**Sticky** Critical Thinking Resources

[Dragan Glas]

Greetings,

As promised - or threatened!? - here's the start for the "Critical Thinking Resources" *sticky*.

I trust others can think of suitable additions for it.

If TPTB wish, you can copy/paste the part between the doubled lines to a separate article before *stickying* it.

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CRITICAL THINKING RESOURCES

Books
:idea: In the UK/Ireland, I use BookBrain to find the cheapest price (including p&p) for books - if a particular supplier doesn't appear, go to their website and search for the book to see if it's cheaper than the one listed by BookBrain.

Suggested Reading - Critical Thinking
Rulebook for Arguments
A good introduction to critical thinking for writing and assessing arguments.

"I've had this book several months. Initially I skipped though it, it's very concise, a quick read. Now some 10 books later, I appreciate it hugely." (Amazon reviewer.)

Asking The Right Questions
A very good book on critical thinking through exploring the components of arguments, how to spot fallacies, etc.

"There are few books that are worthy of purchasing updated editions of. But this is a rare book indeed. How many books make it to a 9th edition? And what does that imply? That the book is SO good, that it sells and sells and sells. Therefore you would expect the quality of the text to shine through.

If you can only afford 1 book on Critical Thinking, make sure it's this book." (Amazon reviewer.)

How to Think About Weird Things
A interesting book which includes extensive coverage of arguing both sides of various issues.

"...The difference with this book is that a [sic] find it more accessible and instead of just bashing the "weird things" it truly objectively looks at them whilst introducing you to key concepts and terminology. The book points out the weakness of both people who propose and try to refute certain claims, this is a huge strength." (Amazon reviewer.)

Critical Thinking Skills: Developing Effective Analysis and Argument
A Palgrave Study Guide for students learning critical thinking - suitable for formal (school/university/adult learning) and informal (self-study).

Being Logical: A Guide to Good Thinking
Any book recommended by Sphex is worth reading!

Winning Arguments: From Aristotle to Obama - Everything You Need to Know About the Art of Persuasion
A interesting read on rhetorical techniques throughout history.

Suggested Reading - General
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark - Carl Sagan

Bad Science - Ben Goldacre

Risk: The Science and Politics of Fear - Dan Gardner

Wilful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious: Why We Ignore the Obvious at Our Peril - Margaret Heffernan

Videos
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=critical+thinking&search_type=&aq=f



Tortuca Trap - 1/3 (links to next in sequence)


Websites
Critical Thinking & Analytical Ability
A generic list of links (some of which don't work).

The Critical Thinking Community
Foundation for Critical Thinking - a US organization which offers all sorts of material (including books and courseware) for critical thinking (their school coursework is being used in public school curriculum in Greenboro, NC).

YouTube: CriticalThinkingOrg

CSI: Proper Criticism
A brief guide to proper criticism by Ray Hyman, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, University of Oregon.

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Kindest regards,

James

 

[Aught3]

Re: Critical Thinking Resources

Nice list. I thought I would add the baloney detection kit put out by RDF TV



And a book

 

[Tylzen]

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/index.htm
The Skeptics Annotated Bible.

Very fun Bible

 

[lrkun]

http://wiredforbooks.org/alice/

Alice in Wonderland.

 

[Andiferous]

http://wiredforbooks.org/alice/

Alice in Wonderland.

Heh. It seems like an exercise in decryption. I'm curious and somewhat intrigued to know why you list it here?

 

[lrkun]

http://wiredforbooks.org/alice/

Alice in Wonderland.

Heh. It seems like an exercise in decryption. I'm curious and somewhat intrigued to know why you list it here?

Well, the way the characters interact with each other is worth observing. You can see logic as well as imagination at play. Also it is a well written english literature.

The experience of reading this book teaches critical thinking. ^-^

 

[YesIAMJames]

I was going to add bad science to the list when I saw this thread but see you took care of that. It really is excellent. It tells you about the placebo effect, how to conduct a clinical trial properly, lies spread by alternative health companies and big phama and shows many examples of how scientific data is miss-interpreted in the media.

It is an absolute MUST read for any skeptic.

There is a free chapter here:
http://www.badscience.net/2009/04/matthias-rath-steal-this-chapter/

 

[eb3ha4el]

Well, the way the characters interact with each other is worth observing. You can see logic as well as imagination at play. Also it is a well written english literature.

The experience of reading this book teaches critical thinking. ^-^

Sounds fun. I've never read that book.
but I'm intrigued, can you give me an example if you can think of one?

 

[lrkun]

Well, the way the characters interact with each other is worth observing. You can see logic as well as imagination at play. Also it is a well written english literature.

The experience of reading this book teaches critical thinking. ^-^

Sounds fun. I've never read that book.
but I'm intrigued, can you give me an example if you can think of one?

The behavior of alice as well as the other characters. The use of language as well as the philosophy of the writer. The stories told by the characters. It's a nice book of imagination, very unlike the disney versions (which is fun too).

Read the book.

 

[lrkun]

http://creatingminds.org/index.htm

 

[Laurens]

http://skeptoid.com/

 

[CommonEnlightenment]

Fairly Decent Resource

 

[SirYeen]

I read bad science and loved it. Another book that changed the way I thought was On human nature by Edward O. Wilson. It was so made out of win, loved every single part of it, was well written and for some weird reason I think it's relevant here.

 

[Aught3]

This fallacy taxonomy can be useful.

 

[Laurens]

I'd recommend this book:

A very useful introduction to critical thinking.

 

[Dragan Glas]

Greetings,

I've added a few more books to the list:

Being Logical: A Guide to Good Thinking
Winning Arguments: From Aristotle to Obama - Everything You Need to Know About the Art of Persuasion

These two, though not on critical thinking per se, are reminders of what can happen if one is not careful in one's thinking.

Risk: The Science and Politics of Fear
Wilful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at Our Peril

Kindest regards,

James

 

[mumblingmickey]

I noticed something rather interesting about your strap line. Clearly you were theist and are now atheistic. That took place at some point...no doubt for specific personal reasons or whatever... but thats not the interesting bit. Because you are not obviously representative on your own.

The interesting bit is that if everyone on these forums stated 'When' they became atheistic then given the average life expectancy of people we'd be able to calculate if and when religiosity would decline.

Personally I've never been religious and I understand its the status quo. But if we seen clusters around certain years this would give hints as to the soft underbelly of religions. So I updated Mine...after this comment.

 

[Laurens]

I noticed something rather interesting about your strap line. Clearly you were theist and are now atheistic. That took place at some point...no doubt for specific personal reasons or whatever... but thats not the interesting bit. Because you are not obviously representative on your own.

The interesting bit is that if everyone on these forums stated 'When' they became atheistic then given the average life expectancy of people we'd be able to calculate if and when religiosity would decline.

Personally I've never been religious and I understand its the status quo. But if we seen clusters around certain years this would give hints as to the soft underbelly of religions. So I updated Mine...after this comment.

I don't think using this forum would give a representation of what you are trying to show, as it would be too biased in favour of the atheist side of things. The majority of users on here are atheists, thus it would not be a representation of a population as a whole.

Surely a study that took a large sample of the world's population and asked about religiousity, repeated periodically over a certain number of years would be the best way to ascertain the rate at which religion might be dying out, if at all.

I don't think you could come up with any meaningful insights by studying the members of this particular board with respect to what you are thinking about calculating...

 

[Dragan Glas]

Greetings,

I noticed something rather interesting about your strap line. Clearly you were theist and are now atheistic. That took place at some point...no doubt for specific personal reasons or whatever... but thats not the interesting bit. Because you are not obviously representative on your own.

The interesting bit is that if everyone on these forums stated 'When' they became atheistic then given the average life expectancy of people we'd be able to calculate if and when religiosity would decline.

Personally I've never been religious and I understand its the status quo. But if we seen clusters around certain years this would give hints as to the soft underbelly of religions. So I updated Mine...after this comment.

I was theist - like most Irish, I was RC - but am now an Agnostic, having stepped off the "belief scale" (theism - atheism).

I realised that neither belief or the lack thereof has any bearing on the truth and, as I didn't "know" if a Creator existed or not, the only logical position was one of Agnosticism.

I also note you're Irish - which part?

There was a survey which suggested that atheists would outnumber Christians in the UK or England - not sure which - in around 20 years time. I'm not sure how the demographics in Ireland is shifting - perhaps the HAI might have something on it.

Kindest regards,

James

 

[Xenophanes]

As a counterbalance to most views on critical thinking, which are run through with a justificationist bias, I offer this link:

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/philosophy/people/associates/miller/lfd-.pdf

The abstract might deter you, but I think if you read it through, even if you do not agree, it will give you some challenging things to consider.

David Miller is a very underappreciated philosopher, who has one of the most consistent formulation of raionalism there is, I would even say the most consistent.

but this person disagrees:

[I was gonna put here an article that criticises Millers argument, but I cannot find it. Give me some time, and when I find it I will re-edit this post to include it]