Why People Believe Weird Things By Michael Shermer: Textual Analysis

Even though this speech was incredibly difficult, I loved the project and the purpose of the class: to think deeply, to create and discuss ideas, to change and shape our opinions. I uncovered passions for many different aspects of humanities in this class, and that experience combined with my experience captaining an ethical debate team intersect in philosophy. I’ve always been an avid reader but I find that my favorite books--The Fall, The Trial, Sometimes A Great Notion--all incorporate the critical thought I’m drawn to with philosophy. I love to think, and that’s what philosophy is all

The Spindrift organization spent a decade performing laboratory experiments trying to determine which prayer strategy was most effective: directed prayer for a specific outcome, or non-directed prayer, having no specific outcome. Directed prayer participants tried to “direct” the process of prayer with having an outcome in mind. For example one may wish to rid a person of cancer, or recovering from a heart disease. Non-directed prayer, on the other hand, approach prayer with a more open-ended mind-set, in which no specific outcome was held in mind. Dossey considered that the Spindrift research experiments has given us much evidence to demonstrate that non-directed prayer works better than directing prayer for a specific outcome. The Spindrift researchers tried to grow mould on the surface of agar plates used routinely by bacteriologists. After stressing but not killing a patch of mould, directed prayer was used to encourage growth on one side of the plate while non-directed prayer was used on the other side of the divided glass surface. Directed prayer produced no results. Non-directed prayer produced multiplication of the mould into concentric growth rings. These and other experiments conducted by Spindrift give indications for the best prayer method to use in situations when we don 't know what should happen. When non-directed prayer is answered, the outcome is always in the direction

In the reading of The Practical Skeptic written by Lisa J. Mclntyre , section one “ The Promise” written by C.Wright Mills talks about the idea of sociological imagination and what sociological imagination looks like. Sociological imagination, defined in the book, can be stated as a different way to see life. Most people have daily routines and those routines become their life. The same with thinking, people come to know one way of thinking and they live their life thinking that way. Sociological imagination, teaches the average person how to think outside of the bubble or thought process they have come to know and live.

Prayer is an essential to any kind of religious faith. Over the years and years of believing in a higher power,

Alfaro-LeFevre, R. (2013). Critical thinking, clinical reasoning, and clinical judgment : A practical approach (Fifth ed.).

For this unit’s learning journal, I picked an article from the BBC called “Psychology: The Truth About the Paranormal” by David Robson. In his article, Robson tries to analyze why so many people believe in the paranormal from a psychological point of view. According to the article, “believers may have weaker cognitive ‘inhibition’, compared to skeptics” (Robson, 2004, par. 11). Robson also explores the possibility that belief in the supernatural may be a self-defense mechanism created by the brain, “belief in the paranormal can be a kind of shield from the even harsher truths of the world.” (Robson, 2004, par. 7)

        As citizens, it is essential to be “Critical thinkers who seek to draw intelligent conclusions” (pg. 3) whether as jurists, voters, parents, students, teachers, workers, managers, attorney. It is important to be able to discern between opinion, propaganda, facts, truth, error, and purposeful deceit. We elect people to speak for us at many levels. We need to be able to comprehend what we are hearing and be willing to utilize all the skills of critical

This article focused on the constant debate concerning the conditions in which students develop the skill of thinking critically. Being able to use critical thinking requires knowledge of facts and concepts about the subject matter. I found this article interesting because I think it is important that students develop critical thinking skills. Most scholarly articles tend to have an abstract that summarizes the papers entirety. Due to this this article is considered scholarly.

As indicated by Chitty & Black, there are many things involved with thinking critically. It isn’t an easy process that can be learned

Critical thinking is a vital task that must be done in our everyday lives. In “Becoming a Critic Of Your Thinking” found at criticalthinking.org, Dr. Linda Elder and Dr. Richard Paul explain critical thinking as “the disciplined art of ensuring that you use the best thinking you are capable of in any set of circumstances”. Even tough there are many different types of methods to achieve a better quality of critical thinking, Dr. Elder and Dr. Paul discuss four specific ones in the article. All strategies, however, force you to put yourself in an uncomfortable and difficult position to develop a better quality of thinking.

This week in class I read the information about the common errors in judgment and this is what I learned, there are several things that can hinder "effective critical thinking" (Bethel University, 2013). I knew the names of a few of these but some I did not, unfortunately, I have made some of these errors throughout my life and the one that stands out the most at this time is: Snap judgment, I remember one time my niece was to give me a call letting me know if she would be coming by my house when she left work, well when she shows up without calling me, I start fussing because I wanted her to pick something up from the store on the way, you can imagine how awful I felt when I checked my phone and it showed a missed call from her, for some reason

Over many years, people have been inquisitive about abnormal behaviours within their societies and beyond. A typical question pertaining to these behaviours is, “why is he behaving this way.” According to DSM-IV-TR, abnormal behaviour is defined as a person who experiences behavioural, cognitive or emotional dysfunction, associated with distress and atypical in his cultural context (Barlow, Durand, 2009). However, the quest for answers and remedies has drifted people from scientific models to traditional ones. One of such models is supernatural.

Critical thinking takes consistent behavior in asking the right questions about the subject. In my life, I have come across people who ask many questions and some people who “go with the flow” and believe everything they hear because it is spoken with some sort of authority. Assumptions can be damaging to relationships and without critical thinking and communication, our thought process can assume the wrong idea entirely. When I speak with someone who is a critical thinker, they can be so convincing that it is often challenging to decide what the correct conclusions are. To have inferences is to reach a conclusion on the basis of evidence and reasoning through critical thinking and asking the right questions.

The main concepts presented in the article are the varying definitions of each author on the concept of critical thinking. The information the author uses are definitions which are the opinions of varied authors and are similar in foundation in that to apply critical thinking one must be able to identify a problem, pose a question(s), provide valid supporting evidence, and come to a conclusion. Although the author’s definitions do not identify a problem, questions, evidence, or conclusions, the relationship Petress (2004) shows is that the reader must apply this process themselves as it is not always given. The information used does appear to be relevant, significant, and valid. The references the author listed does provide enough information for me to come to this conclusion. Since this work is a literature review and not a case study, numerical data are not necessary to determine validity of the information.

What is Critical Thinking? Is the process of conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and /or evaluating information gathered by observation, experience, reflection, reasoning or communication, as a guide to belief and action (Scriven & Paul, n.d.). When one applies critical thinking more ideas are develop, fewer mistakes are made and better decisions are reached. When people instead of using critical thinking act on beliefs or without giving it a second thought, the end results are poor decisions and as a result have a disaster at hand. People don’t always use critical thinking, it is not uncommon to hear someone say such remarks after making the wrong decisions; “I just was not thinking”, “I did not think it was a big deal”,