Reason Better - Think Critically
Facilitator(s): Peggy Reimers with Associate Professor Melanie Trecek-King
(These resources curated by Miguel Guhlin)
Embedded Files
Embrace critical thinking to better overcome pseudoscience and innoculate yourself (and your students) against sketchy science claims. Making better decisions is one goal of critical thinking. Deepening one’s knowledge of critical thinking strategies and adopting a skeptical attitude can help. Doing so can also assist during encounters with pseudoscience or other “sketchy” ideas. Let’s take a look at some findings.
Embrace critical thinking to better overcome pseudoscience and innoculate yourself (and your students) against sketchy science claims. Making better decisions is one goal of critical thinking. Deepening one’s knowledge of critical thinking strategies and adopting a skeptical attitude can help. Doing so can also assist during encounters with pseudoscience or other “sketchy” ideas. Let’s take a look at some findings.
Guest Host - Professor Melanie Trecek-King
Guest Host - Professor Melanie Trecek-King
Melanie Trecek-King is an Associate Professor of Biology at Massasoit Community College, where she teaches a general-education science course designed to equip students with empowering critical thinking, information literacy, and science literacy skills. An active speaker and consultant, Trecek-King loves to share her “teach skills, not facts” approach with other science educators and to help organizations meet their goals through better thinking.
Trecek-King is also the Education Director for the Mental Immunity Project and CIRCE (Cognitive Immunology Research Collaborative), which aim to advance and apply the science of mental immunity to inoculate minds against misinformation.
Learn more about Melanie at her website, Thinking is Power. Also catch her on Facebook, TikTok.
Session Resources
Session Resources
Be sure to explore Melanie's Thinking is Power website, and education resources in particular.
The Importance of Critical THinking
The Importance of Critical THinking
“Why don’t kids know critical thinking or scientific reasoning?" asks Assistant Professor of Biology, Melanie Trecek-King. She encourages teachers and students to engage in scientific skepticism:
“Why don’t kids know critical thinking or scientific reasoning?" asks Assistant Professor of Biology, Melanie Trecek-King. She encourages teachers and students to engage in scientific skepticism:
- Insist on evidence before accepting a claim.
- Then, match the strength of our belief to the strength and quality of the evidence.
- She describes matching the strength of your belief to evidence quality as “proportioning.”
How To Fact Check
How To Fact Check
Be skeptical. Stop and ask if it is true. Do this especially if it confirms existing biases or triggers strong emotions (e.g. anger or fear).
Check TYPE of content. What's its purpose? Is it advertisement? Satire? Opinion?
Look laterally. What do others say? Search source, claims, check accuracy and bias with other independent, trustworthy sites.
Look for RED flags. Any signs of low quality? Is there name-calling, inflammatory language, mis-spellings, grammatical errors, etc.?
Teaching Critical Thinking: Resources For You
Teaching Critical Thinking: Resources For You
Fill out an email form to get these Critical Thinking Cards, Fallacies and Biases wall posters, and more, from School of Thought. Shared under Creative Commons.
Civic Online Reasoning has free lessons and videos.
Making AI ConnectionS
Making AI ConnectionS
Below, find links to THREE critical thinking mega prompts. Cite the original authors and mention them when you use their work. Please keep in mind that if a mega prompt doesn't work perfectly, that's probably due to my poor prompt construction and does NOT reflect in an way on the original authors.
Or, we can blame it on the chatbot's hallucinations. ;-)Below, find links to THREE critical thinking mega prompts. Cite the original authors and mention them when you use their work. Please keep in mind that if a mega prompt doesn't work perfectly, that's probably due to my poor prompt construction and does NOT reflect in an way on the original authors.
Have access to ChatGPT Plus? In the paid version, you can create specific tools, like the one shown below, to assist you in assessing claims or generating pseudoscience examples you can use in class.
Have access to ChatGPT Plus? In the paid version, you can create specific tools, like the one shown below, to assist you in assessing claims or generating pseudoscience examples you can use in class.
books
books
These are fantastic books to explore. I found Otis' book quite readable, and Ahn's book full of fantastic examples and thought experiments. You may also find Weisberg and Sobel's book quite usable. Click the book covers to find out where to buy them. You might also want to read the books in Melanie Trecek-King's Resources area.
These are fantastic books to explore. I found Otis' book quite readable, and Ahn's book full of fantastic examples and thought experiments. You may also find Weisberg and Sobel's book quite usable. Click the book covers to find out where to buy them. You might also want to read the books in Melanie Trecek-King's Resources area.
-Miguel Guhlin
-Miguel Guhlin
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