Friday Links

The first step to being a good critical thinker is seeing if you are wrong.  Kathryn Shultz, author of Being Wrong, now has a great TED talk on this as well.  Well, I thought it was pretty good.  But, you know,  I could very well be wrong about that.

Roger Ebert had a great essay on the idea of being "well-read."  It led to another essay by NPR's Linda Holmes,  The Sad, Beautiful Fact That We're All Going To Miss Almost Everything.

And I've heard a lot about the Khan Academy, but only recently started watching some of the videos.  Great stuff and worth sharing!

Laura Miller at Salon points out that while the Three Cups of Tea guy may be a liar, it's really the cheating that sucks more.

And does anyone have experience with Jump Math?  It sounds very intriguing. I'm intrigued!

How the Internet Gets Inside Us

The Information: How the Internet gets inside us by Adam Gopnik at the New Yorker is one of the best and most sensible things I've read about that crazy force/source called the Internet.  He reviews all the major writers on the subject and boils them all down into an amazingly clear essay.  You may have read one or two of these and made a handful of observations about our relationship with the digital world, but Adam Gopnik, one of our best essayists, writers and thinkers, sums it all up so well that you're doing yourself a disservice if you don't read his thoughts on the subject before engaging in any further ruminations of your own.

Below are all the authors and books he mentions in the article.  It's practically a syllabus for an amazing and contentious media studies class, no?  Best of all, the article is bookended by an image of Hermione Granger in the stacks of the library at Hogwarts.  Enjoy and let me know your thoughts.

Cognitive Surplus by Clay Shirky

Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think? edited by John Brockman

The Book In the Renaissance by Andrew Pettegree

Supersizing the Mind by Andrew Clark

The Sixth Language by Robert K. Logan

The Shallows by Nicholas Carr

Hamlet's Blackberry by William Powers

Alone Together by Sherry Turkle

Too Much to Know by Ann Blair

Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television by Jerry Mander

Within the Context of No Context by George Trow

The Age of Missing Information by Bill McKibben

Critical Thinking: Astrology Edition

Critical Thinking: "Nigger" Edition

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Mark Twain Controversy
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Thank you, Larry Wilmore!  Best defense of Huckleberry Finn, ever!  Whenever I hear about this controversy my mind flashes to that scene in "The Hobart Shakespearians" where the class is reading the scene in Huckleberry Finn, in which Huck decides he will go to hell to save his friend Jim.  Every fifth grader in that class in openly weeping.  And there are people that think kids can't handle it?  Whatever.  It's essential.

The Hobart Shakespearians

Critical Thinking Sunday: Mind Games

(via PodBlack Cat)

My Little Mythbuster

Home with a streppy seven-year-old and enjoying our jammies day.  We were just having a Head Rush (an incarnation of Mythbusters for kids) marathon and I remembered something that happened last week.

A friend of ours was telling a hilarious story of her getting stuck in a new building's elevator (don't worry, it was only two stories and the story ends well).  She contemplated various scenarios of how this could play out and wondered what would happen if the elevator car plummeted to the bottom of the shaft.  Should she jump at the last minute?  She'd heard that would save her from injury but doubted she was co-ordinated enough to pull this off, so figured she was doomed.

"That myth was busted!" piped up my daughter.  It was awesome!

She went on to relate how Adam and Jamie of Mythbusters had tested this by dropping an elevator car in an abandoned building.  Jumping or not jumping wouldn't help you, it turned out.  You're still just falling really fast and would probably get squashed.

Although, this outcome would have been doubtful for our friend since she was stuck only one or two stories up and modern elevators have way more safety features.  They don't just dangle on a cable anymore, so you're unlikely to ever have to deal with this eventuality.

My little mythbuster!

Okay, back to making home-made popsicles and lounging in our jammies...


Head Rush

Dragon*Con 2010

I shook hands with James Randi!  That was probably my highlight for the whole weekend.  He is also known as James "The Amazing" Randi, the magician.  He is probably the most influential skeptical activist ever and is the founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF).  It was truly an honor.

I also shook hands and chatted with Joe Nickell, a leading paranormal investigator for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.  He likes to joke that he's been in "more haunted houses than Casper" but of course has yet to find any compelling evidence for ghosts.  He's the nicest guy ever.

I met  Daniel Loxton and got him to sign my Evolution book. He's the editor of Junior Skeptic Magazine and does most of the writing and illustrating.  Ok, maybe he's the nicest guy ever.

I also interacted with George Hrab, got a hug from the amazing Kylie Sturgess of PodBlack Cat blog, Skeptic Zone and Token Skeptic fame and Rebecca Watson, among other awesome Skepchicks.

And I can't say enough good things about the Atlanta Skeptics who run this thing.  All volunteer and all amazing.

I sat in on another fun episode of the Australian Mystery Investigators.  This is great for getting ideas on just how exactly to teach critical thinking to younger kids.  Show them cool stuff and ask thoughtful questions.  Richard Saunders kept asking, "How could I test this?"  "Can we all be tricked?"  "So does that prove anything?"  A great show and great interactions for the kids.  The covered optical illusions, dowsing, psychic abilities, and even a bit of consumer protection with their Fabulous Amazing Kinetic Electricity device.  Adults need to see this too!

The highlight talk for me was "I Very Much Doubt That!" a talk from James Randi.  The ballroom was packed.  I don't think anyone knew what a huge draw Randi would be.  He got a standing ovation just walking into the room.  He just sat and talked and answered questions but he tells them so well and is so inspiring.  He reported doing well after his chemotherapy due, he winked, to "a little thing called modern medical science."  He discussed the particulars of his famous $1 million dollar challenge if evidence can be found for paranormal abilities.  At another talk he was involved in, the moderator asked the audience of skeptics to raise their hand if they would be happy if he had to give the money away--if compelling scientific evidence could be found for some paranormal ability.  All hands went up.

I also attended the talk "Spotlight on Adam Savage" which was one hour with the Mythbuster in a wide-raging, funny, insightful, and intelligent talk.  He said they had no idea that the show would be embraced by kids and teachers and that he's glad they didn't because if they were shooting for that audience they probably would have messed up.  Now there's a commercial free version on cable due to the STEM initiatives to get kids interested in science.  It's called Head Rush and is hosted by Kari Byron.

Another fun one was "How to Raise a Mad Scientist" put on by the National Science Center's Fort Discovery folks.  They did a number of explosive and fun science experiments you can do with kids using around-the-house or very cheap stuff.  Awesome.

I went to the Astronomy Cast Live! podcast and heard all about the funding issues at NASA.  I wish there was a way that the federal government could only be in charge of funding, but not how the money is spent.  Then we wouldn't have the change in administration whiplash we have to suffer every four to eight years.  Of course, I wish the same thing about education!  Just give us the money and let us figure out how to spend it.  Leave the politicians out of it.

A surprisingly moving discussion was the "Raising Skeptical Geeks" panel.  The panel included Jamie Ian Swiss, Daniel Loxton, Adam Savage, Barabra Dresher and more.  It also included Will Philips' mother.  He's the 10-year-old who decided to quit standing for the pledge in his classroom in Arkansas because until gay people can marry, he decided, then "we don't have liberty and justice for all."  There were some great comments on bullying and then she told her story.  He's now being home schooled because not only the kids but the teacher's and administrators were awful to him and his family for "all the gay stuff."  Nice.

The last big panel I just had to see was "Skepticism in Education."  It was moderated by JREF president D. J. Grothe and included Matt Lowry (The Skeptical Teacher), Daniel Loxton (Jr. Skeptic), Dr. Pamela Gay (Astronomy Cast), Barbara Drescher (ICBS Everywhere), Kylie Sturgess, (PodBlack Cat) and Michael Blanford (Director of Educational Programs at the JREF).  Matt and Kylie get extra points for mentioning the great work of school librarians!  Some of the main points they discussed will not be a surprise to anyone interested in teaching real critical thinking.  They talked of teaching students to use multiple lines of evidence.  They talked of there being more than one way to an answer.  They talked of letting students follow their enthusiasm and mess with things to see what they can come up with, that, as Drescher put it, "The natural world is discoverable."  My two favorite quotes:  "Kids dig monsters!" from Loxton and "I like to ask my students what is a unit of chi?" from Lowry.

A great, thoughtful and inspiring round of discussions.  Check out their sites for more.

Astronomy Cast

James Randi Educational Foundation

Joe Nickell

Junior Skeptic Magazine

Mystery Investigators

National Science Center

PodBlack Cat

Skepchicks

The Skeptic Zone

Skeptrack 2010

Token Skeptic

Critical Thinking Sunday: Mosque Edition

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Extremist Makeover - Homeland Edition
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Critical Thinking Sunday: Motivation Edition

I posted a Daniel Pink talk before along these lines, but I love these little animated things. He's talking about economists and business and profit motives, but I hear school discipline and management. Se what you think. How could you use this information with your students/children/life?

Don't Listen, Kids!

So I haven't read this book, but a 6th grader acquaintance of mine has Listen! by Stephanie S. Tolan on his summer reading list.  Looks like an uplifting story about a grieving and injured girl who makes an "almost psychic connection" with a stray dog.  My friend seemed to be enjoying it for the most part and it sounded fine.

But then I got a gander at the extras in the back of the book, which include a short how-to by the author on trying to actually try to get a psychic connection going with "your animal companion."

My friend and I had to giggle over that nonsense.

Listen!

Critical Thinking Sunday: Realism

Critical Thinking Sunday: 2012 Edition

Neil de Grasse Tyson debunks the silly 2012 doomsday myth in a provocative video from the World Science Convention.  And he does it well.

"As an educator,it's my duty to empower you to think so that you can go forth and think accurate thoughts about how the world is put together inoculating you against the charlatans out there who'll exploit your ignorance on anything they possibly can."

Critical Thinking Sunday: Manga Edition

Meant to post this a while ago, but just re-found it.  What I know about manga wouldn't fit in a thimble, but I love this because it shows that you can really do just about anything and promote critical thinking.



(via Phil)

Sunday Reading

I don't have much to say this week.  I'm too mesmerized and horrified by the constant flow of oil shown in the sidebar.  I'm also spending the weekend decompressing from the last week of school and enjoying my family.

This summer, I will read books.  I'm not getting an iPad or a Kindle or signing up for Facebook or Twitter.  I'm going to try to read more books.  I'll still get online.  I like frisson as much as anyone, but I'm going to be a librarian and I want to read books.  The quest for frisson by Roger Ebert.

Doug Noon sums up some of the feelings associated with the catastrophe in the Gulf in his post, Lost Offshore Oil Rig Blues.

Oh, and for Critical Thinking Sunday, here are some local events to consider: Two notable skeptics appearing in Atlanta in June.

Have a great week and an excellent summer.

More Martin Gardner Tributes

Daniel Loxton really sums it up well in this post.

And here's a tribute to Martin Gardner from Douglas Hofstadter, author of Godel, Escher, Bach and other remarkable books:

This is really a sad day. Not so much sad that Martin died, since we all knew it had to come pretty soon, but sad because his spirit was so important to so many of us, and because he had such a profound influence on so many of us. He is totally unreproducible -- he was sui generis -- and what's so strange is that so few people today are really aware of what a giant he was in so many fields -- to name some of them, the propagation of truly deep and beautiful mathematical ideas (not just "mathematical games", far from it!), the intense battling of pseudoscience and related ideas, the invention of superb magic tricks, the love for beautiful poetry, the fascination with profound philosophical ideas (Newcomb's paradox, free will, etc. etc.), the elusive border between nonsense and sense, the idea of intellectual hoaxes done in order to make serious points (for example, one time, at my instigation, he wrote a scathing review of his own book "The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener" in "The New York Review of Books", and the idea was to talk about the ideas seriously even though he was attacking the ideas that he himself believed in), and on and on and on and on. Martin Gardner was so profoundly influential on so many top-notch thinkers in so many disciplines -- just a remarkable human being -- and at the same time he was so unbelievably modest and unassuming. Totally. So it is a very sad day to think that such a person is gone, and that so many of us owe him so much, and that so few people -- even extremely intelligent, well-informed people -- realize who he was or have even ever heard of him. Very strange. But I guess that when you are a total non-self-trumpeter like Martin, that's what you want and that's what you get. And so perhaps it's all for the best that he remains sort of hidden behind the scenes, known only to a special set of people. Anyway, thanks very much for forwarding to us the remarks by Randi -- very touching, very very good. Yours -- Doug

Martin Gardner, the Mathemagician

This is the first part of a 46-minute documentary on Martin Gardener (via Podblack). It links to the other 4 parts and is well worth your Sunday morning to watch them all.

It's strange because just the other day one of the teachers in the gifted program sent out an interesting little math puzzle through the school email. It immediately made me think of the work of Martin Gardener.  How could it not?  As John Tierney states in this appreciation written this past fall, Gardner "has probably introduced more people to the joys of math than anyone in history."

I also used his wonderful Annotated Alice back in college for a class I took on the Carroll books.  (Yes, I took a whole class just on Alice in Wonderland.)

The Martin Gardner Wikipedia entry.

Martin Gardner 10/21/14 - 5/22/10

Someone on Twitter said the world is a little less smart now, but I disagree.  He shared with us all of his work and inspired so many that it is a bit more smart because of him.

Critical Thinking Sunday: How to Teach

Notice I didn't name this post "How to teach math."  Dan Myer has a great blog that makes math fun.  This is how we should teach everything.  I've been trying to "be less helpful" to my own daughter's questions and it's amazing to see what she can figure out on her own with just some simple questions and prompts.  I gotta take these ideas and somehow leverage them into getting kids (and teachers) exited about reading...

Snopes Strikes Again

In this article in the NYT, "Debunkers of Fiction Sift the Net" we get another insightful look at the work of Barbara and David Mikkelson of Snopes.com (previous post) along with mentions of Factcheck.org and Politifact.com which are becoming more and more necessary as partisan sniping seems to get worse all the time with facts being the first victims.

For the Mikkelsons, the site affirms what cultural critics have bemoaned for years: the rejection of nuance and facts that run contrary to one’s point of view.

“Especially in politics, most everything has infinite shades of gray to it, but people just want things to be true or false,” Mr. Mikkelson said. “In the larger sense, it’s people wanting confirmation of their world view.”

Children Do Not Read Horoscopes!

(via PodBlack)

via onegoodmove

Critical Thinking Sunday

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Sceptic challenges guru to kill him on live TV from TimesOnline

(tip to Norm)

Don't believe the star ratings at Amazon. Book bullying with Amazon Stars. Creationists use the same tactic on evolutionary biology books. Best strategy: ignore amazon reviewers and read the paid professionals.

And the best way to raise a critical thinker? Read together. A Father-Daughter Bond, Page by Page