Thursday, May 21, 2009
Friday, May 8, 2009
Final Exam
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
After A Word From These Sponsors...
- The first is about the underlying intellectual dishonesty in even the most honest of ad campaigns.
- By the way, if you're into advertising, that entire blog is great. I'm a bit biased, though, since I used to work with the guy who writes it.
- Here's a radio interview with the director of FactCheck.org, a great website devoted to debunking claims in political ads.
- I also used to work with the guy who interviewed FactCheck's director. Yup, I'm a pretty big deal.
- I wish those fact checking websites made a difference. Actually, I just wish they didn't hurt their own cause. Silly humans and your naturally biased minds!
- Here's the dirty secret on how news is made.
- Lots of people worry about conservative or liberal news media bias. But there are several interesting biases that are much less talked about. Here's a discussion of the bias toward anything that's dangerous or newsworthy.
- Here's an interview with a scientist who claims that similar biases exist in scienctific research journals.
- What's so important about news, anyway? Here's an interesting argument against caring so much about current events.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Own Our Ignorance
Other sincerely awesome stuff from them is available at Maximum Fun.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Stubborn = Intellectually Dishonest
Getting us to care is the real goal of this class. We should care about good evidence. We should care about it because it's what gets us closer to the truth. When we judge an argument to be overall good, THE POWER OF LOGIC COMPELS US to believe the conclusion. If we like an arg, but still stubbornly disagree with its conclusion, we are just being irrational.
This means we should be open-minded. We should be willing to let new evidence change our current beliefs. We should be open to the possibility that we might be wrong. This is how Todd Glass puts it:
Here are the first two paragraphs of a great article I read in the Fall on this:
Ironically, having extreme confidence in oneself is often a sign of ignorance. Remember, in many cases, such stubborn certainty is unwarranted.Last week, I jokingly asked a health club acquaintance whether he would change his mind about his choice for president if presented with sufficient facts that contradicted his present beliefs. He responded with utter confidence. "Absolutely not," he said. "No new facts will change my mind because I know that these facts are correct."
I was floored. In his brief rebuttal, he blindly demonstrated overconfidence in his own ideas and the inability to consider how new facts might alter a presently cherished opinion. Worse, he seemed unaware of how irrational his response might appear to others. It's clear, I thought, that carefully constructed arguments and presentation of irrefutable evidence will not change this man's mind.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Homework #3
- First, briefly explain the ad. If you don't want to summarize it yourself, you can attach it if it's from a newspaper or magazine, or transcribe it if it's a commercial on TV.
- Then, explain the argument that the ad offers to sell its product.
- Finally, list and explain the mistakes in reasoning that the ad commits.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
No, You're Not
One of my favorite blogs is Overcoming Bias. Their mission statement is sublimely anti-I'M-SPECIAL-ist:
This may sound insulting, but one of the goals of this class is getting us to recognize that we're not as smart as we think we are. All of us. You. Me! That one. You again. Me again!"How can we better believe what is true? While it is of course useful to seek and study relevant information, our minds are full of natural tendencies to bias our beliefs via overconfidence, wishful thinking, and so on. Worse, our minds seem to have a natural tendency to convince us that we are aware of and have adequately corrected for such biases, when we have done no such thing."
So in the next couple classes, at least, I hope you'll join me in my campaign to end I'M-SPECIAL-ism.
Friday, April 24, 2009
I'll Rationalize... Later
- Even the least superstitious of us believe in magic a little bit. I'm looking at you, sports fans.
- Recent moral psychology suggests that we simply rationalize our snap moral judgments. (Or worse: we undercut our snap judgments to defend whatever we do.)
- Humans' judge-first, rationalize-later approach stems in part from the two competing decision-making styles inside our heads.
- Why do we do it?
- How can we stop doing it?
- A website devoted to getting you to stop it.
- How to use it to your advantage.
- Is it really so bad? After all, da Vinci did it all the time.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Wished Pots Never Boil
- Malcolm Gladwell argues that stereotyping is unethical AND illogical.
- If you're a fan of The Secret, you should beware that it's basic message is wishful thinking run amok.
- Why don't we give more aid to those in need? Psychological impediments are at least partly to blame.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Impeding Us Since Birth
- Here's an article about a cool study on the relationship between risk and provincialism.
- Here's a summary of two recent studies which suggest that partisan mindset stems from a feeling of moral superiority.
- Here is a bunch of insightful videos of Daniel Kahneman, one of the pioneers of research into psychological impediments.
- Here's a review of a well-written book on the natural ways we're all irrational.
- Wikipedia's great, complete list of cognitive biases is available here.
- Julian Baggini runs through some really great fallacies, many of which we didn't discuss in class. He turned this series into a book: The Duck That Won the Lottery.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Group Presentations
Team Weed (Wednesday, 5/6/09)
Harry, Jim, Lil, Nathaniel, Rishawn
Team Wal-Mart (1st on Friday, 5/8/09)
Chris, Jeremy, Kirsten, Michael, Sharai, Terry
Team Vegetarian (2nd on Friday, 5/8/09)
Blake, David, Nicole C., Nicole W., Will
Also, I mentioned this in class, but just in case...
Attendance is mandatory for the group presentations on Wednesday (5/6/09), and Friday (5/8/09). It's the only time I'll be a stickler for it. Basically, I want you to show respect for the other groups presenting.One last thing: be sure to keep the presentations under 15 minutes. A 10-minute presentation is ideal, so we can have time for a short question-and-answer session afterward.
If you don't attend on either the days your group isn't presenting (and your absence isn't excused), your own personal presentation grade will drop. Each day you don't attend will lower your grade by a full letter grade.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Pimply Stress
This mini-article on acne and anxiety raises a combo platter of questions relevant to what we're going over in class.
1) Reverse cause & effect: Does acne cause stress, or does stress cause acne?What say you?
2) Questionable statistics: Do you trust the stat that students were 23 percent more likely to experience breakouts around the time of a test? Is it a good study? A reliable source? An undemanding stat?
3) Questionable use of statistics: If the above statistic is true, is it reasonable to conclude that anxiety causes acne? Or is there another plausible explanation?
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Team Wal-Mart
- Is Wal-Mart good for the working class? Here's a great debate between an economist who says yes and an activist who says no.
- How did Wal-Mart become the biggest retailer? Some point to Sam Walton's big idea that lowering prices would increase total sales and lead to higher profits. But another important development was how Wal-Mart streamlined its inventory process.
- Yes, Wal-Mart has low prices, and apparently the prices at other stores also go down in the long run when a Wal-Mart comes to town.
- Here's an animated map of the growth of Wal-Mart across America.
- Here are many of the common criticisms of Wal-Mart.
- Beware of false dilemmas! This isn't a zero-sum game: Wal-Mart doesn't have to raise its prices to raise its wages.
- Here's the full episode of South Park about a "Wall-Mart" coming to town. Below are some clips from the episode.
Team Blaze
- Here's a recent article celebrating the 10-year anniversary of the groundbreaking study on the medical value of marijuana.
- The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency's case against legalizing drugs.
- Another classic defense of keeping drugs illegal.
- A case for keeping pot specifically illegal.
- Legalize Pot? We Think Not!
- Criminalizing pot keeps cops from doing police work, and crowds prisons.
- The two faces of America's drug policy.
- What was the Supreme Court thinking?
- A radio show on drug legalization. And another on pot laws.
- Facts on weed, from an organization trying to stop the drug war.
- Slippery Slope? Pot doesn't lead to heroin!
The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
Better Know a Lobby - Drug Lobby | ||||
colbertnation.com | ||||
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Team Veggies!
- Vegetarians Still Love the Smell of Bacon
- David Foster Wallace: Consider the Lobster
- How to Cut Back on Meat Slowly
- What Is The Meatrix?
- Animal Research (Peter Singer's Sometimes OK with It!)
- Peter Singer on Michael Vick & Dog Fighting
- Audio Interview with Peter Singer
- Michael Pollan's "An Animal's Place"
- Is Worrying About the Ethics of Your Diet Elitist?
- Huge List of Resources on the Moral Status of Animals