critical thinking lib

Class notes: dis#6

 couple things. I was standing at the checkout, and the guy behind me bumped his cart into me. “OW!” I thought. I’m sure it was an accident, so I just ignored it. Then, “OW!” Again! The cart hits me in the back! “What the…?” “Holy cow! A third time? You have got to be kidding!” So I turned around, only to realize that the man behind me is blind. Oh my. We’ve all had experiences like this, where someone behaves negatively toward us and we jump to conclusions and assume negative things about them. For example, in this case I assumed the man behind me was intentionally bumping his cart into me to be rude, or that he was simply being irresponsible and careless with his cart. This is called fundamental attribution error, and it involves how we judge the actions of others without having a true understanding of the motivation of their behavior. In becoming a critical thinker, we need to consider rival causes before making judgments. We need to continually ask what else might have caused this act. What other way can I interpret this situation? What might I see if I look at this from a different point of view? Let’s switch gears now and take a look at a brief report on a study about children who are bullied. In an article in the Science Daily in 2003, it was noted that young children who are bullied at school show signs of antisocial and depressive behavior as a result. Dr. James Snyder and his colleagues at Wichita State University acknowledged that many children will get harassed, but that most handle it effectively and that the harassment centers only on a small group of perpetual victims. Snyder’s researchers watched 266 students from a single elementary school interact on a playground on multiple occasions from the start of kindergarten to the end of first grade, counting the instances of aggression and victimization. 

They reported that boys who experienced growing harassment were more likely to demonstrate antisocial behaviors such as arguing, bullying, and tantrums and depressive behaviors such as appearing sad, lonely, and withdrawn. Those boys in turn seemed to illicit more victimization. Parents and teachers reported that girls who were victimized were more likely to engage in antisocial behavior at home as they got older while they acted more and more depressed in school if their victimization at school increased. Snyder held that substantial rates of victimization were observed. On average, children were targets of peer, physical, and verbal harassment about once every three to six minutes. Both the boys’ and the girls’ antisocial behavior made them more likely targets for victimization. So the conclusion is that bullying causes both boys and girls to have antisocial and depressive behaviors, and children who have these behaviors illicit the victimization. Well, it sounds to me as though bullying is certainly a problem with kindergarteners and first graders, at least in the one school involved in the study. Did you catch that? Perhaps the sample was not necessarily too small, but it may have been a biased sample. I would want to know how many other schools experienced substantial rates of victimization, wouldn’t you? What else might we ask about other possible causes? Much comes to my mind, such as the training and the type of adults who supervise the playground, types of activities and play equipment available for the children or lack thereof, socioeconomic background of the children’s families, amount of time spent on the playground in unstructured play, percentage of the children with learning or other developmental 

 and on. You see, there seems to be numerous rival causes for the bullying on the playground. Perhaps the school is understaffed and there is not enough supervision, or maybe the adults are not trained in early childhood behaviors. Maybe the children don’t really have any age appropriate toys or play equipment to keep them occupied so they don’t really have anything to do, or they have too much unstructured time and would benefit more from structured play. Or maybe there is a population of children who are developmentally delayed or come from homes with inadequate care, and these problems could be contributing to their antisocial or victimization behaviors. You see, even though this study sounded pretty valid, if we remember to ask the right questions, we will learn so much more to help us determine what we want to accept or reject and what we want to believe. I have one last story, and that is the story of the four wise men who were blind and wanted to know what a buffalo looks like. The first blind man grabbed ahold of the horn of the buffalo and said, “A buffalo is just like a spear.” The second man stroked the side of the buffalo and said, “A buffalo is just like a rug.” The third man grabbed onto the buffalo’s tail and said, “A buffa

Class notes for Dis#7:figures often beguile me,” wrote Mark Twain. “There three kinds of lies: Lies, damn lies, and statistics.” This statement refers to the persuasive power of numbers, the use of statistics to bolster weak arguments, and the tendency of people to criticize statistics that don’t support their positions. Let’s take a look at some statistics about the motorcycle helmet law in Florida. A few years ago, a newspaper reported that motorcycle fatalities involving riders without helmets soared in the six years after the appeal of Florida’s mandatory helmet law. Un-helmeted deaths rose from 22 in 1998 to 250 in 2004. Total motorcycle deaths increased 67% from 259 in 2000 to 432 in 2004. With this in mind, what is the question that the article is trying to answer with the statistics? What information is missing? What else do you want to know? What other evidence might be necessary to explain these statistics that appear to be trying to alarm the reader? Well, one point involves motorcycle registrations. They increased 87% in Florida after the helmet law repealed. Deaths went up 67% and registrations went up 87%, so deaths per motorcycle have actually been going down. Un-helmeted deaths went up steeply, which sounds convincing until you realize that the result of not wearing a helmet is that an accident that would have killed you even with a helmet now counts as an un-helmeted instead of a helmeted death. So the evidence presented in the article, taken by itself, implies the exact opposite of what the headline suggests. We all encounter arguments in statistical forms on a regular basis, and it’s easy to see their use in critical thinking. It’s important to realize, though, that not all statistics are equally flawed. Don’t get the impression that because statistical arguments are often imperfect that they are completely worthless. There are many different ways for statistics to be presented, and usually those using statistics present them in a way most favorable to their conclusion. That is, statistics that are used represent a choice by the individual’s collecting and presenting them. They don’t just naturally emerge from a group of numbers. For example, when reported by the media, statistics are the product of multiple important choices; the choices of those who gather the data, influenced by many factors, and the choices of those who ultimately package the information as news for the public, influenced by many factors. So be sure to take a close look at the statistics and remember to ask the right questions. Sometimes, certain information should be but is not included in an analysis of particular topics. Another element of evaluation involves looking for those bits of information that should have been but were not included. A helpful technique is to make a list of information that you think you will need in a controversy about which you will later read. Be as thorough as possible. Then, with your list in hand, you can compare what the author should have included with what he actually did include. Try practicing this with TV commercials. There is almost always omitted information in an argument. Remember though that some omitted information is more important than other such information to judging the reasoning, much like some ambiguities are more important than others.  Try brainstorming information you would like to have and then rank the information in importance. Be more reflective and less reflexive in identifying missing information. Remember, you already have a wealth of material to help you generate examples of omitted information. That is what you’ve been learning all semester. Let’s do the following case study together. America is the policeman of the world. It is our job to go in

Western democracies have not fought wars against one another, and they are all democratic with a free market structure. Furthermore, look at the easy transition Germany had when it was reunited. Democracy was installed and the formerly split West and East Germany came along just fine. In fact, the German economy did really well with the transition. Germany currently has the largest GDP of any country in the world, all because of democracy and capitalism. The conclusion is America needs to import its democracy to other countries. What are the reasons? One is that such a policy would reduce confrontations with such countries. A supporting reason is that democratic countries don’t fight wars with one another. The installation of democracy in East Germany was a success. Lastly, Germany’s economy has flourished because of democracy and capitalism. What does it mean to encourage the development of democracy and free markets? How active should the United States be in doing this? Should it encage and coup d’etat to replace present leaders, for example? To what extent would foreign countries resent our presence in their homelands? Are there commonalities other than the presence of democracy that have kept democratic nations from fighting wars with one another? How similar is the economic, social, and religious situation of Germany to other countries on which we wish to impose our system? Are there other causes for Germany’s present economic prosperity? What are possible unintended consequences from our trying to impose our political and economic values on countries with a long history of very different values? So you see, there is a great quantity of information that could have and should have been included in this argument. There are numerous unanswered questions that would need to be answered in order to make a fair judgment about it. As you continue to build your repertoire of the right questions to ask, you also continue to grow as a clever, first class critical thinker. Keep thinking, stop accepting what you hear, and continue to ask the right questions.