My friend, fellow skeptic, and fellow Skeptologist Brian Dunning has put together a video on how to think critically. It’s called Here Be Dragons, and it’s a pretty good primer into how to think.
It’s about 40 minutes long, and free to use (with some caveats; see the site). I think this would do well in a classroom. Any teachers out there? I know it’s too late for most school sessions, but you can download the movie (and a high-res version too) and keep it handy for the next year.
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Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.
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June 11th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Thanks for the link, Phil. I’m teaching an introductory high school science course again next year for the first time in a couple of years, and I think it will go over well.
On a somewhat related note, I’m also teaching an astronomy course starting in November of this year. Any chance you would be doing one of your online chats on a weekday morning? I’d love to outfit the class with headphones and get them to participate..
June 11th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
magista, that would be fun! Just give me plenty of notice…
June 11th, 2008 at 11:45 pm
It looks really interesting, thanks! I don’t know why there aren’t more critical thinking primers out there that aren’t related to a college course or a philosophy class.
June 11th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
Reminds me of Sagan’s Baloney Detection Kit! You can never have enough sharp tools in your skeptic toolbox
June 11th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
The hands, the hands….put them in the pockets!!! They dont stop…….
Otherwise, and more importantly dealing with the intellectual content - bravo! BA, I dare say that you were incorrect in suggesting that it is too late for this school year (well, yes, it is almost over); I would say that it is too early for the next one. This would be an excellent video to show a couple of days in to a course, senior and junior, to set some ground rules and give a perspective that will help when debunking claims throughout the year….
June 11th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
*shakes bag*
Aww, man! All my instruments are blunt!
June 11th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
Magista - astronomy course starting in November?!?! Is this a local extra-curricular course?
You know, I say that astronomy is this generations (highschool kids) replacement for dinosaurs in terms of fascination. I stared my astro unit on monday and have spent three solid days of trying to get through lessons but being bombarded by question after question after question..it is so amazing and so womderful to hear their fascination. Size, distance and time combined with pretty pictures….it really gets them thinking!
June 12th, 2008 at 12:31 am
Monkey, it’s actually a locally developed course in our school district. AFAIK, there are only two schools teaching it at the moment. Since my first degree was in astrophysics and physics, I really couldn’t say no…
June 12th, 2008 at 12:49 am
Ummmm…. BA, I don’t know if this is a criticism or application of critical thinking but the claim on the video that cartographers often labelled maps with “Here be Dragons” or “Hic sunt Dracones” isn’t really accurate. There are instances of it but not as common as some people believe.
June 12th, 2008 at 3:41 am
An easy way of helping out is just keeping your bittorrent client running, seeding the high-res version.
June 12th, 2008 at 3:56 am
Perfect timing for me, BA. We’re winding down our (homeschooling) semester this and next week. Finishing off both Astronomy and Critical Thinking.
I’ll be sure to work this in, thanks!
June 12th, 2008 at 4:48 am
Okay… my brutally honest first impressions, for what they’re worth.
Watched the first ten minutes. The content is great. The writing is very good. Dunning has a good speaking voice, but his presence on-camera needs work. He gestures with his hands too much and seems a bit stiff. The real problem here is the directing and production value.
The scenes at the beach are a little cringe inducing. He stands in too many long, motionless wide shots… there aren’t enough close-ups. His mic is too large, you can see the battery pack and loose wiring… the B-roll footage consists of purposeless shots of seagulls and ships, continually recycled over and over to break up the shots of Dunning.
I assume this doesn’t get any better over the remaining 30 minutes.
He certainly gets an “A” for effort. His content is solid. As I said, the rest of it is pretty good. But I think, editorially, he should keep all the stuff where he’s doing voice over — that stuff works pretty well… and re-think/re-stage the on-camera stuff. Get a new director who can bring some more life to this.
It’s probably far too late for that, though.
Basically, I started to enthusiastically download the HD version, hoping to watch this tomorrow night on my PS3… and then I began to watch the streaming one on the home page. About 5 minutes in, I canceled my download. I’ll probably watch the rest some other time. Maybe I’ll listen to it on my iPod.
Thanks for the heads up Phil. Good luck with this Brian. Sorry to be so harsh.
P.S.
I hope this does not reflect the overall direction and production value on the Skeptologists pilot. From what I could tell from the trailer, it seems somewhat better, but not by very much. I really hope I am dead wrong about that. I know Brian is the host on that as well, but at least he has the support of the rest of the team on camera with him.
Shermer has a good, easygoing style that should elevate the proceedings. Phil and Steven are pretty good on-camera too.
June 12th, 2008 at 5:58 am
Sorry, not impressed, but then, I’m from Yorkshire; it takes a lot to impress me.
He was taking pot shots at a lot of easy targets, and it was waay too long and drawn out. The extended film of all those products and ‘psychic stuff’ was yawnworthy as were the interviewettes with the ‘true believers’ and he lost my interest soon after.
I’m not 100% convinced about some of his targets either. We used to feed our sailors citrus fruit to stave off scurvy long before vitamins were investigated, so that was the ‘pseudoscience’ of yesteryear.
Go back further to Nicholas Culpepper’s Herbal, and tincture of willow bark for headaches. More ‘pseudoscience’ - till the efficacy of salicylic acid was investigated.
BTW, I use basic aspirin b.p. rather than paying ten times as much for additives that will allegedly make it work faster, etc. Does that make me a super-sceptic?
P’raps not. Yorkshire folk are noted for being tightwads. {g}
So if it looks like a dragon, but quacks like a duck, is it a dragon or a duck?
Just askin’…
June 12th, 2008 at 6:03 am
Mark Hansen–Good application of critical thinking!
Another question–As a teacher, I always told my students to ask “How do we know this?” “Is the source reliable?” “Where are the references/citations?”, etc. So, regarding this statement from the film, “Most people fully accept paranormal and pseudoscientific claims without critique as they are promoted by the mass media,” I would love to know if there is some good evidence to support/quantify this. Have there been any studies? I certainly agree that a lot of people seem to accept claims at face value, but I would love some numbers to support this claim
I’m new here and this has probably been hashed out before now, but if anyone could post links to some scholarly research on this stuff, I’d really appreciate it!
June 12th, 2008 at 10:19 am
I’m afraid I must agree with Maxwell Everett on this one as well. The content itself wasn’t the problem, but rather the presentation. It’s an unfortunate fact in our society, that how you say things is at least as important (if not more) as the factual content of what you’re saying.
I found the voice over parts the stronger parts of the document. However, I found a lot of the scenes with Dunning on camera distracting. There were too many sudden cuts from place to place, sometimes almost mid-sentence. In some parts, you would have a few sentences on a beach, then a sudden cut to a forest with just a few more sentences before another cut and another few sentences. I would have also liked to see more interviews from other skeptically minded people. Listening to one voice talk for 40 minutes can be a little tiring, unless it’s David Attenborough anyway
I hate to say this, because I wanted to like this video. The pseudoscientists have way more media attention compared to skeptics and real scientists, and videos like this aren’t made nearly as often that I’d like. I agree with everything he says, but I just don’t think it came across very well.
June 12th, 2008 at 11:14 am
I wish he didn’t go in to straw man territory all the time. Or go “Conspiracy theorists often say..”.
It’s not sound arguing.
I realize that he wants to teach by example, and that it can be hard to do this without straw men, but he could have made them more abstract or something.
..or picked up specific claims, from specific people, though that makes it more of a regular youtube argument piece, as opposed to an educational video.
June 12th, 2008 at 11:49 am
I’m sure I’m going to catch hell on this one, but I have a hard time listening to Skeptoid.
I applaud him in his effort to spread critical thought and I’m sure I’ll watch “Dragons” eventually. It just seems like every other episode he’s congratulating himself for being politically incorrect or “controversial.”
It’s like, “Okay, I get it. You’re a rebel. Just cut to the chase.”
YMMV, of course, and I don’t think he should stop spreading skepticism. For me, he’s kind of hard to take when he’s doing Skeptoid.
Matt A
June 12th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
I teach a college level Logic and Critical Thinking course. I’ll consider showing that video to my class.
A complaint I have, though, is that the tone is somewhat overbearing. I try to ease students into skepticism slowly, since many of them have been brought up with ideas that resist skepticism. I’m not sure if it would make the best introduction to skepticism for someone who’s never encountered it in a serious manner before. If I did show it, it would have to be near the end of the semester. If I showed it at the beginning, I might lose some of my students before I have a chance to reach them.
June 12th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
I like that word: “gesticulation”!
Yeah, it was distracting but there are acting coaches that can fix that. In fact, Randi is probably the best coach you’ll find. He knows exactly what to do with his hands during a performance.
I’ve decided to submit a link to “Here Be Dragons” to relevant sites that pop up in StumbleUpon instead of rehashing the same truths time and again. Perhaps the tactic will serve to Nuke-A-Buncha-Moles.
The intention of the film was achieved; opening the eyes of the viewer to the nonsense around him/her. I give not one iota of fecal material regarding visible microphones or recycled b-footage. Then again, I stopped flipping through multitudes of channels about a decade ago so I’m abnormal.
I like it. I’ve got my copy. My kids and I appreciate it.
June 12th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Les? Les Miles?
zOMFSM! So this is what you do in the offseason! Where’s your hat?
June 12th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
While I was watching this, I couldn’t help but think of Wikipedia’s article on weasel words. I liked this video, it felt a lot more productive than watching The A-Team on Hulu. I particularly liked the part about the theory of large numbers.
Probably the one thing I’m going to take away from this video is looking for specific, repeatable experiments which support or hinder the claims.
June 12th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
@Wes: Not to tell you how to teach your classes or anything but:
If I chose “Logic and Critical Thinking” as part of my curriculum, I would expect the professor to bust my chops if I were to present him/her with any of the subjects described in the vid.
Sure, you may lose students that are too busy checking their multitudinous contact applications on their laptops but there are a few that are paying attention. Those few are the fruits of your endeavors.
Teach.
If money, fame or academic recognition are your goals, you’ve picked the wrong career.
If you seek praise for elevating the intelligence of your species…
You’re looking in the right direction.
Do your best.
June 12th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
I like how fish oil (omega 3) supplements are considered irrational and “dragons.” LOL. Might want to consult a dietitian on that one. Or yoga. Hmmm. Is stretching before a run a “dragon” and nonsense? And organic foods are nonsense and a “dragon” too. OMG, that person doesn’t want pesticides all over their food, they must be a total nutter! Tasteless white strawberries from CA are no different from locally grown red ones, only irrational people would think differently!
Let’s turn back the time machine a few decades. Using this reasoning someone who thought thalidomide was maybe not so good for expectant moms would be considered an irrational nutter? Maybe someone opposed to spraying DDT in your neighborhood? After all men in white lab coats with PhDs say it is A-OK. And they can never, ever be wrong. Right?
June 16th, 2008 at 7:01 am
The “Here Be Dragons” site appears to be down. Anybody know if this is temporary?
June 17th, 2008 at 6:12 am
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June 20th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
I was also a little surprised by some of the products shown at the beginning. However, I have to say that overall this was a brilliant production, just the right length, and well worth watching. It has certainly caused me to stop and reconsider some of the decisions I have made and perhaps do some more thorough research - and I consider myself a fairly critical person.
Well done Brian!