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How to Think about Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New Age
This brief, inexpensive text helps the reader to think critically, using examples from the weird claims and beliefs that abound in our culture to demonstrate the sound evaluation of any claim. The authors focus on types of logical arguments and proofs, making "How to Think about Weird Things" a versatile supplement for logic, critical thinking, philosophy of scie...more
Paperback, 335 pages
Published
December 5th 2007
by McGraw-Hill Companies
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I've often wondered how my life might have been different if I had been given a good course in critical thinking skills in high school or college. Had I been so fortunate, this book would have been the best text I could imagine for such a course.
A lot of the information covered here was familiar to me from other reading I've done in the last few years, but this book is by far the most comprehensive collection of all of the things one needs to know to effectively evaluate the ideas...more
A lot of the information covered here was familiar to me from other reading I've done in the last few years, but this book is by far the most comprehensive collection of all of the things one needs to know to effectively evaluate the ideas...more
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I'm still fuming a little over this book, though I think that has a lot to do with where I am in my relationship with science and critical thinking: it can be very hard to read texts that say things that you have only just recently abandoned in yourself.
That being said, I believe that there are things that are very weird to think about, that can distort our sense of where the boundaries of reality are, things that seem irreconcilable with other things we believe, great internal and extern...more
That being said, I believe that there are things that are very weird to think about, that can distort our sense of where the boundaries of reality are, things that seem irreconcilable with other things we believe, great internal and extern...more
How to Think About Weird Things was recommended as a primer on diagnosing Woo by Orac over at Scienceblogs. As someone who finds himself more and more irritated by irrational thinking (despite my own gaping biases that lead to it), I was really interested in reading this book. Thus, I read a text book for fun. Sigh, I think there’s a new level of nerdiness there.
Schick and Vaughn lay out a number of key arguments for how and why one should wield the tools of critical thinking to unde...more
Schick and Vaughn lay out a number of key arguments for how and why one should wield the tools of critical thinking to unde...more
Part of evaluating an unusual claim is to control our tendency to believe or disbelieve without good reason.
How to think about Weird Things by Theodore Schick & Lewis Vaughn
How to think about weird things is a nice little primer into how to apply critical thought to extraordinary claims about the world around us. It was enjoyable and light yet still thought provoking and informative although I did find that it got mired and slowed when debating specific issues. I would have p...more
How to think about Weird Things by Theodore Schick & Lewis Vaughn
How to think about weird things is a nice little primer into how to apply critical thought to extraordinary claims about the world around us. It was enjoyable and light yet still thought provoking and informative although I did find that it got mired and slowed when debating specific issues. I would have p...more
Kate
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review of another edition
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review of another edition
Recommends it for:
anyone who wants to think critically...or likes to believe everything they read, like me
Shelves:
read-for-school
This book literally teaches you how to think about weird things. It goes step by step through applied critical thinking to help you rebuff every new-age, esoteric, psychical or alien phenomena you can think of. Not your idea of fun? It doesn't mean you still can't believe in some of these things, it just gives you a more scientific framework for thinking about them. It explains seemingly mysterious phenomena like spontaneous human combustion, divining, and the Amityville Horror, and tells you wh...more
I used this as a textbook when I taught critical reasoning. It's about as entertaining a book on the subject as one could find, and includes a lot of epistemology, informal logic, and philosophy of science. And who wouldn't want to be able to give an informed answer when asked why exactly UFO reports are unworthy of credence?
Excellent! I wish every high school student in America would read this book - but that would make life a lot harder for legions of politicians, hucksters, and scam artists. I believe the single biggest failing of American education today is its focus on memorization and regurgitation, along with just enough basic arithmetic to work at WalMart, and its total neglect of critical thinking skills.
If you have children or grandchildren in their teens or twenties, give them this book! Research ...more
If you have children or grandchildren in their teens or twenties, give them this book! Research ...more
this is the best book out there i've read (and i've read like a ton) specifically about the paranormal. still too naive realist-ish sometimes but there's no skeptic textbook so far that isn't... easy to understand and interesting.
Controversial debates and theories explained in a manner easy to understand. There are some points I don't agree with. But overall, the purpose of the book which is to help me develop my ability to critically think and argue, has been accomplished.
Interesting but certainly not bulletproof; however, most of the analysis is MUCH less biased than the Physics instructors that assigned it as a class text book..
A worthwhile textbook on critical thinking, written for the modern audience without focusing on pointless abstractions.
remote viewing is creepy and so is the CIA...wheres scully when we need her!?
A horribly misnamed book given to me by my collegiate son who had it assigned in a class. It is rather a superb little book on the art and skill of critical thinking which probably explains the sexy title for an otherwis sexless topic. In my humble, yet accurate opinion, every one should read this book or take a class somewhere that teaches this stuff. Hard to imagine how someone could sort out the propaganda and lies in advertising and its close relative, politics, wihtout these tools.
Sloppy thinker? Don't know how to think? Think you're smart? Read this and get the truth. Great book on understanding our biases and the brain washing we do to ourselves. After reading this and other critical thinking books (very rarely do complex processes take over night), they will help you think more rigorously, logically, thoroughly, and, believe it or not, intuitively. Great read. Some very interesting case studies to go along with your critical thinking education here. Great stuff.
It was great to start out with, but barring "Bonfire" this summer I think I'm gonna lay aside the serious reading and fall headlong into fiction... at least I plan to do so before summer school starts. ;)
I never finished reading this book, mostly because it was preaching to the choir, and I got bored. I may give it another chance, if I ever have the time.
Just what the title says. How to be a critical thinker and not be sucked in by all sorts of unproven ideas and theories.
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