Summary Of The Article 'You Are Not So Smart'

In Let’s Make America Smart Again, the speaker emphasizes the importance of immigrant scientists. For example, Einstein was of Jewish descent and his impact on science is tremendous because he came up with theory of relativity. Some of the other famous people mentioned was Steve Jobs, whose father is from Syria. All of these people were mentioned because they contributed to the scientific advancements of Americans.

The Essay “Too Dumb for Complex Texts?” by Mark Bauerlein, is about high schools not better preparing the upcoming freshmen for their college courses. He explains to the reader in what ways high schools can change what they’re doing to help this situation.

Kathryn Schulz argues in “Evidence”, a chapter of her book called Being Wrong, that we need to “learn to actively combat our inductive biases: to deliberately seek out evidence that challenges our beliefs, and to take seriously such evidence when we come across it” (Schulz, 377”). By attending to counterevidence we can avoid making errors in our conclusions.

I believe that as technology improves the human brain improves to create more things. In “Smarter than You Think” the author Clive Thompson believes that technology and humans have equal intelligence. Humans are so reliant on technology to the fact that we are constantly improving on them. Since the development of technology information has been easier to obtain and hold inside our brains. While technology is getting more complex, the human brain is also getting more complex in order to continually create new and better gear.

Pathos: “Cowell had been raised in poverty and chaos. Because he did not get along with other children, he had been unschooled since the age of seven.” (pg. 73)

I believe colleges should teach students how evaluate the information given to them. We should be able to understand the reliability of information. For example, we should not just believe information just because we found it on Google. We should go out of our way and figure out how reliable the information is and why it is important to us. The author feels the same way that students aren’t able to distinguish the difference between good or bad evidence. With the internet being in the 21st century it is harder for students to truly learn anything on their own.

Should nuclear energy be used? Throughout the article “Nowhere to go”, the author objectively reviews the use of nuclear energy, using the text and graphics to provide details that demonstrate the advantages and disadvantages of its use. Nevertheless, the consequences of using nuclear energy outweigh the benefits. One of these consequences is that working with nuclear energy can cause many health problems. The text states, “Dangers include radiation sickness, cancers, and other health problems. High level radioactive waste can present hazards ‘for a million years or more,’ Kamps says.” This means that using nuclear energy can cause health problems for future generations.

As the internet offers us the benefits of quick and easy knowledge, it is affecting the brain’s capacity to read longer articles and books. Carr starts Is Google Making Us Stupid with the closing scene from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey when Dave taking apart the memory circuits that control HAL, the artificial brain of the ship. Carr feels the time he spends online is rewiring his brain. He is no longer able to concentrate long enough to read more than a few paragraphs. Even though the internet is useful, it seems to be changing the way our brain takes in information. He feels as though this brain wants to take information in the same way the internet disperses it: in

Have you ever read an article and thought “Wow that is exactly what I have thought”? In reading “Hidden Intellectualism” I was able to identify with that statement. Mr. Graff argues in this article that the literature the highly educated world considers intellectual material worthy of analysis is not always the best choice for all students. It is better for a student to read and analyze a topic or material they are interested in because then they will give more consideration to the argument and the way it is written. I believe that Mr. Graff’s argument has merit and was pleased to read his article.

Many times a day, even from my teachers, when I ask a difficult question- I hear the phrase ‘Google It.’ Some may say that this a bad thing, but in “Smarter Than You Think”, Clive Thompson explains why it’s not. Thompson discusses the impact technology has on our brains and when those two are combined it creates a higher capacity for intellectual output. Thompson’s use of analogies, anecdotes, and research reports leads the reader to a clear understanding of how technology enhances our learning outcomes.

Throughout my research, a challenge I encountered was the fact that some of the articles I encountered seemed to included biases within them especially with the primary view of

The belief-bias effect is when people make judgments based on prior beliefs and general knowledge, rather than on the rules of logic. For example, when a student takes a history test and answers short-answer questions based on their prior beliefs and general knowledge about the time period, rather than thinking about the course material’s relation to the test. To maximize people’s abilities to effectively reason or make decisions, students should be taught about the belief-bias effect, so that they make fewer errors when trying to answer questions.

The overall theme of the sources we studied was about growth mindset.The most important thing about growth mindset is that intelligence can be developed. Also, the brain can grow by hard working and practicing. In “You Can Grow your Intelligence,” the author maintains that contrary to the belief that a person is born either smart, average, or dumb, instead the brain is more like a muscle, it changes and get stronger when you use it. Lastly, Carol Dweck, in a Ted Talk titled “ The Power Of Believing That You Can improve,” narrates how she researches about the growth mindset and the fixed mindset, and the benefit of having a growth mindset. Also, in her video she gave many good advice of how you can change a person that have fixed mindset to a growth mindset.

In experimenter bias, as you mentioned, researchers have the tendency to see what they want or expect to see. In conducting a research study, they start their research with personal and subjective prejudices to arrive at the conclusions they wanted. Cybil Burt, the famous psychologist known for his studies on the heritability of IQ falsified data through experimenter bias. He concluded that children of higher socioeconomic status are more intelligent than children from working classes (Fancher, 1985). As a result, a two-tier educational system was created in England in the 1960's, but was later abolished and replaced with a better system. Further analysis showed that Burt's data were fabricated and that intelligence is not hereditary.

There have been many topics that we have covered in class that have opened my eyes to how behavioral economics play a role and are seen in everyday life. I really enjoy examining these topics that we learn in class and when reading. Last nights reading of Kahneman had me thinking of a particular topic of outcome bias and how that impacts our illusion of understanding. Kahneman defines outcome bias as give too little of credit to the decision maker when he makes a decision with a good outcome and blames the decision maker when he made a good decision with a bad outcome. This had me thinking of a particular instance two weeks ago when the Twins were playing the Yankees in the wild card game. Paul Molitor, the Twins manager chose to keep the pitcher in the following inning after giving up a couple runs in the prior inning. The pitcher the following inning gave up another run or two giving the Yankees the lead. The next day driving to class, I was listening to KFAN the sports radio and they were saying how this decision cost the Twins the game and should cost Molitor his job next year. When I heard this I was very surprised, not being a Twins fan I thought that they would be glad with the turn around the team made this year, having been one of the worst teams in the MLB. When I was reading last night and I came across outcome bias, I immediately went back to this moment and it was clear that the talk show radio announcers had participated in outcome bias. Even though