When I was taking an online course on reasoning and constructing good arguments (which I never completed, but that’s another post,) there was one interesting tidbit that was covered: some conclusion might be perfectly correct, but the argument leading to the conclusion could be flawed or unsupportive.
Category: Critical Thinking
Middle of nowhere
“Middle of nowhere.” This is one of those phrases that have gradually gotten more annoying to me over time, and I realize now that it subtly says a lot about our society, and perhaps even influences our reactions.
The middle of nowhere tells us that it’s far from roads, and restaurants, and telephones, and people overall – this is, supposedly, the “nowhere”
The missionary position
At Why Evolution Is True, Jerry Coyne has tackled yet another foofaraw among philosophers this particular topic is one of frequent appearance, being Does science assume naturalism? And ever so typical of philosophy, it begins with traditional assumptions and goes even further off course from there.
The duel comes over the various definitions of terms like naturalism and supernatural,
Much ado about “fucking”
If the title didn’t clue you in and you’re not already familiar with other posts here, I’ll kindly inform you that I do not refrain from obscenities, vulgarities, expletives, blasphemies, curses, and potty-mouthing. However, it’s a public service, because there are people who actually judge what I have to say by whether or not a naughty word is heard or read, and since I
Know your own way
I’ve mentioned that I find skepticism and critical thinking to be slightly different concepts to a large extent, this is in perception only, where many people consider skepticism (or being skeptical or a skeptic) to mean cynical, disbelieving, dismissive, and so on. In current
How to bake a human
Walkabout podcast – How to bake a human
I probably shouldn’t ever look at the searches that get linked here because of that title. Be patient, and it will become clear what it means.
I have, on numerous previous occasions, examined the various drives and emotions that we have from an evolutionary perspective – for instance, that morality is (almost certainly) an offshoot of inherent
History, folklore, or rumor?
This is an examination on stories, assumptions, and filling in the blanks, which changed as I was writing it.
I grew up on the northern tip of Cayuga Lake, one of the Finger Lakes of central New York, and right down where my street ended at the lake’s edge sits an historical marker telling of a former bridge across the lake from colonial times. Standing there and looking out over the water,
Put down the Dymo, Avery
Several recent posts and articles have highlighted a problem that I’ve seen far too many times from, quite frankly, people who should probably know better. It’s rampant within philosophy, and unfortunately, there are still too many who think philosophy is something to be revered, so it tends to cross over into other disciplines as well. For lack of a better way of describing it right
The fine line between clever and stupid
Quite a few months back, perhaps as much as a few years ago, I started thinking about how and when I began to embrace critical thinking. I mentioned before that I used to believe in a whole lot of crap and gradually left it all behind, but was there some particular event that started this process? We like
Marvel of design
Walkabout podcast – Marvel of design
I delayed this one slightly to serve as my Darwin Day post ;-)
I freely admit that there are some really stunning things to be found in nature – in fact, that’s what many of my ‘Too Cool‘ posts are intended to highlight. Predator/prey relationships, highly