How to Think About Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New Age

• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages
• Year: 2004
• Leaves: 368
• Edition: 4th Ed
• Category: Fiction

✦ Synopsis

One cannot avoid thinking, sidestep decision making, nor elude the bombardment of poor logic and irrationality so abundant in society. It makes perfect sense to learn to become as clear a thinker and decision maker as possible. Schick and Vaughn, in their Critical Thinking masterpiece "How to Think About Weird Things" dive head first into the fundaments of rational thought, the aspects of human nature that produce irrationality, and the means to think as productively as possible. Ripe with examples from absurd lines of thinking to common complex fallacies, the book covers all pertinent aspects of critical thinking.

Put best in their own words on page 2, the authors state:

"You hear a lot of whats', but seldom any goodwhys'. You hear the beliefs, but seldom any solid reasons behind them - nothing substantial enough to indicate that these assertions are likely to be true. You may hear naiveté, passionate advocacy, fierce denunciation, one-sided sifting of evidence, defense of the party line, leaps of faith, jumps to false conclusions, plunges into wishful thinking, and courageous stands on the shaky ground of subjective certainty. But the good reasons are missing. Without good whys', our beliefs are simply arbitrary, with no more claim to knowledge than the random choice of a playing card. Without goodwhys' to guide us, our beliefs lose their value in a world where beliefs are already a dime a dozen."

While this thinking may not resonate with everyone, the reality is that it should. If society as a whole shifted to more rational thought and a consistent standard of scrutiny among all beliefs, there would be a lot less friction on this planet and a lot more level headed views. How to Think About Weird Things offers a comprehensive overview of rational thinking aimed at causing such a positive shift, and thus I recommend this book to any serious thinker.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover......Page 1
Copyright page......Page 6
Foreword......Page 9
Preface......Page 11
New Edition, New Material......Page 12
Important Continuing Features......Page 13
Acknowledgments......Page 14
Contents......Page 15
1 Introduction: Close Encounters with the Strange......Page 21
The Importance of Why......Page 22
Beyond Weird to the Absurd......Page 24
A Weirdness Sampler......Page 26
Pseudoteachers......Page 27
Paranormal Profile......Page 31
Notes......Page 34
2 The Possibility of the Impossible......Page 35
Paradigms and the Paranormal......Page 36
Logical Possibility versus Physical Impossibility......Page 37
Aristotle on Demonstrating the Laws of Thought......Page 39
Just because something is logically or physically possible doesn't mean that it is, or ever will be, actual.......Page 41
Just because you can't explain something doesn't mean that it's supernatural.......Page 43
Quantum Mechanics and ESP......Page 44
On Knowing the Future......Page 45
Tachyons and Precognition......Page 46
The Psychic Scorecard......Page 48
Suggested Readings......Page 52
Notes......Page 53
3 Looking for Truth in Personal Experience......Page 55
Seeming and Being......Page 56
The Will to Believe or Disbelieve......Page 58
Perceptual Constancies......Page 59
Collective Hallucinations......Page 60
Looking for Clarity in Vagueness......Page 61
The Blondlot Case......Page 65
PK Parties and Self-Delusion......Page 66
"Constructing" UFOs......Page 68
Tracking Down Bigfoot......Page 70
The Loch Ness Monster......Page 73
False Memory Syndrome......Page 74
Remembering: Do We Revise the Past?......Page 75
Past Life Remembered or Cryptomnesia?......Page 77
Denying the Evidence......Page 80
Spooky Presidential Coincidences......Page 82
Subjective Validation......Page 83
God's Salvation Church......Page 84
Confirmation Bias......Page 87
Crop Circles......Page 88
The Availability Error......Page 90
When evaluating a claim, look at all the relevant evidence, not just the psychologically available evidence.......Page 91
The Representativeness Heuristic......Page 94
Against All Odds......Page 96
What Are the Odds? You Wouldn't Believe It......Page 97
Rationalizing Homo Sapiens......Page 99
It's reasonable to accept personal experience as reliable evidence only if there's no reason to doubt its reliability.......Page 100
Notes......Page 104
4 Relativism, Truth, and Reality......Page 108
We Each Create Our Own Reality......Page 110
The Crime of Gabriel Gale......Page 112
Just because you believe something to be true doesn't mean that it is.......Page 115
The Sokal Hoax......Page 116
A Closer Look at the Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon......Page 119
Reality Is Constituted by Conceptual Schemes......Page 121
On Good Myth and Bad Myth......Page 122
The Relativist's Petard......Page 126
Facing Reality......Page 127
Notes......Page 132
5 Knowledge, Belief, and Evidence......Page 134
Babylonian Knowledge-Acquisition Techniques......Page 135
Propositional Knowledge......Page 136
Reasons and Evidence......Page 137
The more background information a proposition conflicts with, the more reason there is to doubt it.......Page 141
Expert Opinion......Page 143
Coherence and Justification......Page 147
Sources of Knowledge......Page 148
The Appeal to Faith......Page 151
The Appeal to Intuition......Page 153
The Strange Case of Ilga K.......Page 156
The Appeal to Mystical Experience......Page 157
The Miracle of Marsh Chapel......Page 161
Astrology Revisited......Page 162
Julius Caesar—A Confirming Instance?......Page 164
Suggested Readings......Page 170
Notes......Page 171
6 Arguments Good, Bad, and Weird......Page 174
Claims and Arguments......Page 175
Deductive Arguments......Page 180
Enumerative Induction......Page 182
Analogical Induction......Page 183
Hypothetical Induction (Abduction, or Inference to the Best Explanation)......Page 184
Informal Fallacies......Page 185
False Dilemma......Page 186
Division......Page 187
Appeal to Authority......Page 188
Appeal to Fear......Page 189
False Cause......Page 190
Notes......Page 194
7 Science and Its Pretenders......Page 195
Science and Dogma......Page 196
Science and Scientism......Page 197
Scientific Methodology......Page 198
Confirming and Confuting Hypotheses......Page 202
The Hollow Earth......Page 205
Criteria of Adequacy......Page 207
A hypothesis is scientific only if it is testable, that is, only if it predicts something more than what is predicted by the background theory alone.......Page 208
Falsification and Psychoanalysis......Page 209
Fruitfulness......Page 210
Scope......Page 212
Nazi Cosmology......Page 213
Other things being equal, the best hypothesis is the one that has the greatest scope, that is, that explains and predicts the most diverse phenomena.......Page 214
Other things being equal, the best hypothesis is the one that is the most conservative, that is, the one that fits best with established beliefs.......Page 217
Creationism, Evolution, and Criteria of Adequacy......Page 218
Scientific Creationism......Page 219
Did Adam and Eve Have Navels?......Page 224
Intelligent Design......Page 225
God the Extraterrestrial......Page 227
Parapsychology......Page 230
Probability and Belief......Page 231
The Army and ESP......Page 233
Psychic Trains......Page 235
The Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge......Page 237
Project Alpha......Page 241
Notes......Page 247
8 How to Assess a "Miracle Cure"......Page 252
Personal experience alone generally cannot establish the effectiveness of a treatment beyond a reasonable doubt.......Page 254
The Placebo Effect......Page 255
Firewalking to Weil-Being......Page 256
Overlooked Causes......Page 258
A Shark's Tale......Page 259
The Doctor's Evidence......Page 261
Weasels Are on the Loose!......Page 262
The Failure of Therapeutic Touch......Page 267
The Appeal to Tradition......Page 268
Testing Iridology......Page 269
Scientific evidence gained through controlled experiments—unlike personal experience and case studies—generally can establish the effectiveness of a treatment beyond a reasonable doubt.......Page 270
Medical Research......Page 271
Single Studies......Page 272
Single medical studies generally cannot establish the effectiveness of a treatment beyond a reasonable doubt.......Page 273
When the results of relevant studies conflict, you cannot know that the treatment in question is effective.......Page 274
New study results that conflict with well-established findings cannot establish the effectiveness of a treatment beyond a reasonable doubt.......Page 275
Test-tube studies alone generally cannot establish the effectiveness of a treatment beyond a reasonable doubt.......Page 276
Animal studies alone generally cannot establish the effectiveness of a treatment beyond a reasonable doubt.......Page 277
Is It Right to Promote Unproven Treatments?......Page 278
Observational studies alone generally cannot establish the effectiveness of a treatment beyond a reasonable doubt.......Page 281
Acupuncture, Advocacy, and Science......Page 282
Notes......Page 288
9 Case Studies in the Extraordinary......Page 291
The Search Formula......Page 293
Step 2: Examine the Evidence for the Claim......Page 294
Step 3: Consider Alternative Hypotheses......Page 295
Step 4: Rate, According to the Criteria of Adequacy, Each Hypothesis......Page 296
Homeopathy......Page 298
Dowsing......Page 301
The Experience behind the Ouija Experience......Page 303
UFO Abductions......Page 306
Alien Astronauts from Yesteryear......Page 308
The Roswell Incident......Page 318
Communicating with the Dead......Page 320
Channeling......Page 322
The Biblical View of Souls......Page 325
Near-Death Experiences......Page 327
The Amityville Horror—Mongers......Page 329
Spontaneous Human Combustion......Page 334
Moody's Crystal Ball......Page 339
Ghosts......Page 343
Bad Vibes......Page 350
Notes......Page 353
Epilogue: Mysteries in Perspective......Page 357
Credits......Page 359
Index......Page 361
Just because something seems (feels, appears) real doesn't mean that it is.......Page 57
When evaluating a claim, look for disconfirming as well as confirming evidence.......Page 89
Just because a group of people believe that something is true doesn't mean that it is.......Page 118
There is an external reality that is independent of our representations of it.......Page 128
There is good reason to doubt a proposition if it conflicts with other propositions we have good reason to believe.......Page 140
When there is good reason to doubt a proposition, we should proportion our belief to the evidence.......Page 142
Just because someone is an expert in one field doesn't mean that he or she is an expert in another.......Page 145
If we have no reason to doubt what's disclosed to us through perception, introspection, memory, or reason, then we're justified in believing it.......Page 150
Other things being equal, the best hypothesis is the one that is the most fruitful, that is, makes the most successful novel predictions.......Page 211
Other things being equal, the best hypothesis is the simplest one, that is, the one that makes the fewest assumptions.......Page 216
We should accept an extraordinary hypothesis only if no ordinary one will do.......Page 236
Case studies alone generally cannot establish the effectiveness of a treatment beyond a reasonable doubt......Page 265
When claims of a treatment's effectiveness are based solely on case studies or personal experience, you generally cannot know that the treatment is effective.......Page 266
Clinical trials limited by lack of a control group, faulty comparisons, or small numbers generally cannot establish the effectiveness of a treatment beyond a reasonable doubt.......Page 286