Climate… Whatever happened to Global Cooling in the 70s? 19 Jan 202021 Jan 2020 A while back, a fan asked me: "Sgt Scholar, love your page, but I have a question. I heard scientists were worried about “global cooling” in the ’70s. I saw…
Climate Non-Hippie Climate-Science Resources 18 Jan 202019 Jan 2020 Welcome aboard. I sincerely hope you have some doubts about climate change because this compiled list of resources is for you! You got climate questions and would like answers from…
4.2 The Fallacies, caveats, examples, and how to respond False Balance Effect 18 Jan 202018 Jan 2020 Part 4.2 of the Critical Thinking Series (CTS): The Fallacies Definition: This is more of a bias or unfair tactic than an actual logical fallacy. It is a media bias…
Flat Earthers. What we can learn from them.… Communication Tips. Part 9 of what we can learn from Flat Earthers 14 Jan 202015 Jan 2020 Back to Part 8 To attenuate fallacies, minimize bias, and promote logic, scientific thought, and scientific literacy requires effective communication. And communication is difficult, but here are some tips. Understand…
Checkpoint quiz: introductory logic… Basic Data and Scientific Reasoning Quiz 12 Jan 202013 Jan 2020 We get bombarded with stats, graphs, and studies ALL the time. But how good are you at basic data and scientific reasoning? Try these thirteen questions to get a feel…
Flat Earthers. What we can learn from them.… Promoting Science and Critical Thinking. (Part 8 of What we can learn from Flat Earthers) 11 Jan 202014 Jan 2020 Back to Part 7 After seeing how rampant pseudoscience and biases are, we are left to wonder: how to do we advocate science? How do we promote self-awareness and self-discipline…
Additional Readings… How are pseudoscientific beliefs similar? (Part 7 of What we can learn from Flat Earther) 11 Jan 202015 Jan 2020 Back to Part 6 In the last section, we saw how common just some of the surfeit pseudoscientific beliefs. I didn’t have the time to fully show how each is…
Additional Readings… How common are pseudoscientific beliefs? (Part 6 of What we can learn from Flat Earthers) 9 Jan 202019 Jan 2020 Back to Part 5 The Flat Earthers' WTF-factor motivates us to get a checkup. Just how prevalent are pseudoscientific beliefs? This one is a bit longer than the other posts…
Additional Readings… Pseudoscience and scientific literacy (Part 5 of what we can learn from flat earthers) 9 Jan 202015 Jan 2020 Back to Part 4 Flat Earthers bring pseudoscience to the limelight. This attention helps us confront other questions: How common are pseudoscientific beliefs? How scientifically literate are we? And How…
Additional Readings… Socio-political identity and hot buttons lower reasoning. (Part 4 of what we can learn from flat earthers). 9 Jan 202015 Jan 2020 Back to Part 3 The existence of Flat Earthers compels us to investigate the misperceptions that are inherent to us all (just used in different topics to varying degrees). In…
Additional Readings… We are hard-wired for misperception (Part 3 of what we can learn from flat earthers) 9 Jan 202019 Jan 2020 Back to Part 2 Flat Earthers have to reconcile the evidence that was well-understood since ancient times (see the previous post) as well as the plethora of evidence accumulated ever…
Flat Earthers. What we can learn from them.… How the Ancients knew the Earth was round (Part 2 of What we can learn from Flat Earthers) 9 Jan 202014 Jan 2020 Flat Earthers can pique our curiosity about history. How DID the ancients figure out the Earth was round? It’s not like they used giant catapults to launch themselves into space…
Flat Earthers. What we can learn from them.… What we can learn from Flat Earthers. (Introduction). 9 Jan 202014 Jan 2020 The Earth is curvaceous, alluring, a little dirty, and very wet. These well-rounded puns are absolutely intended. Earth is our beautiful home. She is genial to life and brimming with…
2.6 Belief and skeptical inquiry… 2.6 Belief and skeptical inquiry 1 Jan 202011 Jan 2020 XI. Proportion belief with skeptical inquiry "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." I love the above quote. Go…
Civics… Shit burning: a personal allegory about fighting pseudoscience 21 Dec 201914 Jan 2020 I can still smell it. During Spring break, Iraq '03, after the main hostilities, my platoon had the privilege of sleeping about 150 meters from the shit burners. My turn…
Science… The winter solstice: the most human of days 18 Dec 201914 Jan 2020 The Earth's axis is tilted relative to its orbital plane, and because of this, we have seasons. For those of us in the northern hemisphere, December 21st (sometimes the 22nd)…
Civics ‘Woke’ call-out culture and the political divide: Perspective from Mattis and Obama. 16 Nov 201918 Dec 2019 It seems to me, at least, that the prevalence of “call-out” culture on social media poisons the conversations we ought to be having as a country. Excluding the obvious need…
Science… Postdoc falsifies 59 cancer experiments, we know because science is transparent. 26 Aug 201914 Jan 2020 The scientific method is transparent and self-correcting. Honest mistakes or misconduct can result in incorrect data. When that happens, depending on severity, the research paper can have an addendum or…
Additional Readings… Nobel Laureate pseudo-scientist: A good example of a bad example 14 Aug 201914 Jan 2020 A not-so-scientific Nobel Laureate has passed away on Aug 7 at the age of 74. But there is one more lesson he (unintentionally) left us with... Kary Mullis, the creator…
4.2 The Fallacies, caveats, examples, and how to respond Appeal to emotion 23 Jul 201929 Jul 2019 Part 4.2 of the Critical Thinking Series (CTS): The Fallacies Definition: This is not just the use of emotive language, it is the **substitution** of evidence and reasoning with emotionally-loaded…
