Critical thinking is an important part of an informed public.
What advice do you have to share about critical thinking?
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Critical thinking requires curiosity and empathy.
There is no one thing which can be relied on. Generally, if you can respect the views of others, argue with scientifically valid claims, and uncover exploitation then that counts as critical thought regardless of the amount of effort that goes in.
There are some things which have helped me over the years:
- Logical Fallacies | The Skeptics Guide to the Universe
- Podcasts | The Skeptics Guide to the Universe
- The Origins Podcast | YouTube
- FRONTLINE PBS | YouTube
- The Royal Institution | YouTube
- Fact Checking. Example.
Mike
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One difficult thing in relation to critical thinking is conversation itself. I find it difficult sometimes. Not only when disagreeing with someone, but also when agreeing.
So, my little advice is, in order to respect the views of others and keep the conversation going, never agree with someone by saying, āI knowā. Try to say something encouraging like, āyouāre right.ā It opens them up to continue sharing.
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I had a brief period last year where, due to the You Are Not So Smart podcast (which is perpetually a humbling reminder of how much of human thinking is heuristics and biases), I read up a lot on standpoint epistemology - wherein people try to ascertain how a view was formed by an individual through a series of pretty non-confrontational questions. This is a long and roundabout way of saying that I believe one essential tool for thinking critically is to deeply understand how your own history, beliefs etc. can affect your judgement.
I took Behavioural Economics towards the end of my degree, so Iād be remiss not to mention Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, which does a great job of outlining some of the human deviations from rationality which occur due to heuristics and biases. Although the book had a recent reckoning due to the integrity of the studies when they were performed, a good amount of it has been replicated (there or thereabouts) since.
Recently reread Itās All Over which touches a little on this train of thought, in a roundabout way,
There are memes circulating that are known as ābingo cards,ā in which each square is filled with a typical statement or trait of a person who belongs to a given constituency, a mouth-breathing momās-basement-dwelling Reddit-using Menās Rights Activist, for example, or, say, an unctuous white male ally of POC feminism. The idea is that within this grid there is an exhaustive and as it were a priori tabulation, deduced like Kantās categories of the understanding, of all the possible moves a member of one of these groups might make, and whenever the poor sap tries to state his considered view, his opponent need only pull out the table and point to the corresponding box, thus revealing to him that it is not actually a considered view at all, but only an algorithmically predictable bit of output from the particular program he is running. The sap is sapped of his subjectivity, of his belief that he, properly speaking, has views at all.
Even someone who is the definition of a ācritical thinkerā can find themselves being called a sheep.
(It also made me realise that if someone were to trick folks into creating their own personal bingo cards and sharing them on Twitter, it would be a gold mind for data brokers.)
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donāt believe anything you hear or read and only half of what you see
thatās something my father told me and it took me a very long time to appreciate what he meant by that - in other words, vet and verify everything for yourself
we have been lied to all of our lives by the media, our schools, our governments and in the process our potential as human beings has been robbed from us
iāve been researching a very wide variety of subjects in excess of 20 years and iāve learned a few general things in that time; 1, we are ALL idiots, myself included - we know far less than we think we do, 2, the world does not work the way most of us think it does - everything is upside down and backwards
the suggestion was made to base your beliefs on science - in a well functioning society that would be fine, but we do not live in that world
āThe case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness.ā ā Dr. Richard Horton, Editor in Chief of The Lancet, one of the worlds most respected, peer-reviewed medical journals, 2015 (source)
the mainstream media cannot be trusted at all - this includes television, radio, print and the web - virtually all mainstream media companies are now owned by a handful of powerful corporations which are in bed with the intelligence community and have been for a very long time
all of mainstream media is heavily influenced by government and advertisers, particularly defense contractors and pharmaceutical companies - whether itās PBS, NPR, BBC, 60 Minutes, etc., it does not matter
all of the mainstream āfact checkersā which iām aware of are useless, as is Wikipedia regarding anything politically sensitive - often the only value in Wikipedia is the external links they provide
i think most of the alternative media on the web is at least as bad as the mainstream media, however itās also perhaps the last place where the truth is readily accessible - anyone interested in some of the resources iāve collected over the years, see here
i think a few of the biggest obstacles to critical thinking areā¦
- inability to think for ones self
- closed mindedness, biases
- failure to research, failure to research absent confirmation bias
- ego - failure to entertain viewpoints which challenge ones concrete beliefs
- failure to accept that we are orders of magnitude from perfection
i canāt say iām as open minded as iād like to be, and iām certainly not unbiased (iām human), but i can force myself to be open minded enough to consider information that challenges my core beliefs
for example, i actually forced myself to look into flat earth theory one day (yes, this is a thing now) - if the earth isnāt flat, then i had nothing to lose, and if the evidence supported it, then i had everything to gain
needless to say, i gained nothing, but the important point is that i was willing (barely, admittedly) to consider information which challenged my beliefs
one cannot reach accurate conclusions without considering all of the evidence, no matter how far fetched it may seem
hereās a critical thinking testā¦ what if i told you that there is no proof that viruses exist? that no virus has ever been properly isolated/purified according the most basic standards (Kochās/Riversā postulates)? that it has never been proven that a virus can be transmitted?
your initial reaction might be that iām a missing more than a few screws, but am i? are you willing to challenge your current beliefs?
iāll end with the same quote i started with because itās so very importantā¦
donāt believe anything you hear or read and only half of what you see
I think if the average person writes off science as an opinion or a tool for the opposition then they are making a grave mistake.
There are legitimate problems with science. Science is performed by fallible people. The replication crisis. Racism. And sexism.
But when someone says to themselves, āI wish we knew the answer to [fill in the blank],ā that is what scientific consensus is. Science makes factual statements about the physical world.
When people attack science or create doubt, it is often for short-term financial gain. It is important to understand that creating doubt is the main tool in the toolbox for people who have something to gain at your expense.
If a person has written off science then I challenge that person to investigate the motivation of scientists. What evidence do scientists have? What is the scientific consensus on a particular issue?
Most ordinary people have something to gain from improved health, a clean environment, and an increased standard of living. These are the tangible benefits from science and science-based medicine.
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Thanks for your input Mike - i donāt disagree and iām not suggesting that people disregard science - my point is that the field is far more corrupt than most people probably realize and that one needs to know what to look for when evaluating a study (p values, conflicts, sample sizes, reproducibility (which often never happens), etc.) in order to determine its validity
funding is a huge problem - if, for example, a pharma company funds a study for an upcoming product and the science doesnāt produce positive/expected results, then that university/lab/etc. is subject to having its funding cut and careers are subject to being destroyed - there are many clear examples of this regarding climate and pharma science for example where favorable results are published at a much higher frequency than unfavorable results
another problem with funding is that many subjects that ought to be studied, never are, because thereās no financial benefit in funding them
then thereās the political influence which by itself is a massive problem - the Lancet hydroxychloroquine study which was retracted is a prime example of how deep corruption, criminal negligence and politics is rooted in science
the CRU data leak is another significant example of conflicts of interest, manufactured āscientificā consensus, and politics driving science
when the editor of one of the most trusted medical journals on the planet tells us that potentially half of scientific studies are essentially garbage, this is not something a critical thinker should be ignoring (and iām not suggesting you are, just sayinā)
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It is not clear to me why the tanker does not deliver the water directly to the people instead of dumping it in a well.
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This seems like a distinct lack of critical thinking; given the desperate situation of the people getting the water, maybe distribution would be an issue. There has to be a better way there though, just dumping straight into the ground for it to get pulled back out, and with the safety issues present due to the system.
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A short series on bias.
Pulling the Thread is a digital documentary series and engagement campaign that unravels some of Americaās most popular conspiracy theories and reveals the emotional, cognitive, and social forces that lead rational people to believe irrational things. Produced by the award-winning Kindling Group and ITVS, the project doesnāt tell people what to think, but pushes us to examine how we think ā why conspiracy theories are so alluring, how baseless rumors undermine trust and democracy ā and what we can all do about it.
it is obvious to me from reading your posts here that youāre quite a smart guy mike, but i get the impression that youāre also what James Corbett would call a ānormieā and i mean no disrespect when i use that term
i never bothered to figure out when the phrase āconspiracy theoryā was coined, but it was certainly popularized by the CIA when too many people started to figure out that Oswald didnāt shoot Kennedy (or officer Tippit) - āiām just a patsyā he said, and it turns out he was correct
conspiracies happen everywhere every day any time multiple people conspire to do something - the term has been demonized, not only by the CIA, but by the mainstream media as well
the authorities do not want critical thinkers exposing their crimes
the agenda for the video is made obvious with one of the opening statements, āwhen we donāt trust the institutions and we donāt trust our information sources, what does that mean for democracy?ā
in other words, donāt question authority
given the track record of the so-called authorities, the idea is repulsive
next, Mike Shermer makes his first appearance - this piece of garbage is both a lair and a coward and one of the many great examples of that is David Coleās presentation at a 1994 IHR conference where Cole details his interaction with Shermer regarding Coleās appearance on the Phil Donahue Show in '94
David ColeĀ“s IHR convention 1994
i have to work today so i donāt have the time to comment further at the moment, but iāll write more later - in the mean time, and given that this post is in the Critical Thinking forum, i highly suggest considering what Corbett has to say regarding conspiracies:
so, letās have a look at some conspiracy theories that turned out to be conspiracy factsā¦
1. the CIA and drug trafficking
since itās inception the CIA has, at the very least, facilitated drug trafficking - this came to a very public head when John Deutch, former director of the CIA, addressed a pile of very angry parents at an LA California school in regard to the crack cocaine epidemic
this was part of the Iran-Contra affair and in '96 was blown wide open in the āDark Allianceā series of articles by Gary Webb, an investigative journalist who worked for the San Jose Mercury News
Gary lost everything as a result and thus shot himself twice in the head (the 1st bullet ricocheted off the side of his skull forcing him to make a second attempt)
CIA drug trafficking - study resources
2. the Gulf of Tonkin incident
this was an alleged attack by an NVA torpedo boat upon the USS Maddox - the incident was used to garner support for the unpopular non-war war in Vietnam (the US never officially declared a state of war)
the incident was a classic false-flag in that no attack actually took place according to witness and the evidence - this was partially admitted in CIA declassified documents around 2005, but also by several witnesses on the boats including a sonar operator who saw nothing on his scope
the cost: 63,000 Americans as i recall and an untold number of Vietnamese men, woman and children
3. the CIA āheart attackā gun
yes, the CIA has a pistol that shoots frozen poison darts - the weapon was displayed and described during the Church hearings
The CIAās Assassination Chemical Weapon - Secret Heart Attack Gun - Senate Testimony (1975)
4. CIA embedded in mainstream media
Operation Mockingbird was admitted to by the CIA, again during the Church hearings
Operation Mockingbird, CIA Media Control Program
Project MONARCH, Satanism and Child Sexual Abuse
5. Israelās involvement in the JFK assassination
"Several high-level military officers believed that the killing of JFK was in fact a coup dāĆ©tat carried out by elements of the CIA working with the Israeli Mossad. Kennedy was attempting to halt the development of nuclear weapons by the Israelis, while simultaneously planning to disband the CIA and disengage our military troops from the Indo-China area. (Read Final Judgment by Michael Collins Piper for more details.)" ā Colonel Donn De Grand Pre, former high-ranking official in the Pentagon, in Barbarians Inside the Gates - The Black Book of Bolshevism by Colonel Donn De Grand Pre (source)
"It is interesting ā but not surprising ā to note that in all the words written and uttered about the Kennedy assassination, Israelās intelligence agency, the Mossad, has never been mentioned. And yet a Mossad motive is obvious." ā Former Congressman, Rep. Paul Findley in The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Mar. 1992, p. 26 (source)
most people arenāt aware of the behind-the-scene battle Kennedy was fighting with David Ben-Gurion, Israelās first PM - Kennedy (who never tried to end the private federal reserve banking system as many seem to believe) tried to do two very important things: 1) he tried to force the Jewish lobbies in the US, now under the umbrella of AIPAC, to register as a foreign agent which it is legally required to do, which would have curbed Israelās influence in US politics - to this day AIPAC has never registered
ā¦and 2), he tried to force Ben-Gurion to open the Dimona plant to nuclear weapon inspections which Ben-Gurion absolutely refused to do (Israel was using Dimona to build undeclared nuclear weapons which, even today, it has never formerly acknowledged) - Ben-Gurion resigned shortly before triggers were pulled in Dallas
few people seem to be aware that the second house select committee on assassinations concluded that the assassination was likely a conspiracy
Mike Piper provides the meticulously documented evidence for Israelās role in the assassination in his book, Final Judgment: The Missing Link In The John F. Kennedy Assassination Conspiracy
who actually planned the assassination, i donāt know, but it sure as hell was not Oswald who, according to the forensic evidence (paraffin and fingerprint testing by the Dallas PD, witnesses, timing, etc.), never fired a weapon on 22-Nov-1963
JFK Assassination ā The Israeli Connection ā 12Bytes.org
āWho Ordered the Hit on JFK?ā ā Johnny Gat (video) ā 12Bytes.org
Did Israel Kill Both Kennedy Brothers?
several further resources can be found here: Israel, JFK and the bomb: The rest of the story on the assassination of John F. Kennedy
6. James Earl Ray didnāt kill Martin King
like Oswald, Ray too was a patsy - the go-to guy for the evidence is Dr. William Pepper who spent 40 years investigating and writing books on the assassination
7. Sirhan Sirhan didnāt kill Bobby Kennedy
thereās some convincing evidence that Sirhan was a Manchurian Candidate, but regardless, the official story falls to pieces utterly and completely when the evidence is examined (witnesses, positions, number of bullets fired, āmissingā evidence, knowledge of the exit route change which Sirhan couldnāt have known, etc., etc., etc.) - the shooter was likely Thane Eugene Cesar who was Bobbyās body guard - his gun was never tested even though witnesses saw him draw it and he later ālostā or sold it as i recall
The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy and āThe Polka-dot Fileā
Thane Eugene Cesar: RFK Jr. Calls Him Possible Assassin
[6] The Manchurian Candidate ā Transcript
8. MK-ULTRA - CIA mind control program
this is common knowledge and admitted by the CIA
MK/ULTRA | CIA FOIA (foia.cia.gov)
MK-ULTRA/MIND CONTROL EXPERIMENTS | CIA FOIA (foia.cia.gov)
MK-ULTRA/MIND CONTROL EXPERIMENTS | CIA FOIA (foia.cia.gov)
9. the Israeli-9/11 connection
Israel has always been a terrorist state and, once again, its fingerprints are all over 9/11 ā from āLuckyā Larry Silverstein to the ā5 dancing Israeliāsā to the Fox News special about Israeli spying in and on the U.S. which aired just once before being scrubbed from its website
the Jewish people are often the co-victims of Israels terrorist activities
there are way too many resources to list (do your own research), so iāll pick the one that many find to be the most damaging and the easiest to prove - 5 Israeliās, at least 4 of which were known Mossad, who set up on a roof top before the first plane strike to, in their own words, ādocument the eventā
9/11 and the āDancing Israelisā ā 12Bytes.org
9/11 Suspects: Dancing Israelis - The Corbett Report
other places to look are ANC Report run by Ryan Dawson, an excellent and thorough researcher and activist living in Japan - i would particularly recommend his documentary, The Empire Unmasked
also Christopher Bollyn has done much work on the subject
10. Pizzagate
Pizzagate began as an alleged conspiracy of pedophilia taking place in a Washington DC pizza restaurant (Comet Ping Pong) involving the government officials and the Washington elite
the allegation is a half-truth in that, yes, James Alefantis and others implicated are either known, or suspected pedophiles, however the well was poisoned (āpoisoning the wellā is a tactic used by the CIA) very early on with people stating that kids were being tortured and raped in satanic rituals in the the basement of Comet Ping Pong, underground tunnels, and so on
what Pizzagate was really about, and what the obedient mainstream media avoided at all cost, is the fact that satanic ritual abuse of children, including snuff films, blood and urine drinking, torture, rape, āspirit cookingā, etc., is a very real and wide-spread phenomena and that it indeed involves the Washington elite as well as many others around the world
spirit cooking:
a few pix from John Podestaās home:
Artwork by John Podestaās favorite Pedophile artist.
investigative journalist Derrick Broze is one of many who have done extensive work in this area
Pizzagate facts exposed by Ben Swann - YouTube
Conspiracy Of Silence [Banned leaked documentary]
Utah Ritualized Sexual Abuse Investigation: Is There a History of Ritual Abuse in Utah?
Police Documents Reveal 30 Year Cover-Up of Child Sex Abuse ā The Conscious Resistance Network
Who Will Find What The Finders Hide? (Full Documentary) ā The Conscious Resistance Network
The Finders: CIA Ties to Child Sex Cult Obscured as Coverage Goes from Sensationalism to Silence
FBI Agent-Turned-Whistleblower Jane Turner on Child Sex Abuse Cases - Rolling Stone
Rabbit Hole: A Satanic Ritual Abuse Survivorās Story ā The Millennium Report
i was going to quit at 10, but iāll throw in a bonusā¦
11. āmurder on the tracksā
on 23-Aug-87 the dismembered bodies of two kids, 16 yr. old Don Henry and 17 yr. old Kevin Ives, were found on the rail road tracks in Alexander, Arkansas
the completely corrupt coroner, Fahmy Malak, decided it was suicide, then changed the verdict to THC overdose when it was posited that the public wouldnāt swallow āsuicideā
Dr. Malak once determined that a man who had his head cut off had died of a stomach ulcer and that his dog ate his head - after the head was later found, he commented that the dog must have regurgitated it
some people in Alexander were pissed off because planes were flying 100 ft. above the tracks at night with their lights off - they were dropping packages of drugs and the boys were in the area of the drops that night when they were spotted by a group of 5 men on the tracks who were apparently looking for the drug drop
after someone fired a shot (one boy had a 22 cal. rifle) the boys eventually ran from the men to a parking lot where 2 cops, Kirk Lane and Jay Campbell, showed up and beat the living hell out of them according to at least 2 witnesses, possibly killing them, and then they returned the boys to the men on the tracks who laid out the bodies on the tracks and covered them with a tarp, likely to make the conductor of the 1+ mile long train think that the wind had blown a tarp on to the tracks - the tarp was not covering the heads of the boys at the time however and so the conductor engaged the breaks but could not stop in time
one of the 5 men, Dan Harmon, would later have himself appointed by a corrupt judge, Cole, as the prosecutor - Harmon would later be arrested several times and spend several years in the slammer for drug charges, extortion, racketeering and beating his wife
Bill Clinton was the governor of Arkansas at the time and both he and Hillary, through her law firm, are intimately tied to Mena Arkansas where the CIA and Barry Seal were flying in drugs and flying out weapons to the Contraās
welcome to āThe Clinton Body Countā
between the CIA, FBI and DHS, there are somewhere around 10,000 documents and the ones they released are heavily redacted
so 2 kids smoke 20 joints, according the coroner, and decide to take a nap on the rail road tracks and get run over by a mile long train that they never heard coming, but the 3-letter agencies have 10,000 documents on the case?
there are 6 deaths and about a dozen law enforcement officials who either played an active part in the murders or worked to cover them up yet no one has ever been held accountable for the murders
Murder On The Tracks - The Story of Kevin Ives and Don Henry - YouTube
the evidence is here: ID Files ā The train deaths
LINDA IVES PLAINTIFF v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
the defendants included the following:
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY,
DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY,
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE,
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY,
DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION,
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION,
UNITED STATES ATTORNEYāS OFFICE,
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
STATE OF ARKANSAS,
ARKANSAS STATE POLICE,
BRYANT POLICE DEPARTMENT,
SALINE COUNTY SHERIFFāS OFFICE