The current issue of Skeptic magazine ( http://www.skeptic.com/ ) contains the article "How to Teach a Course in Science, Pseudoscience, and Skepticism." The story discusses how universities are introducing skepticism and details some of the courses being taught.
Personally, I don’t believe there is sufficient credible evidence to support the theory that a course in Skepticism can be successfully developed and taught.
Thanks for posting that, Ian. I find this subject very interesting. Philosophers have been teaching "critical thinking" for a long time. The California State University requires that a critical thinking course be included among its general ed. requirements. These critical thinking courses are essentially courses in informal logic for non-majors. Here's a San Jose State site that kind of illustrates the syllabus: http://www.sjsu.edu/depts/itl/graphics/main.html As we would expect in anything deriving from philosophers, this kind of critical thinking course seems to operate at a pretty high level of abstraction, treaing general principles of sound reasoning that can be applied throughout one's experience. Then there are the "skeptics". These guys seem rather more issue-oriented and ideological than the "critical thinkers". They often are people in other fields who start teaching quasi-philosophy classes in order to root out ideas that they consider false and dangerous. A third group, small but stylish, is illustrated by the "Forteans". They are ilustrated by a very cool British magazine that I read religiously: http://www.forteantimes.com/ These people take a positive delight in exactly those things that the skeptics seethe about. They are skeptics themselves, in a way. They generally don't believe in the literal truth of weird claims that they harvest. Their approach seems to be more sociological and anthropological, or even aesthetic. That means that these kind of claims remain fascinating even if they are false (perhaps even more so), precisely because people do believe them. Forteans are attracted by the exact thing that repels the skeptics. There's a serious point behind this madness: Science is not a quasi-religion, and it doesn't have all of the answers. It's an approximation, a model that attempts to describe something that transcends it, and perhaps transcends human cognitive powers entirely: namely reality. The critical procedures that the skeptics deploy probably should serve to define the boundaries of *what we accept as fact*. But it's a serious mistake to confuse what we accept as fact with the limits of *possibility*. Recognizing this isn't the same thing as embracing credulity. Imagine a person making a para-normal claim. The militant CSICOP-style skeptic (the atheist?) would reply 'Impossible! That claim contradicts science!'. The Fortean (the agnostic?) would reply, 'It's possible, I guess. Show me why I should believe you.' It's the difference between living in a big world that's imperfectly understood, and living in a small world where everything is in its proper place. The bottom line is that reality contains more than we currently know, and probably more than human beings can know. And that suggests that anomalous events will always remain possibilities and that they can't simply be dismissed a-priori. BTW, this takes us right up to the boundary between science and religion, I think.
Bill, I think you've hit the nail on the head (and if you've told me once, you've told me Fortean Times)--though not all members of CSICOP necessarily represent hard skepticism. There have been some soft ("show me") skeptics over there, too, most notably Marcello Truzzi, whose attitude is basically the same as mine. I flip-flop on skeptics; I used to be very hostile towards the CSICOP movement (as some of you folks may remember), but I've warmed up to it and am now thoroughly enjoying Michael Shermer's Why People Believe Weird Things. Which is not to say that I'm anything like a hard skeptic myself, but my attitude towards the movement is now more like the Fortean attitude towards the paranormal. Cheers,
Hey, since critical thinking was mentioned... Say, here's a problem I've faced and am not sure how to get around it. I absolutely cannot follow (and thus learn zilch from) logic taught in its classical formal approach. I can't grasp it when it's presented both mathematically and in all of its categories, divisions, charts, graphs and what have you. But I do want to learn to think more critically so that I might diminish the "fallacies" in my own discourse andwriting as well as discern them in others's discourse and writing. There's got to be a way to logically discover the truth or error of discourse using techniques other than through classical formal training. Common sense is often times enough, but that's not strong enough with which to argue. So, are there web sources or books (hek, even classes, for that matter--distance-learning, of course) where logic and critical thinking are taught differently? Thanks, Keith
Re: Hey, since critical thinking was mentioned... Sure. That's what all the "critical thinking" classes out there are intended to accomplish. You might start out by looking at the thing that I posted in my last epistle: http://www.sjsu.edu/depts/itl/graphics/main.html This is a free on-line tutorial in informal logic, pitched at a level appropriate to an introductory class for non-majors. You can just read it if you want, and you can also work the exercises if you feel like it. There's no signup or grade, it's all just for your own benefit. It distinguishes statements from things like commands and questions, discusses argument forms, defines the logical connectives, talks about implication, and discusses induction and deduction. Then it devotes quite a bit of space to discussing many fallacies in some detail, showing by examples how reasoning often goes wrong. I think that this kind of thing is much more useful to most students than a hard-core class in formal mathematical logic. Unlike a formal logic course, a critical thinking course won't give you a mathematical-style deductive proof procedure. You will emerge from a critical thinking course still depending on your own common sense, but hopefully that common sense will be a little better informed and considerably more alert.
Re: Re: Hey, since critical thinking was mentioned... So how do you ask a sceptic a question like: Which came first - the chicken or the egg???
