1. ECC 2012-13
Educating Critical thinking
Education to or for CT
CT:
What is it?
Can CT be educated? Does it stand in a special relationship with
scientific education?
What is it good for?
A different perspective on CT: worldview and values
2. ECC 2012-13
Education to or for CT
¤ There is a widespread ¤ John Dewey: Teaching for
acceptance of the idea reflexive thought, teaching
through experience on the
that critical thinking is a model of science
valuable asset and that
it should be part of the ¤ YOU: teaching science for
curriculum at various teaching to think critically,
not just for facts (aims of
levels of education. education)
¤ learners think and do,
¤ CT entertains a special rather than swallow
relationship with science facts (methods of
education education)
3. ECC 2012-13
¤ Bailin 2002
¤ There is a widespread acceptance of the idea that critical thinking
should be an important dimension of science education. Thus, for
example, the National Science Education Standards (1996) has as
one of its goals the promotion of science as inquiry. Included in this
goal are numerous items which focus on critical thinking, for
example “identification of assumptions, use of critical and logical
thinking, and consideration of alternative explanations (p. 23);
“analysis of firsthand events and phenomena a well as critical
analysis of secondary sources; testing reliability of knowledge they
have generated” (p.33); and “the critical abilities of analyzing an
argument by reviewing current scientific understanding, weighing
the evidence, and examining the logic so as to decide which
explanation and models are best.
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¤ (Invitations to use natural intuition or
experiential wisdom multiply as well)
Things are not that ¤ No consensus about how to teach CT, whether
simple it can be learnt, what it is
¤ Resnick 1987: Report on teaching higher
skills (USA: NRC & Department of education)
¤ Willingham 2007: Critical Thinking. Why is it
so hard to teach?
¤ Apparent de-correlation between teaching
science and CT
5. ECC 2012-13
¤ Resnick 1987
¤ This paper addresses the question of what American schools
can do to more effectively teach what have come to be called
“higher order skills”.
¤ The first difficulties arise with the very question of what is meant
by the term “higher order skills.” Many candidate definitions are
available.
¤ Philosophers promote critical thinking and logical reasoning
skills, developmental psychologists point to metacognition, and
cognitive scientists study cognitive strategies and heuristics.
Educators advocate training in study skills and problem solving.
¤ How should we make sense of these many labels? Do critical
thinking, metacognition, cognitive strategies, and study skills
refer to the same kinds of capabilities? And how are they
related to the problem-solving abilities that mathematicians,
scientists, and engineers try to teach their students?
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¤ Mingled with the difficulty of defining higher order skills is the
troubling sense that there may, in fact, be little new to say about
the topic. Inevitably, we hear the question: Is there really anything
new about schools' trying to teach higher order skills? Haven't
schools always hoped to teach students to think critically, to
reason, to solve problems, to interpret, to refine ideas and to apply
them in creative ways?
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¤ Nevertheless, we seem to agree that students do not adequately
learn these higher order abilities. Perhaps the fact that our schools
have been less than successful at meeting these goals means that
we have simply given up the old truths in education. Perhaps if we
went back to old- fashioned courses and old-fashioned methods,
the problem of teaching higher order skills would be solved
without further special attention.
¤ Or, more pessimistically, perhaps we should conclude that
decades of trying unsuccessfully to teach higher order skills in
school show that such goals are not reachable; perhaps higher
order abilities develop elsewhere than in school, and it would be
wisest for schools to concentrate on the “basics,” letting higher
order abilities emerge later or under other auspices.
8. ECC 2012-13
¤ Willingham 2007
¤ virtually everyone would agree that a primary, yet insufficiently
met, goal of schooling is to enable students to think critically. In
layperson’s terms, critical thinking consists of seeing both sides of an
issue, being open to new evidence that disconfirms your ideas,
reasoning dispassionately, demanding that claims be backed by
evidence, deducing and inferring conclusions from available facts,
solving problems, and so forth.
¤ Then too, there are specific types of critical thinking that are
characteristic of different subject matter: That’s what we mean
when we refer to “thinking like a scientist” or “thinking like a
historian.”
¤ This proper and commonsensical goal has very often been
translated into calls to teach “critical thinking skills” and “higher-
order thinking skills”—and into generic calls for teaching students to
make better judgments, reason more logically, and so forth.
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¤ Willingham 2007
¤ After more than 20 years of lamentation, exhortation, and little
improvement, maybe it’s time to ask a fundamental question: Can
critical thinking actually be taught?
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¤ Decades of cognitive research point to a dis- appointing answer:
not really.
¤ People who have sought to teach critical thinking have assumed
that it is a skill, like riding a bicycle, and that, like other skills, once
you learn it, you can apply it in any situation.
¤ Research from cognitive science shows that thinking is not that sort
of skill. The processes of thinking are intertwined with the content of
thought (that is, domain knowledge).
11. ECC 2012-13
Educating Critical thinking
Education to or for CT
CT:
What is it?
Can CT be educated? Does it stand in a special relationship with
scientific education?
What is it good for?
A different perspective on CT: worldview and values
12. ECC 2012-13
What is CT?
¤ Restrictive definition of CT ¤ Critical thinking can be
¤ CT equated with defined at minima, as the
sKepticism faculty of parting wheat
from chaff, of distinguishing
¤ Related to rules of good arguments from bad
informal logic and ones (because they are ill-
scientific method formed) and identifying
¤ Part of the philosophical beliefs that can be given
tradition of reflection on away (because they are
how to shape good not justified).
thinking / scientific
thinking
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¤ Socrate’s elenchus as in ¤ Francis Bacon: The
Plato’s dialogues advancement of learning
¤ Aristotle ¤ Robert Boyle: Sceptical
Chymist
¤ Classical skepticism
¤ Galileo Galilei
¤ Thomas of Aquinas
¤ …
¤ Descartes: Rules for the
direction of the mind
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What is CT?
¤ General definition of CT ¤ But also general & domain-
¤ CT equated with higher specific:
thinking skills or “good ¤ Good thinking in a
thinking” or reflexive discipline (e.g. thinking
thinking like a scientist, thinking
like an historian)
16. ECC 2012-13
¤ No clear-cut distinction between ¤ Philosophical = normative,
the restrictive, the general and the based on criteria
general but domain-specific ¤ What good thinkers
definitions should do
¤ Cognitive psychology =
descriptive, based on skills
¤ 3 sources of literature: and competences
¤ philosophy ¤ What good thinkers do
¤ cognitive, developmental,
evolutionary psychology ¤ Education = practical,
¤ education attention to transfer
¤ How to teach CT
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CT – philosophical approach
¤ Definitions of critical thinking emerging from the philosophical
tradition include
¤ “the propensity and skill to engage in an activity with reflective
skepticism” (McPeck, 1981, p. 8);
¤ “reflective and reasonable thinking that is focused on deciding
what to believe or do” (Ennis, 1985, p. 45);
¤ “skillful, responsible thinking that facilitates good judgment
because it 1) relies upon criteria, 2) is self-correcting, and 3) is
sensitive to context” (Lipman, 1988, p. 39);
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¤ “purposeful, self-regulatory judgment which results in
interpretation, analysis, evaluation, and inference, as well as
explanation of the evidential, conceptual, methodological,
criteriological, or conceptual considerations upon which that
judgment is based” (Facione, 1990, p. 3);
¤ “disciplined, self-directed thinking that exemplifies the perfections
of thinking appropriate to a particular mode or domain of
thought” (Paul, 1992, p. 9);
¤ thinking that is goal-directed and purposive, “thinking aimed at
forming a judgment,” where the thinking itself meets standards of
adequacy and accuracy (Bailin et al., 1999b, p. 287); and
¤ “judging in a reflective way what to do or what to
believe” (Facione, 2000, p. 61). (Lai 2011)
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¤ It was during the contentious years of the Vietnam War that
Matthew Lipman, a philosopher and educator, found that
many Americans were having trouble presenting their views
about the conflict cogently, and it distressed him. Professor
Lipman, who was teaching at Columbia University at the time,
concluded that many adults could simply not reason well for
themselves, and he feared that it was too late for them to
learn. So he responded with a radical idea: to teach children
philosophy — or specifically “the cultivation of excellent
thinking” — beginning in pre-kindergarten and continuing
through high school. (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/15/
education/15lipman.html?_r=0)
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¤ Facione 1990 = Delphi report
¤ a statement of expert consensus - mostly philosophers, but also a meaningful
amount of educators and social scientists, and a small amount of scientists
¤ The consensus presents the critical thinker as an ideal logical and scientifically-
minded person that has good habits of mind independent from any context or
domain. The education of critical thinking thus aims at producing the ideal thinker
that thinks critically in every occasion of her life
¤ However it is recognized that, for thinking critically in specific domains, content
knowledge is necessary, critical thinking is conceptualized in analogy with
reading and writing: skills that apply in any areas of life and learning and do not
depend on content.
21. ECC 2012-13
¤ We understand critical thinking to be purposeful, self-regulatory judgment which
results in interpretation, analysis, evaluation, and inference, as well as explanation
of the evidential, conceptual, methodological, criteriological, or contextual
considerations upon which that judgment is based. CT is essential as a tool of
inquiry. As such, CT is a liberating force in education and a powerful resource in
one's personal and civic life. While not synonymous with good thinking, CT is a
pervasive and self-rectifying human phenomenon. The ideal critical thinker is
habitually inquisitive, well-informed, trustful of reason, open-minded, flexible, fair-
minded in evaluation, honest in facing personal biases, prudent in making
judgments, willing to reconsider, clear about issues, orderly in complex matters,
diligent in seeking relevant information, reasonable in the selection of criteria,
focused in inquiry, and persistent in seeking results which are as precise as the
subject and the circumstances of inquiry permit. Thus, educating good critical
thinkers means working toward this ideal. It combines developing CT skills with
nurturing those dispositions which consistently yield useful insights and which are
the basis of a rational and democratic society. (Facione 1990)
22. ECC 2012-13
CT – cognitive psychology approach
¤ The psychological approach has tended to focus on how people
really think, namely on how experts think in their domain, and
whether experts in different domains share skills and procedures
that can be considered as general requirements for thinking
critically.
¤ Skills and procedures are especially important in this view and
definitions of critical thinking include lists of skills and procedures
implemented by “good thinkers”. Among these, meta-cognitive
skills and problem solving skills are pre-eminent (Bransford et al
1984; Resnick 1997).
¤ The cognitive approach tends to deal more with the kind of good
thinking that experts show in their domain and share with other
experts, with meta-cognition and with reading with understanding,
with scientific thinking and its education, than with critical thinking
in itself.
23. ECC 2012-13
¤ van Gelder 2005
¤ cognitive scientists do not study critical thinking much, at least not
as a topic in its own right. This is partly because the topic is too
broad and open-ended to be captured by the cognitive scientist’s
tightly focuses techniques. Partly, it is also because critical thinking
in general is a neglected topic, despite its importance and broad
relevance.
¤ Nevertheless, cognitive scientists have some contributions to make.
They have developed some very general insights into how we think
and how we learn, and these can be carried over to critical
thinking. They also have studied many phenomena that are
particular aspects or dimensions of critical thinking.
24. ECC 2012-13
¤ humans are not naturally critical. Indeed, like ballet, critical thinking
is a highly contrived activity. Running is natural; nightclub dancing
is less so; but ballet is something people can only do well with many
years of painful, expensive, dedicated training.
¤ Evolution did not intend us to walk on the ends of our toes, and
whatever Aristotle might have said, we were not designed to be at
all that critical either. Evolution foes not waste effort making things
better than they need to be, and homo sapiens evolved to be just
logical enough to survive, while competitors such as Neanderthals
and mastodons died out.
25. ECC 2012-13
¤ Although Ericsson did not study critical thinking specifically, it is
reasonable to assume that his conclusions will hold true for critical
thinking. This means that our students will improve their critical
thinking skills most effectively just to the extent they engage in lots
of deliberate practice in critical thinking.
¤ The crucial result from cognitive science is that students’ critical
thinking skills improve faster when instruction is based on argument
mapping. The main evidence for this comes from studies in which
students are tested before and after a one-semester
undergraduate critical thinking course.
26. ECC 2012-13
¤ Indeed critical thinking is especially vulnerable to the problem of
transfer because critical thinking is intrinsically general in nature.
Critical thinking skills are, by definition, ones that apply in a very
wide range of domains, contexts, and so on…The closest thing we
have to a solution to the transfer problem is the recognition that
there is a problem that must be confronted head-on. As
psychologist Dianne Halpern put it (1998), we must teach for
transfer.
27. ECC 2012-13
¤ The trouble with transfer and generalizability
¤ Without being enough for good thinking in a certain discipline,
background knowledge is necessary. For consequence, someone
lacking background knowledge, but impregnated with knowledge
of the criteria (that experiments must be controlled, inferences
must be valid, experimental data must be accurate, and so on) will
not necessarily produce good thinking.
¤ Not only, but even the criteria for good thinking are specific of
certain areas, those for good reading or good thinking in history
being eventually different from those for good thinking in a
particular domain of science.
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¤ 1. content knowledge boosts performances, e.g. because it
affects texts comprehension or because it helps recasting problems
in more solvable configurations;
¤ 2. the application of general procedures to specific knowledge
might require adjustments, or even just raise the problem of
understanding that that certain procedure applies
¤ 3. specific knowledge might trigger specific naïve ideas, biases
and heuristics that hinder a good solution to the problem
¤ 4. Even metacognitive skills are not as general as they might seem:
even metacognitive skills are enhanced by domain knowledge,
and domain knowledge favors the skilled use of metacognitive
capacities within the perimeter of that particular domain
29. ECC 2012-13
CT – educational point of view
¤ The pragmatic problem of
“how to teach”
¤ a. stand-alone
¤ b. integrated teachings
¤ (eventually: c. mixed)
¤ Both the philosophical
(informal logic) and the
psychological tradition
include partisans of
domain-general and of
domain-specific methods
30. ECC 2012-13
¤ Stand-alone.
¤ The philosophical approach to critical thinking has traditionally
proposed courses for learning how to spot flawed arguments and
deploy good argumentation and reasoning. It has also traditionally
proposed general norms that would be independent from context
and contents. But in the philosophical tradition, some, such as Bailin,
have endorsed the normative view but criticized the attempt to
define norms and educational that are independent from contents.
¤ A classic example of general thinking teaching method is DeBono’s
CoRT, which is as content-free as possible; another is the Productive
Thinking Program – both are based on planning and meta-
cognitive skills. Other diffused methods concern reading and
studying from texts, but also the improvement of general
intelligence (with no common definition, and no effort in this
direction); the latter can include problem-solving techniques,
memory strategies, informal logic and other tools that are present in
critical thinking programs.
31. ECC 2012-13
¤ Renick 1987
¤ some programs focus largely on identifying and correctly
variety of practice and labeling reasoning fallacies; others
concentrate more on developing skills of argumentation in
extended discourse, without extensive formal analysis.
¤ An important debate in the field exactly parallels
psychologists' discussions of whether general cognitive skills
or specific knowledge is most central to intellectual
competence.
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¤ Most informal logic philosophers believe that general
reasoning capacity can be shaped and that it transcends
specific knowledge domains (e.g., Ennis, 1980, 1985). In an
even stronger claim, Paul (1982, in press) argues that we
should seek to develop in students a broadly rational
personality rather than any set of technical reasoning skills.
¤ This view usually, but not always, supports calls for
independent critical thinking courses.
¤ However, a competing view, most strongly stated by
McPeck (1981), argues that no general reasoning skill is
possible and that all instruction in thinking should be situated
in particular disciplines.
33. ECC 2012-13
¤ integrated
¤ Lilienfeld, Lohr and Morier (2001) have underlined the
importance of introducing specific teachings of science and
pseudo-science in the cursus of psychological studies, where
myths abound.
¤ Reif et al 1974 for physics; the work of Frederick Reif is extensive
and he has dedicated as much attention to physics as to
cognitive science and developing thinking skills in physics
¤ EMB shares many common aims and tools with the idea of
teaching and learning to think critically, including the aim of
developing a critical appraisal of evidence and ideas received
from tradition and authority.
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¤ Mixed
¤ While teaching critical thinking in one discipline, one can
provide explicit instruction about rules and promote the use of
metacognitive attitudes towards learning:
¤ anchor instruction on concrete cases, and propose variations
(same inner structure, different superficial content), so as to
favor flexibility
¤ do not bound instruction to implicit learning, but explicit both
acquired knowledge and its contexts of application
¤ explicit the processes that have produced knowledge
acquisition, difficulties, strategies, that is: explicitly use and train
metacognitive skills (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000).
35. ECC 2012-13
Failures at educating critical thinking
¤ Resnick 1987
¤ Over the decades, educators have espoused a recurring belief
that certain school subject matters “discipline the mind” and
therefore should be taught not so much for their inherent value
as for their efficacy in facilitating other learning.
¤ Latin was defended for many years in these terms; mathematics
and logic are often so defended today. Most recently,
computer programming has been proposed as a way to
develop general problem-solving and reasoning abilities (e.g.,
Papert, 1980).
¤ The view that we can expect strong transfer from learning in
one area to improvements across the board has never been
well supported empirically.
36. ECC 2012-13
¤ Resnick 1987
¤ Thinking and problem-solving programs within the
academic disciplines seem to meet their internal goals and
perhaps even boost performance more generally.
¤ It seems possible to raise reading competence by a variety
of methods, ranging from study skill training through the
reciprocal teaching methods of Brown and Palincsar to the
discussions of philosophical texts in Lipman's program.
¤ On the other hand, general improvements in problem-
solving, rhetoric, or other general thinking abilities have rarely
been demonstrated, perhaps because few evaluators have
included convincing assessments of these abilities in their
studies.
37. ECC 2012-13
¤ Willingham 2007
¤ A large number of programs designed to make students
better thinkers are available, and they have some features in
common. They are premised on the idea that there is a set
of critical thinking skills that can be applied and practiced
across content domains.
¤ How well do these programs work? Many researchers have
tried to answer that question, but their studies tend to have
methodological problems. Four limitations of these studies
are especially typical, and they make any effects suspect :
38. ECC 2012-13
¤ Willingham 2007
¤ 1) students are evaluated just once after the program, so it’s not
known whether any observed effects are enduring;
¤ 2) there is not a control group, leaving it unclear whether gains
are due to the thinking program, to other aspects of schooling,
or to experiences outside the classroom;
¤ 3) the control group does not have a comparison intervention,
so any positive effects found may be due, for example, to the
teacher’s enthusiasm for something new, not the program itself;
and
¤ 4) there is no measure of whether or not students can transfer
their new thinking ability to materials that differ from those used
in the program. In addition, only a small fraction of the studies
have undergone peer review (meaning that they have been
impartially evaluated by independent experts).
39. ECC 2012-13
¤ Resnick 1987
¤ Of course, to appreciate the dependence of general skills
application on specific knowledge is not to deny that such
general skills exist.
¤ Yet such an understanding raises questions about the
wisdom of attempting to develop thinking skills outside the
context of specific knowledge domains. It suggests that a
more promising route may be to teach thinking skills within
specific disciplines and perhaps hope for some transfer to
other disciplines as relevant knowledge is acquired.
40. ECC 2012-13
¤ This discipline-embedded approach has several
advantages.
¤ First, it provides a natural knowledge base and environment
in which to practice and develop higher order skills. As we
have shown earlier, cognitive research has established the
very important role of knowledge in reasoning and thinking.
One cannot reason in the abstract; one must reason about
something.
41. ECC 2012-13
¤ Second, embedding higher order skill training within school
disciplines provides criteria for what constitutes good
thinking and reasoning within the disciplinary tradition. Each
discipline has characteristic ways of reasoning, and a
complete higher order education would seek to expose
students to all of these. Reasoning and problem solving in
the physical sciences, for example, are shaped by particular
combinations of inductive and deductive reasoning, by
appeal to mathematical tests, and by an extensive body of
agreed upon fact for which new theories must account.
42. ECC 2012-13
¤ Finally, teaching higher order skills within the disciplines will
ensure that something worthwhile will have been learned
even if wide transfer proves unattainable. This point is
profoundly important. It amounts to saying that no special,
separate brief for teaching higher order skills need be made.
Rather, it proposes that if a subject matter is worth teaching
in school it is worth teaching at a high level—to everyone.
43. ECC 2012-13
Scientists are not necessarily general
critical thinkers
¤ More on the apparent intractability of the limits of
generalization and transfer
¤ even the “professionals of critical thinking”, that is:
scientists, are unshielded against pseudo-scientific beliefs.
¤ THE NOBEL DISEASE
44. ECC 2012-13
¤ Pierre Curie, physics (Eusapia Palladino)
¤ Ivar Giaever, physics (global warming denier)
¤ Louis J. Ignarro, physiology or medicine (Herbalife Niteworks)
¤ Brian Josephson, physics (psi)
¤ Philipp Lenard, physics (Nazi ideology)
¤ Luc Montagnier, medicine (autism)
¤ Kary Mullis, chemistry (
supports astrology, denies anthropogenic climate change, denies
HIV causes AIDS)
¤ Linus Pauling, chemistry (vitamin C)
¤ Charles Richet, physiology (ectoplasm/mediums/telepathy)
¤ William Shockley, physics (race & IQ)
¤ John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh, physics (
president Society for Psychical Research)
¤ Nikolaas Tinbergen, physiology or medicine (autism)
¤ James Watson, physiology or medicine (race & IQ)
45. ECC 2012-13
¤ (http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/high-dose-
vitamin-c-and-cancer-has-linus-pauling-been-vindicated/)
¤ …the concept that megadoses of vitamin C can cure cancer has been
around for decades now, ever since two-time Nobel Laureate Linus
Pauling first proposed it. It began in 1972, when Ewan Cameron
hypothesized that ascorbate could have anti-cancer action by inhibiting
hyaluronidase and thereby preventing cancer spread after two-time
Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling had first proposed that taking 1,000 mg of
vitamin C daily can reduce the incidence of colds by 45% for most
people. It wasn’t long before the two teamed up, and in 1976 Pauling
and Dr. Ewan Cameron reported that a majority of 100 terminal cancer
patients treated with 10,000 mg of vitamin C per day survived three to
four times longer than patients who were not so treated.
¤ Unfortunately, as experimental clinical protocols go, this study was a
complete mess.
46. ECC 2012-13
¤ Three decades later, I have to wonder how these studies saw
print. It turns out that they were originally published in the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which is not
a clinical journal. Not surprisingly, given his Nobel Prizes, Linus
Pauling was a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
What is not really known much outside the scientific community
is that thirty years ago members of the NAS could contribute
papers to PNAS as they see fit and in essence pick their
reviewers. Indeed, until recently, the only way that non-
members could have papers published in PNAS was if a
member of the Academy agreed to submit their manuscript for
them (known as “communicating” it), and, in fact, members
were supposed to take the responsibility for having such papers
reviewed before “communicating them” to PNAS. Thus, in
essence a member of the Academy could get nearly anything
he or she wished published in PNAS, whether written by him or
herself or a friend.
47. ECC 2012-13
CT and Science education
¤ Apparent de-correlation between CT and science
education
¤ the diffusion of scientific literacy has not defeated
pseudo-scientific beliefs by and large (see Gallup Poll,
Pew Survey, …)
¤ the study of science, at least as science is taught
today, does not make the difference in terms of
pseudo-scientific beliefs
48. ECC 2012-13
¤ Ede 2000 (cites data by Henri Broch on the relationship
between education and paranormal beliefs)
¤ How then are we to reconcile having the most scientifically
trained society in history with the persistence of irrationality?
Why do we not see a significant drop of irrationality
corresponding to the significant increase in the levels of
general science education in the last fifty years? (Ede 2000)
49. ECC 2012-13
¤ Goode 2002 (uses polls on citizens’ beliefs in paranormal, like
Gallup poll and Pew survey)
¤ My hypothesis is a bit different from the “enlightenment”
position. I propose that the frequently stated argument that
education is an antidote to paranormal beliefs is at least partly
erroneous. I suggest that paranormal thinking is made up of a
diversity of standards, some of which are discouraged with
increased levels of education and some of which are not.
¤ I further suggest that the human capacity to compartmentalize
categories of thinking is sufficiently great as to permit
simultaneous belief in assertions that are contradictory. Many
individuals, in fact, accept the truth of paranormal assertions
alongside scientific principles that logically and factually
contradict them.
50. ECC 2012-13
¤ Goode 2002 (on the basis of a poll realized on two classes of
students with questions about paranormal beliefs, scientific facts,
science-like facts)
¤ Fairly consistently, my data demonstrate that a negative relationship
exists between adherence to the religious beliefs that contain a
paranormal component and scientific and science-like reasoning. The
relationship was not always statistically significant, but the direction of
the relationship was remarkably consistent.
¤ A variety of questions entailing reasoning by means of commonsensical
judgmental heuristics versus scientific reasoning yielded no differences
whatsoever between UFO believers and nonbelievers. … Paranormalism
bears an inconsistent relationship with scientific knowledge and
reasoning. …
¤ If my little study and the many relevant public opinion polls conducted
each year are any guide, non-religious paranormalists know about as
much science, and reason as scientifically, as persons who reject the
validity of paranormal or extrascientific forces.
51. ECC 2012-13
¤ Walker et al 2002 (the biggest study at date: 207 students,
2-units survey: science knowledge and strength of beliefs
in paranormal and pseudo-scientific claims)
¤ These results are consistent with the notion that having a
strong scientific knowledge base is not enough to insulate a
person against irrational beliefs. Students who scored well on
these tests were no more or less skeptical of pseudoscientific
claims than students who scored very poorly.
¤ Apparently, the students were not able to apply their
scientific knowledge to evaluate these pseudoscientific
claims. We suggest that this inability stems in part from the
way that science is traditionally presented to students:
Students are taught what to think but not how to think.
52. ECC 2012-13
¤ Walker et al 2002
¤ These results need to be replicated using different materials
and participants, although the diversity of measures and
samples presented here suggests that there is some validity
to our conclusions. While some might contend that our tests
did not fully measure science knowledge, we counter this
concern by emphasizing that our test questions were drawn
from national tests designed to assess scientific reasoning.
Thus, if there is a bias in our procedure, this bias is
entrenched in science education. In our view, addressing
the following questions can serve to clarify the relation
between science education and pseudoscientific thinking
53. ECC 2012-13
¤ Pigliucci 2007 (interviews with students who followed his
own Honors course on science and pseudoscience - only
half of them pursuit a science major, the rest were mostly
from philosophy and psychology - with questions aimed
at evaluating their factual knowledge of science (using a
model of evaluation for aspiring high school teachers)
¤ Johnson & Pigliucci 2004 (4 classes, 170 students, science-
major and non-science major, 30 questions survey:
general knowledge about science, science conceptual
understadning, strenght of beliefs in paranormal)
54. ECC 2012-13
¤ Pigliucci 2007
¤ Johnson & Pigliucci 2004
¤ the predictable difference in science knowledge was not
associated with understanding of the foundations of science
and in the degree of acceptance of pseudoscientific factoids.
Science facts questions showed a weak negative correlation
with paranormal belief, while no correlation was found between
understanding of scientific concepts and paranormal. No
science method question received even 50% of correct answers
both for the science major and the non-science major group,
the difference between theory and laws being understood by
less than 5% of the respondents of the two groups. The strength
of the belief in paranormal was also low (never higher than 3,
often 1).
55. ECC 2012-13
¤ It seems that there is little evidence for the idea that better
knowledge of science facts leads to better understanding of
the nature of science, or to a lower degree of belief in the
paranormal. (Pigliucci 2007)
¤ Goode, Walker et al., and Johnson and Pigliucci’s studies
have serious limits and conclusions can be hardly
generalized: they are conducted on small samples and are
just two studies, they are conducted with students that
possibly are aware of the aims of the study, and it is even
possible that the kind of questions influence a “gullible”
attitude.
56. ECC 2012-13
¤ I don’t recommend that we abandon science in our
educational curricula. But what I wonder about is how
science is taught. It’s possible that most science
instructors do not consider paranormal and
pseudoscience assertions a sufficient threat to science
that they confront them directly with the evidence of our
senses. It’s possible that the current curriculum isn’t doing
enough to combat pseudoscience. (Goode 2002)
57. ECC 2012-13
¤ The Science, Technology, and Society (STS) model de-
emphasizes technical training until much later in the
school system. Scientific concepts would be embedded
in curriculum for primary levels, and students would be
asked to think about how objects work or to investigate
concepts in mathematics, physics, chemistry, and
biology within the classroom environment. … The
objective of the STS model is to provide students with a
very broad background in the idea of science before
forcing them to make decisions about participation in
the subject-specific skills of any particular discipline. (Ede
2000)
58. ECC 2012-13
¤ More importantly it is the best way to explain how and why
scientific discoveries are made, which turns science from a barrage
of meaningless and boring facts into a vibrant enterprise of
discovery and human realization.
¤ …Perhaps even more unfortunately, the major response so far to
the sorts of concerns I am discussing here has been a shift in
emphasis from traditional classroom lectures to “hands on”
activities in which students manipulate objects and perform
experiments. Moving away from lectures and getting students to
actually do things is an excellent idea, but the way the hands-on
approaches is often implemented, especially at the pre-college
level, may actually produce worst results than the traditional lecture
approach. The problem with many hands-on experiences is that
the brain stays turned off. (Pigliucci 2007)
59. ECC 2012-13
Educating Critical thinking
Education to or for CT
CT:
What is it?
Can CT be educated? Does it stand in a special relationship with
scientific education?
What is it good for?
A different perspective on CT: worldview and values
60. ECC 2012-13
¤ Glaser (1941), a psychologist, and Gabennesh (a
sociologist) have stressed the idea that the mastery of
intellectual resources is still insufficient for critical thinking,
in the absence of a commitment of rational inquiry and
the habits of mind that apparently go with it.
61. ECC 2012-13
¤ Edward Glaser (1941) has defined the mastery of critical
thinking in terms of:
¤ a. an attitude, that is: being disposed to consider problems
reflexively;
¤ b. a form of knowledge, that is: knowing the principles of
investigation and good reasoning;
¤ c. a skill, that is: being able to apply the principles.
62. ECC 2012-13
¤ Gabennesh 2006 points not only to an attitude, but to a
conjunction of values and a worldview:
¤ Proficiency in the skills dimension is necessary but not
sufficient for anyone who claims to be a critical thinker. One
could excel at reasoning while failing at other dimensions of
critical thinking. Indeed, this is not uncommon. A more fully
developed conception of critical thinking that includes the
worldview and values dimensions is both more difficult to
teach and more dangerous to display than a narrow
conception that focuses on logical reasoning.
63. ECC 2012-13
¤ Gabennesh 2006 - worldview:
¤ …Peter Berger (1963, 23) states, “It can be said that the first
wisdom of sociology is this-things are not what they seem.” I
would alter the wording slightly - things are not always
entirely what they seem - and propose it as the first wisdom
of critical thinking.
¤ The recognition that the world is often not what it seems is
perhaps the key feature of the critical thinker’s worldview.
From this perspective, the world is a deceptive place-not just
occasionally but inherently.
¤ Such a worldview goes beyond the usual suspects (e.g.,
deceptive TV ads and phony crop circles) to incorporate a
broader recognition of the deceptive nature of the world …
64. ECC 2012-13
¤ Gabennesh 2006 - values:
¤ … Imagine a juror in the trial of a defendant accused of
murdering a child. The juror listens to the prosecution’s case,
which is accompanied by grisly photos, testimony from a
detective who becomes visibly shaken when describing the
crime scene, and audible sobs from the victim’s family. Then,
roiled by emotions ranging from grief to outrage, she is
called upon to do something remarkable: listen to the
defense just as receptively as she did to the prosecution.
¤ To do her job well, she will need more than good reasoning
skills and the sturdy skepticism that is appropriate when
listening to dueling lawyers. She will also need a certain set
of values that will motivate her to do the difficult things
necessary to reach an honest verdict.
65. ECC 2012-13
¤ On the side of the worldview, cognitive science
strengthens and modifies Gabennesh’s point
¤ Studies on Cognitive biases (see Gilovich 1991; Chabris &
Simons 2010, Kahnemann, Slovic, Tversy, 1982, …) point
at the limits of natural, individual cognition
¤ External features reinforce both the worldview and the
values side
¤ Information overload
¤ Filter bubble
66. ECC 2012-13
¤ A theoretical framework:
¤ Kahnemann 2011 - System 1 & System 2
¤ Gigerenzer 2010 - The (limited but reasonable) value of
heuristics and inutitions
¤ Tooby & Cosmides 1997: Modularity of the mind and the
evolution of local solutions
67. ECC 2012-13
¤ Tooby & Cosmides 1997
¤ "General intelligence" -- a hypothetical faculty composed of
simple reasoning circuits that are few in number, content-
independent, and general purpose -- was thought to be the
engine that generates solutions to reasoning problems. The
flexibility of human reasoning -- that is, our ability to solve many
different kinds of problems -- was thought to be evidence for the
generality of the circuits that generate it.
¤ An evolutionary perspective suggests otherwise (Tooby &
Cosmides, 1992). Biological machines are calibrated to the
environments in which they evolved, and they embody
information about the stably recurring properties of these
ancestral worlds.
68. ECC 2012-13
¤ is also content-independent. It can be applied indiscriminately
to medical diagnosis, card games, hunting success, or any other
subject matter. It contains no domain-specific knowledge, so it
cannot support inferences that would apply to mate choice, for
example, but not to hunting. (That is the price of content-
independence.)
¤ Evolved problem-solvers, however, are equipped with crib
sheets: they come to a problem already "knowing" a lot about it.
¤ Without these privileged hypotheses -- about faces, objects,
physical causality, other minds, word meanings, and so on -- a
developing child could learn very little about its environment.
69. ECC 2012-13
¤ This suggests that many evolved computational mechanisms
will be domain-specific: they will be activated in some
domains but not others. Some of these will embody rational
methods, but others will have special purpose inference
procedures that respond not to logical form but to content-
types -- procedures that work well within the stable
ecological structure of a particular domain, even though
they might lead to false or contradictory inferences if they
were activated outside of that domain.
¤ The more crib sheets a system has, the more problems it can
solve. A brain equipped with a multiplicity of specialized
inference engines will be able to generate sophisticated
behavior that is sensitively tuned to its environment.
70. ECC 2012-13
¤ "Instincts" are often thought of as the polar opposite of
"reasoning" and "learning". Homo sapiens are thought of as the
"rational animal", a species whose instincts, obviated by culture,
were erased by evolution. But the reasoning circuits and learning
circuits discussed above have the following five properties: (1)
they are complexly structured for solving a specific type of
adaptive problem, (2) they reliably develop in all normal human
beings, (3) they develop without any conscious effort and in the
absence of any formal instruction, (4) they are applied without
any conscious awareness of their underlying logic, and (5) they
are distinct from more general abilities to process information or
behave intelligently. In other words, they have all the hallmarks of
what one usually thinks of as an "instinct" (Pinker, 1994). In fact,
one can think of these special purpose computational systems as
reasoning instincts and learning instincts.
71. ECC 2012-13
¤ Instincts are good for survival but clash with the idea of a
general (critical) thinking machine
72. NO miracle
¤ CT is not a skill, but a domain-specific aptitude and
attitude
¤ The attitude might be transferred (skeptical attitude)
¤ The aptitude requires domain knowledge
¤ Teaching cognitive science-based worldview and
values?
