assumptions begin. When we don't know something, we assume. Finding and busting "conventional wisdom" can be the key to an empire. Assumptions can also cripple us. Some assumptions run so deep they're hard to question. Next time you're grappling with a problem, spend time brainstorming your assumptions. The truth will set you free (statistics notwithstanding) Have you ever noticed how terrified we are of the truth? Help!
How to Disagree March 2008 The web is turning writing into a conversation. Twenty years ago, writers wrote and readers read. The web lets readers respond, and increasingly they do—in comment threads, on forums, and in their own blog posts. Many who respond to something disagree with it. The result is there's a lot more disagreeing going on, especially measured by the word. If we're all going to be disagreeing more, we should be careful to do it well. DH0. This is the lowest form of disagreement, and probably also the most common. u r a fag!!!!!!!!!! But it's important to realize that more articulate name-calling has just as little weight. The author is a self-important dilettante. is really nothing more than a pretentious version of "u r a fag." DH1. An ad hominem attack is not quite as weak as mere name-calling. Of course he would say that. This wouldn't refute the author's argument, but it may at least be relevant to the case. DH2. DH3. This is often combined with DH2 statements, as in: DH4. DH5. DH6.
Epistemological Weighting Hypothesis Explanations > Theories > Epistemological Weighting Hypothesis Description | So What? | See also | References Description We gain knowledge in two ways: (a) By ourselves, by both active trial and error and passive observation. (b) Through others, by communication and observation. When our views differ from the group’s view, these conflict with one another. So what? Using it Find the weighting that other person uses and play to it. Defending Know your own preference. See also Social Norms, References |gs| Deductive Argument | Reasoning Resources While people generally think of an argument as a fight, perhaps involving the hurling of small appliances, this is not the case-at least as the term is used in philosophy. In philosophy, an argument is a set of claims, one of which is supposed to be supported by the others. There are two types of claims in an argument. The second type of claim is the premise. Arguments can have unstated premises and even an unstated conclusion. Varieties There are two main categories of arguments, three if bad arguments are considered a category. The second type is the deductive argument. Examples Inductive Argument Premise 1: When exposed to the nerve argent known as “Rage”, the chimpanzees showed a massive increase in aggression.Premise 2: Humans are very similar to chimpanzees.Conclusion: If exposed to “Rage”, humans would show a massive increase in aggression. Deductive Argument Example of a Fallacy General Assessment Reasoning If the argument is inductive, it is assessed in terms of being strong or weak.
Tech Transformation Of Grits, Lox, and the SAT Although it has grown quite a bit over the past few decades, in the mid-1980s, Tulsa, Oklahoma was a much sleepier place. In some ways, it reminded me of my hometown, Nashville: hot and ever-prayerful, with churches dotting the landscape and defining much of the community’s culture. In the case of Tulsa, that hegemonic Christianity was capped off by a 60-foot pair of bronze, praying hands outside Oral Roberts University’s “City of Faith,” a medical center built by the televangelist founder of the college, according to legend, after a 900-foot tall Jesus commanded him to do so. No regular hospital, the center blended faith healing with medicine, operating under the impression that cancer would yield as readily to the power of heavenly entreaties as it might to chemo and radiation. Which turns out not to be true, and which might help explain why the facility went bankrupt and closed a few years later. I would like a grit, please. That would be grit, singular. Consider this: Need more info?
You Are Not So Smart 10 Ways to Improve Transfer of Learning | InformED Whether you’re a student or working professional looking to keep your skills current, the importance of being able to transfer what you learn in one context to an entirely new one cannot be overstated. Of course, the goal of any learning or training is to eventually be able to apply it in real-world situations, but a PayScale survey released last year found that 60 percent of employers don’t believe recent graduates are well-prepared for their jobs. One possible reason for this is that memory is context dependent, so transferring or recalling something that was learned in a classroom setting to a fast-paced work environment isn’t always easy. Once you understand how to go about transferring your knowledge to new contexts, however, you could change jobs or even careers and still find ways to apply your prior knowledge to the situations and problems you might face in a new role. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. About Marianne Stenger
Aristotle was wrong and so are we: there are far more than five senses Aeon email newsletters are issued by the not-for-profit, registered charity Aeon Media Group Ltd (Australian Business Number 80 612 076 614). This Email Newsletter Privacy Statement pertains to the personally identifying information you voluntarily submit in the form of your email address to receive our email newsletters More generally, when visiting the Aeon site you should refer to our site Privacy Policy here. This Email Newsletter Privacy Statement may change from time to time and was last revised 5 June, 2018. By clicking ‘Subscribe’ you agree to the following: We will use the email address you provide to send you daily and/or weekly email (depending on your selection). Unsubscribing You can change your mind at any time by clicking the ‘unsubscribe link’ in the footer of emails you receive from us, or by contacting us at support@aeon.co Security of your personal information We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. Sharing your personal information
Gapminder: Unveiling the beauty of statistics for a fact based world view. Write better. 13 rules from Steven Pinker. Steven Pinker is many things: linguist, psychologist, optimist, Harvard professor, and author.When it comes to writing, he's a student and a teacher. Here's are his 13 rules for writing better, more simply, and more clearly. 1. Reverse-engineer what you read. 2. 3. 4. 5. Interlude: Steven Pinker's take on human nature. This video file cannot be played. Against chaos: The world is a hard place, but maybe humans aren't ... 6. 7. 8. 9. Interlude: Steven Pinker's take on libertarianism (at any age, it's marginal). 10. 11. 12. 13.
Stresses — Gifted, Talented & Creative Adults One of the hardest things in life is having words inyour heart that you can't utter. James Earl Jones After working with gifted, creative, multi-talented people for more than ten years, I know that to create a meaningful and successful life gifted adults must do three things: Understand themselves, their special abilities and unique needs;Learn how to meet their needs and manage their relationships;Learn to use themselves and their talents for their own advantage. When gifted adults have not mastered those three things, their life is exceedingly stressful. To be valued within a peer culture which values conformity, gifted young people may mask their giftedness and develop alternative identities which are perceived as more socially acceptable.Miraca Gross The greatest success is successfulself-acceptance. Constant striving to live up to self-expectations--or those of others-- to be first, best, or both can be very stressful. Ingrid Bergman Coaching, Psychotherapy & Consultation
The Ideological Turing Test: How to Be Less Wrong – The Polymath Project Here’s something that took me half a decade to figure out: It is really, really, really hard to be right. If you want to be right all the time, go be an accountant. The rest of us — paleontologists, internet dating specialists, serial entrepreneurs (read: homeless millenials), policymakers, and scholars of Japanese religions — will just have to get used to being wrong. There’s a strange paradox about wrongness: We go about our lives feeling like we’re right, but — in reality — we spend most of our lives being wrong. Everyone is Wrong… Except for Me One of my favorite introductions to human error is Kathryn Schulz’s Being Wrong. Our default state, says Schulz, is to feel like we’re right all the time: “A whole lot of us go through life assuming that we are basically right, basically all the time, about basically everything: about our political and intellectual convictions, our religious and moral beliefs, our assessment of other people, our memories, our grasp of facts. So what do we do?