[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Rufusboi

I would call it ignorance just like you do. But getting back to my original point. You offered a general opinion that most people would look down at someone who got out their Google map or went to the CIA factbook site. My opinoin is that most would not. Focus on the word "most." You tend to think a large majority of Americans scoff at education, while I don't.

Umm, I'll let the handwaving go but really, my core point has NOTHING to do with Google Earth or the CIA Factbook. It was a throwaway statement that is not core to the point that I'm making.

There will always be crazy thinkers, people who insist up is down.

I'm not going to call 40% of Americans who don't realize what a year actually is crazy thinkers. I'm going to call them tragically uninformed.

Not much we can do about that. They exist in all countires at all times. My point is that you tend to scoff at a lot of people who given the opportuniuty would welcome some facts and straight talking. Its easy to point fingers and say this person is dumb, that person is uneducated. But rather than blaming the individual we need to think in larger terms.

Perhaps you get the feeling that I think ignorance or being uninformed is somehow a measure of a person's moral worth in absolute terms. I don't. I am woefully uninformed about, to take just one of a possible laundry list, auto mechanics. If the answer is beyond "you have a flat tire" or "you're out of gas" or "the car's not turned on" and I say anything OTHER than "you should take your car to a mechanic" I am spouting off about things I know nothing about. There is no reason to take me seriously and every reason to say that I am uninformed about auto mechanics and/or that I am ignorant on the subject.

My larger point is not to point fingers at the masses or people who disagree with you, but to point out the problems with sources of information. My other point, made mostly to Msdeamenor, is if we focus on critical thinking, rather than shoving people full of facts to take a test, we will end up with more independent thinkers who have the ability to sort through the crap. We will teach people how to think, not what to think.

I'm sorry but you have to also give people good information. To take the "Earth is 6000 years old" example. What you are saying is that in the absence of any other information, if we just teach people to think critically they will come to the conclusion that the Earth isn't 6000 years old. I disagree. Without the evidence--the facts of the matter- no amount of critical thinking skills is going to do anyone any damn good. So while some might think that educating students on what, just to take one solid piece of evidence, red shift is and why this is proof that the Universe is expanding, is telling them what to think I would say that is giving them the *minimal* information upon which they can act as critical thinkers.

Its my belief that the problem is rooted in the school system. We no longer teach critical thinking. It is a learned skill. It is not easy to learn this skill alone. We need a school and social system that supports this type of thinking and learning. We don't have that. Based on some of your prior posts you think that an individual can pick up a book and teach themselves critical thinking and logic, I happen to disagree with this. Yes, it is a learned skill but it can't be done in isolation.

I strenuously disagree with this. Most strenuously. Over the course of my academic career I have taken precisely one philosophy class and that was a philosophy of science class. I learned logic and rhetoric, largely, by reading on my own--first were books that were just truly compelling arguments. Later came books about how thinking goes terribly wrong. After that I started picking up books that I realized, about a third of the way through, were probably textbooks being used in classes to teach logic. Now, I agree we should teach logic, rhetoric, critical thinking and the scientific method in schools. The only other thing one could really call formal training in logic were family dinners when I was growing up. My parents made my sister and I read an article out of the paper, we didn't have to commit it to memory but we did have to be able to hit the who, what, where, when, why and how if relevant. We would then be asked what we thought about the article and what we thought it meant. If we said something that couldn’t' be justified or if our argument had holes you could turn a 747 around in, then they would systematically go about eviscerating our position. This taught us that it wasn't good enough to have an opinion, it needed to be an informed opinion in order for others to have any justification for taking us seriously. Can I hold my own against a professor of logic, probably not but I've never had to put that to the test. I can say, however, that I am a reasonably logical thinker and that I hope I put together well-reasoned arguments that are internally consistent more times than not.

What's more, if you go back JUST 100 or 150 years, you see that autodidacts were all over the place and not just from the upper-classes. Thomas Paine, if memory serves, was not from the upper-class and ended up working as a apprentice to a printer. While there he taught himself philosophy, logic, rhetoric, political theory by reading the books that were being printed. So it *can* be done and not by just extraordinary people with extraordinary means. Would it be better if it was done in a formal classroom setting? Yes. But it *can* be done, but first one has to decide that given their limited discretionary time they would rather use it reading than watching American Idol and when reading they would rather it be something with meat on the bones instead of People magazine.

Cheers
Aj