A facebook friend wrote the article in the link below, and I decided to write a response to one passage in particular which I think is paritcularly relevant to today's political climate.
https://www.arcdigital.media/p/absol...Qf5p5jK22Bcw98
"In other words, in this critique, evidence alone is meaningless unless we have the right concepts that allow for their interpretation."
you have no idea how many headaches I would have been saved if more people understood this concept.
so often I run into people pulling this "wHeRe'S uR SoUrCe?" shtick, after I have already given them one. the source of your interpretation of a piece of evidence is your own experience and logical understanding. put another way, what they are really asking is "who told you to interpret it that way?", and that makes the assumption that we must rely on authorities to interpret evidence for us rather than learning to make decisions based on it ourselves.
after over half a century of a large chunk of the population getting university degrees, "critical thinking" has become a cliche, and, like all cliches, many people no longer really get what it means. the number of well educated people who don't get this concept is cause for concern, as an educated population unable to draw their OWN conclusions from evidence is, at best, a society of useless encyclopedias and, at worst, a society of highly obedient mimics.
""A little learning is a dang'rous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again."
~Alexander Pope
https://www.arcdigital.media/p/absol...Qf5p5jK22Bcw98
"In other words, in this critique, evidence alone is meaningless unless we have the right concepts that allow for their interpretation."
you have no idea how many headaches I would have been saved if more people understood this concept.
so often I run into people pulling this "wHeRe'S uR SoUrCe?" shtick, after I have already given them one. the source of your interpretation of a piece of evidence is your own experience and logical understanding. put another way, what they are really asking is "who told you to interpret it that way?", and that makes the assumption that we must rely on authorities to interpret evidence for us rather than learning to make decisions based on it ourselves.
after over half a century of a large chunk of the population getting university degrees, "critical thinking" has become a cliche, and, like all cliches, many people no longer really get what it means. the number of well educated people who don't get this concept is cause for concern, as an educated population unable to draw their OWN conclusions from evidence is, at best, a society of useless encyclopedias and, at worst, a society of highly obedient mimics.
""A little learning is a dang'rous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again."
~Alexander Pope