Marie Snyder: Teaching Critical Thinking, Part One

This week I start a series on how one goes about helping youngsters develop one of the most important skills a human being can have: the ability to tell the difference between fact and nonsense. There is an academic discipline that makes studies this process, philosophy. But unfortunately, most people don't have a great deal of respect for this subject---and given the current state of the world, that really shouldn't come as any great surprise. This week I begin a conversation with a high-school teacher who has been instrumental in getting local school boards teaching philosophy to teens.

Cloudwalking Owl · Who Is Marie Snyder

One of the things I've learned from writing this blog is how important newspapers can be for creating a written record of the day. When I wanted to find out how the Carnegie library was built and torn-down in Guelph all I had for information were microfilms of the "Guelph Mercury". Without a local news source recording the facts in at least a little detail, future generations will have nothing to go on. That is part of the job of the "Guelph-Back-Grounder". These articles preserve part of our local history---and the people who are making it, like Marie Snyder. I back everything up on the Internet Archives "Wayback Machine" in the hope that this will preserve significant fractions of our history. If you think this is as important as I do, why not subscribe? It's easy to do with Patreon and Pay Pal.

Cloudwalking Owl · Can People Be Taught How To Think Critically

Pay attention to the point Snyder is making where she talks about how labourious it is to a teach critical thinking. 

 

 

When uncle Fester starts unloading about how he's heard the Rothschilds were behind a Jewish plot that involved space-born laser devices setting last year's California wildfires, we need to remember that it is simply impossible to come up with an argument that will change his mind. That's because the problem isn't the argument he is putting forward, it's the way his mind operates. Teaching children philosophy is not just stuffing facts in their minds, it's about helping them learn how to use their brain to its full potential.

As for the ranking of newspapers and journals, I've mentioned NewsGuard in the past, but I think it might be useful for readers to see what you get when you subscribe to the service. I have the app as an extension in my Thunderbird web browser and when I click on the notorious Breitbart News Network, the little shield on my Thunderbird app turns red and a white exclamation mark pops up on it. When I click on the icon, I get a short synopsis that looks a bit like this. (I couldn't get a screen shot of the pop-up window, but this is pretty much the same thing---only it comes from another part of the message.) 

This is just the synopsis. If you choose to learn more, there is a very long "deep dig" that goes with the ranking that describes things like who owns it, what it's history has been for publishing fake or misleading news stories, and, a lot of hypertext links that allow the interested reader to learn a lot more if so inclined.

If someone throws around a reference to a scientific journal, most people don't really know what to do. There are, however, as Ms. Snyder says, ranking services that allow people to "separate the wheat from the chaff".

There are several of these, but one of the most used is the SCImago Journal Rank (SJR). It creates a rank based on the number of times a given article gets cited as a reference in other articles. The naive reader might think that a "popularity contest" is a weak reed to lean upon, but contrary to the myth perpetuated by countless bad science fiction books and movies, science doesn't advance because of isolated individuals "proving" something in their basement or garage. Instead, it's a collective activity where various institutions with groups of employees share information around the world and collectively piece-together a picture of the world that slowly becomes clearer and clearer. A large part of this process comes by publishing journal articles that allow all the relevant experts to pool their expertise. In effect, science is a consensus-building exercise and the SJR tracks how much a specific article (and the journal that publishes it) fits into the emerging consensus. 

Here's a screenshot of one particular listing for an academic philosophy journal, Noûs. (Click on the picture to get a better image.)

I'd suggest readers pay particular attention to the second set of graphs. That's because it compares the "Total Citations" to "Self-Citations". This is an important thing to understand, because some fake journals try to "spoof" the ranking systems by doing a lot of "self-citations". That is, if your article/journal is ranked according to how often they get cited by another article/journal, it might be possible for a big publisher to "juice the ranking" by just inserting a lot of unnecessary citations. 

 

No one expects the general public to be able to navigate the nuances of an academic ranking system. The NewsGuard system is something that might be more generally used. (I have the app because a local business pays for it in lieu of a subscription to the Back-Grounder.) But the really important thing is for the general public to learn to be a little more humble about their ability to understand what is going on when someone throws a reference to a scientific article into some post on social media. If you don't know how, or don't have the time, the rational thing to do is just tend to follow with the recognized experts are saying instead of someone who says they have "scientific proof" that Jewish space lasers set the California forest fires.

 

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There's a lot to digest in the above, so I'm going stop here and come back to the conversation next week. Until then, wear your mask, keep your distance, try to get along with the people you live with, and, remember that the epidemic will end soon.

 

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Moreover I say unto you, the Climate Emergency must be dealt with.