Schick T., Vaughn L. How to Think About Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New Age

New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004. - 368 p.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 good `whys'. 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 good `whys' 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.Copyright
ForewordNew Edition, New Material
Important Continuing FeaturesIntroduction: Close Encounters with the Strange
The Importance of Why
Beyond Weird to the Absurd
A Weirdness Sampler
Pseudoteachers
Paranormal Profile
NotesThe Possibility of the Impossible
Paradigms and the Paranormal
Logical Possibility versus Physical Impossibility
Aristotle on Demonstrating the Laws of Thought
Just because something is logically or physically possible doesn't mean that it is, or ever will be, actual
Just because you can't explain something doesn't mean that it's supernatural
Quantum Mechanics and ESP
On Knowing the Future
Tachyons and Precognition
The Psychic Scorecard
Suggested Readings
NotesLooking for Truth in Personal Experience
Seeming and Being
The Will to Believe or Disbelieve
Perceptual Constancies
Collective Hallucinations
Looking for Clarity in Vagueness
The Blondlot Case
PK Parties and Self-Delusion
"Constructing" UFOs
Tracking Down Bigfoot
The Loch Ness Monster
False Memory Syndrome
Remembering: Do We Revise the Past?
Past Life Remembered or Cryptomnesia?
Denying the Evidence
Spooky Presidential Coincidences
Subjective Validation
God's Salvation Church
Confirmation Bias
Crop Circles
The Availability Error
When evaluating a claim, look at all the relevant evidence, not just the psychologically available evidence
The Representativeness Heuristic
Against All Odds
What Are the Odds? You Wouldn't Believe It
Rationalizing Homo Sapiens
It's reasonable to accept personal experience as reliable evidence only if there's no reason to doubt its reliability
NotesRelativism, Truth, and Reality
We Each Create Our Own Reality
The Crime of Gabriel Gale
Just because you believe something to be true doesn't mean that it is
The Sokal Hoax
A Closer Look at the Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon
Reality Is Constituted by Conceptual Schemes
On Good Myth and Bad Myth
The Relativist's Petard
Facing Reality
NotesKnowledge, Belief, and Evidence
Babylonian Knowledge-Acquisition Techniques
Propositional Knowledge
Reasons and Evidence
The more background information a proposition conflicts with, the more reason there is to doubt it
Expert Opinion
Coherence and Justification
Sources of Knowledge
The Appeal to Faith
The Appeal to Intuition
The Strange Case of Ilga K
The Appeal to Mystical Experience
The Miracle of Marsh Chapel
Astrology Revisited
Julius Caesar—A Confirming Instance?
Suggested Readings
NotesArguments Good, Bad, and Weird
Claims and Arguments
Deductive Arguments
Enumerative Induction
Analogical Induction
Hypothetical Induction (Abduction, or Inference to the Best Explanation)
Informal Fallacies
False Dilemma
Division
Appeal to Authority
Appeal to Fear
False Cause
NotesScience and Its Pretenders
Science and Dogma
Science and Scientism
Scientific Methodology
Confirming and Confuting Hypotheses
The Hollow Earth
Criteria of Adequacy
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
Falsification and Psychoanalysis
Fruitfulness
Scope
Nazi Cosmology
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
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
Creationism, Evolution, and Criteria of Adequacy
Scientific Creationism
Did Adam and Eve Have Navels?
Intelligent Design
God the Extraterrestrial
Parapsychology
Probability and Belief
The Army and ESP
Psychic Trains
The Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge
Project Alpha
NotesHow to Assess a "Miracle Cure"
Personal experience alone generally cannot establish the effectiveness of a treatment beyond a reasonable doubt
The Placebo Effect
Firewalking to Weil-Being
Overlooked Causes
A Shark's Tale
The Doctor's Evidence
Weasels Are on the Loose!
The Failure of Therapeutic Touch
The Appeal to Tradition
Testing Iridology
Scientific evidence gained through controlled experiments—unlike personal experience and case studies—generally can establish the effectiveness of a treatment beyond a reasonable doubt
Medical Research
Single Studies
Single medical studies generally cannot establish the effectiveness of a treatment beyond a reasonable doubt
When the results of relevant studies conflict, you cannot know that the treatment in question is effective
New study results that conflict with well-established findings cannot establish the effectiveness of a treatment beyond a reasonable doubt
Test-tube studies alone generally cannot establish the effectiveness of a treatment beyond a reasonable doubt
Animal studies alone generally cannot establish the effectiveness of a treatment beyond a reasonable doubt
Is It Right to Promote Unproven Treatments?
Observational studies alone generally cannot establish the effectiveness of a treatment beyond a reasonable doubt
Acupuncture, Advocacy, and Science
NotesCase Studies in the Extraordinary
The Search Formula
Step : Examine the Evidence for the Claim
Step : Consider Alternative Hypotheses
Step : Rate, According to the Criteria of Adequacy, Each Hypothesis
Homeopathy
Dowsing
The Experience behind the Ouija Experience
UFO Abductions
Alien Astronauts from Yesteryear
The Roswell Incident
Communicating with the Dead
Channeling
The Biblical View of Souls
Near-Death Experiences
The Amityville Horror—Mongers
Spontaneous Human Combustion
Moody's Crystal Ball
Ghosts
Bad Vibes
Notes
Epilogue: Mysteries in Perspective
CreditsJust because something seems (feels, appears) real doesn't mean that it is
When evaluating a claim, look for disconfirming as well as confirming evidence
Just because a group of people believe that something is true doesn't mean that it is
There is an external reality that is independent of our representations of it
There is good reason to doubt a proposition if it conflicts with other propositions we have good reason to believe
When there is good reason to doubt a proposition, we should proportion our belief to the evidence
Just because someone is an expert in one field doesn't mean that he or she is an expert in another
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
Other things being equal, the best hypothesis is the one that is the most fruitful, that is, makes the most successful novel predictions
Other things being equal, the best hypothesis is the simplest one, that is, the one that makes the fewest assumptions
We should accept an extraordinary hypothesis only if no ordinary one will do
Case studies alone generally cannot establish the effectiveness of a treatment beyond a reasonable doubt
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
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