Welcome to Atheist Discussion, a new community created by former members of The Thinking Atheist forum.

Thread Rating:
  • 1 Vote(s) - 5 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
How 'teachable' is critical thinking?
#26

How 'teachable' is critical thinking?
(12-24-2020, 04:00 PM)Dānu Wrote:
(12-24-2020, 03:56 PM)no one Wrote: Depends on the learner.

I have met tons of people who have rather high IQs, but are blooming idiots when it comes to common sense.

And conversely, people think bad spellers and people who are bad at grammar are necessarily bad thinkers, but I don't think that's true.

Be it IQ or spelling or whatever, there's a difference between form and function, and a difference between knowledge and intelligence as well. I think most folk get those distinctions, eventually.

I know it took me a long time to differentiate between the two. I spent too many years thinking that because I knew stuff, I was smart.
On hiatus.
The following 3 users Like Thumpalumpacus's post:
  • Dānu, Little Lunch, Phaedrus
Reply
#27

How 'teachable' is critical thinking?
Yeah, now I'm at the stage where I think I'm smart for realising how smart I'm not. :-)
The following 1 user Likes Little Lunch's post:
  • Thumpalumpacus
Reply
#28

How 'teachable' is critical thinking?
I am smarter than most people. It is a fact I have learned to accept.

Reply
#29

How 'teachable' is critical thinking?
(12-25-2020, 01:22 PM)Phaedrus Wrote: I am smarter than most people. It is a fact I have learned to accept.

"...with all due humility" of course. My last IQ score was 123. I'm sure it's gone down with the on-coming ALZ bombs.
[Image: M-Spr20-Weapons-FEATURED-1-1200x350-c-default.jpg]
Reply
#30

How 'teachable' is critical thinking?
Thanks to Danu for her question, it's a good one.

First, I think it's important to define "critical thinking skills". My definition is "teaching the major logical fallacies -- what they are, and how to correctly identify them and guard against them". I would maintain that getting children widely able to explain a few key ones, like confirmation bias and agency inference, would make a big difference.

Secondly, it's true that some people are far more ... for lack of a better term, "gullible" ... than others. I'm sure that some children will take to such instruction more readily than others, just as they do in ANY subject.

In my field it's generally accepted that software development is something that some minority of people simply CAN'T be taught, even a little. It is completely beyond them. This doesn't make them stupid, but it makes their brain wired to think about things in ways that aren't optimal for holding the scope of a problem in your head and solving it in a particular systematic way, breaking it down to its atomic aspects. I'm sure critical / objective thinking is like that. Some creative types, for example, just need to FEEL their way through life; it is their intuition that seems self-evidently right to them, and any facts contrary to their intuition seem self-evidently wrong.

But no good can come of what we're teaching now, which is, systematically and officially, nothing. We don't expect every child to have some basic thinking competency, and in fact encourage a dichotomy between the geeks / nerds and everyone else -- the latter gets a free pass, and even intellectually inclined children tend to end up intellectually sloppy. No one has their ridiculous thoughts challenged. It's like everyone is entitled to their own "truth".

Decrying this state of affairs is mostly a waste in the US, though, where parents demand that their children not be subverted in their faith, nor be sent home asking uncomfortable questions, or getting "uppity", etc.
The following 2 users Like mordant's post:
  • Inkubus, Little Lunch
Reply




Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)