Not-That-Bright
Andrew Quah
For anyone that missed it, please go to this link:
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2006/1801778.htm#
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2006/1801778.htm#
It was a great show, I'm a big fan.Transcript said:Robyn Williams: The Australian Sceptics national convention just held in Melbourne chose Kylie Sturgess from Perth as their runner-up prizewinner for critical thinking this year. She's a teacher and believes that young people may actually be taught to think at school.
Kylie Sturgess: Everyone thinks. Or at least we think we do. Thinking about thinking is not something that appears to come naturally, it becomes developed through practice and through internalising certain habits of mind. Examining the basis of your current beliefs is the start of critical thinking. How to build that firm basis of reason in Australian high schools is something I'm interested in. It began in 2003 when a student told me about her favourite book in the school library; an encyclopaedia of the paranormal. She read it whenever she needed to relax, like reading a good romance or a pulp fiction novel. This encyclopaedia told her that you can sharpen razor blades by placing them under a pyramid shape, either glass or paper. Apparently it didn't really matter what it was made of because the special forces inherent in the pyramid shape have magical powers. She knows this is true because the book told her so. The book said that there is a patent for it in Europe, so it must work, or at least she thinks it works. She hadn't tried it herself but the book seemed confident enough.
I'd like to point out that the student isn't stupid, misguided or illogical. She made a rational, logical decision based on the evidence that was before her. She came to her beliefs in the same manner as would any of us. In her case, a respectable-looking book told her that pyramids did sharpen objects. She examined the story within the framework of what data she was given. Everyone can be wrong about something and believe weird things that don't have much evidence for them, but how often do we see what can be learned from being wrong and use it to improve our thinking, especially about weird things.
A few years ago I read an excellent book called Why People Believe Weird Things by the renowned sceptic Michael Shermer. In the book, he asks if teaching critical thinking skills will stem the rising tide of belief in the paranormal. As a teacher I was interested in putting this into practice and so I started looking to undergrad courses into scepticism and critical thinking. However, I didn't find much on how to teach similar concepts in secondary schools. It was with this in mind that I first taught how to investigate the paranormal and pseudoscientific. I did this in my high school English classes at Methodist Ladies' College in Western Australia.
Although I started with discrete assignments on philosophy, this year I devoted an entire term to science, fiction and scepticism. Scepticism is a subset of critical thinking; it's questioning the validity or authenticity of something claiming to be a fact, usually applying the scientific method to investigate claims of the paranormal, the pseudoscientific and alternative medicine. Questioning what could be the best way to teach scepticism led me to seek a project which required the practical application of thinking skills. After working on various 'philosophy in the classroom' projects, I discovered the 2006 West Australian Sceptics Awards for young critical writers. The sceptics encouraged students to investigate, survey and experiment upon any pseudoscientific or paranormal claim.
With regular consultation with my school science department, who were more than willing to suggest graphing strategies, double-blind testing protocols and useful research papers, we began seeing whether we could do science in the English classroom. Ideas abounded as the students pondered how exactly one could test psychic abilities, horoscopes, ouija boards, and feng shui. Could we survey the entire school to find out how popular these beliefs were amongst young women? What was a reasonable sample size, and how did one graph the variables correctly?
Although I originally started my tertiary studies in agriculture, this was a learning experience for me too as we all sought out useful sites, books and films that could communicate scientific concepts and not so scientific human-interest stories that were relevant to our studies. Scepticism can be a lot of fun when you challenge what people do with their beliefs in weird things. 'Where do we draw the line?' was a common question. Naturally the internet became one of our favourite sources of information. The power of the internet is that there is a lot of material out there. The curse of the internet is the same, as discovered by a group of eager students when they found a dubious masters degree thesis in commerce which claimed to use the I Ching as a business management tool.
And not even our beloved Auntie is immune to this sort of claptrap. ABC television's popular science program Catalyst is taking a break over summer. Strangely it is being replaced by the highly misleading, non-fiction program Psychic Investigators. There are 11 episodes scheduled. This is a shameful show which claims that psychics solve murders when all the evidence by the police and the investigators actually points to the contrary. Yes, it certainly looks very convincing, just like an encyclopaedia of the paranormal once did to a young girl who didn't know any better. Like hoax sites, vanity publications, flyers and brochures, workshops and even strangely accredited colleges, we are surrounded by messages on weird things that we really should question. In response, our school library began ordering books by James Randi, Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy, and Robert T. Carroll's Sceptic's Dictionary, just to even out the balance a bit.
We had a range of investigations and surveys done, all demonstrating that children can apply critical thinking to some benefit, informing themselves and others what odd things they may believe without questioning. The ouija board was found to be a big disappointment after the participants were blindfolded and the board turned upside down. The ghostly messages disappeared...well, like ghosts really. A psychic reading was found to be exactly like a magician's cold reading. The Apollo 11 moon hoax was discovered to be far less popular than conspiracy theorists would like us to believe, and Zener cards were admired for their pretty patterns after being tested on over 100 less-than-telepathic students.
By the end of the term, the WA Sceptics awarded my class an honourable mention for their studies in Feng Shui, and won two awards for tarot card and I Ching studies. All of the students were highly praised for their efforts. What amused them the most was because they were members of an all-girls school people were particularly impressed by what they found. Their response; 'Do they really think we all believe what Dolly magazine tells us about horoscopes or something?'
I hope that other teachers start seeing how philosophy for children is one of the best contributors to their education. Encouraging a sceptical mindset in the face of the many credulous claims which influence young people is very important too, considering the power of group thinking and our complacency in regards to potentially damaging claims.
The student who initially inspired me was given Lynne Kelly's The Sceptic's Guide to the Paranormal as a Christmas present. That book in particular summed up one of the most important things we learned this year; that we should care about the effects of paranormal and pseudo scientific claims, as they range from the unfortunately deluded idea to outright fraud. We could be less wrong about what we believe in. All it requires is a little more thought and encouragement to think.
Robyn Williams: Kylie Sturgess teaches thinking at Methodist Ladies' College in Perth, and she's just won a Critical Thinking Prize from the Australian Sceptics. The ABC television series Psychic Investigators, now polluting the Catalyst timeslot on ABC television has so far scored the following from the critics: 'drivel', Sydney Morning Herald; 'rubbish', The Age; and 'unforgivable' and 'mumbo-jumbo' in The Australian. Ten excruciating weeks to go.
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