Four careers over 50+ years. USMC, engineering, consulting, education. Past twenty years have focused on helping leaders become and remain relevant during times of change.
Reader
Carl Sagan the astronomer, exobiology pioneer, and advocate of skeptical scientific inquiry died in December of 1996. His book, The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candlestick in the Dark, was published earlier that year. In the book Sagan addressed many of the thinking problems facing today’s world.
The back cover presents the challenge that Sagan undertook: “How can we make intelligent decisions about our increasingly technology-driven lives if we don’t understand the differences between the myths of pseudoscience, New Age thinking, and fundamentalist zealotry and the testable hypotheses of science.”
His focus was on the huge number of people who are scientific illiterates. Because of a lack of understanding of basic scientific concepts and facts, these people are more likely to accept unverified claims, conspiracy theories, or pseudoscientific notions.
His concern was science. My concern is the number of people who are thinking-illiterate – those who lack the basic skills essential for effective reasoning, problem-solving, and decision making. Without critical thinking skills or the willingness to use them, individuals are more likely to accept false or misleading information, fall prey to propaganda, and be influenced by biased or manipulative arguments.
You may have noticed a theme running through recent issues of our MindPrep Journal. These issues were entitled:
To be blunt, I’m concerned about the quality of thinking we’re seeing today.
Sagan died before the internet, social media, and artificial intelligence permeated society. Nonetheless, his concerns from “the old days” certainly apply today.
He was also a gentleman. So, he simply referred to the danger of succumbing to “baloney.” And he did us a service by defining some of the essential elements of a Baloney Detection Kit. The contents of the kit are some tools for skeptical thinking.
“What skeptical thinking boils down to is the means to construct and to understand a reasoned argument and – especially important – to recognize a fallacious or fraudulent argument. The question is not whether we like the conclusion that emerges out of a train of reasoning, but whether the conclusion follows from the premise or starting point and whether that premise is true.”
The following are some of the things we should do to escape the clutches of the baloney we are fed daily.
Here are six of the actions that Sagan suggests.
This past week I launched the first session of Directed Dialogues, my attempt to build a “virtual salon” of interesting people talking about an interesting topic. The attendance was gratifying – TC and YM showed up. Fortunately, they are both interesting people – so the salon has started.
The next session will take place on February 15th and we can discuss five thinking disciplines that are needed to deal with today’s challenges. More information about the session will be forthcoming.
Cheers,
Bill
Bill Welter
Four careers over 50+ years. USMC, engineering, consulting, education. Past twenty years have focused on helping leaders become and remain relevant during times of change.
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