Occasionally Asked Questions
- What is this site?
- Why did you make this?
- This is mean. You're a jerk. I'm offended.
- You're closed-minded.
- Why is critical thinking important? Why should I bother?
- Why should I believe you?
- What's the harm in believing in nonsense?
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A bingo card generator, to spice up conversations with benighted individuals who use poor reasoning to argue their points.
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In having discussions and arguments with people on a variety of topics, one begins to see a pattern of sloppy reasoning emerging. Whether the person is promoting conspiracy theories, "alternative" medicine, creationism, UFOs, or any other silly topic, the same poor thinking and logical fallacies are readily apparent across all of these topics.
There is an overabundance of information out there, and it is difficult to know what to accept and what to reject. Arming yourself with the mental tools to determine fact from fantasy is possibly one of the most useful things you can do, and it will serve you for the rest of your life.
But, perhaps most important of all: it's funny.
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No, I'm using sarcasm to illustrate the pitfalls of poor reasoning skills.
Chances are, if you are offended, you have recognized some of your own arguments on one of these cards. It is not my intent to offend, but rather to illustrate, through humour, that to any reasonable person these arguments are simply ridiculous.
But never fear, for once you recognize the problem, it is a simple matter to overcome. Check the Resources page for some useful starting points.
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No, I simply won't accept any old thing as reality. However, I can be convinced to change my mind in any direction, given genuine evidence, and not:
- Divine revelation
- Pareidolia
- Blurry photographs
- Bald assertions
- Appeals to emotion
- Appeals to consequence
- Circular reasoning
- Pascal's Wager
- Coincidental correlation
- Special pleading
- Arguments from authority
- Arguments from volume
- Arguments from celebrity
- Arguments from force
- Arguments from insanity
These are not sound methods of knowing. They do not lead one closer to understanding reality as it actually is.
If you think about it, you automatically do the same thing. If someone told you that they have a unicorn in their garage, you would probably demand to see it before believing them.
There is an objective, external reality, that is comprehensible to all of us as humans. Finding out more about it is a noble goal, but in order to do that, you must first train your mind to cut through nonsense so you can get to the heart of the matter.
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We live in complicated times. As more and more information is distributed from various sources, it becomes very difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff.
By familiarizing yourself with the methods of analyzing information that you receive, and thinking everything through very carefully, you will be better able to determine the validity of the material.
Familiarizing yourself with the most common fallacies of reasoning, and learning to verify sources of claims will go far in helping you to discriminate between what is true and what is not, to keep yourself from being taken advantage of, putting yourself or your health in danger, or trusting or investing in scams.
This is invaluable, and it cuts like a razor right through nonsense, baloney, malarkey and coddleswap.
In fact, Carl Sagan even called his steps of reasoning, his Baloney Detection Kit.
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Put simply: you shouldn't.
However, if you investigate critical thinking on your own, I think it will speak for itself in its effectiveness, and you will be better armed to interpret information you encounter on a daily basis.
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Higher than you might think.
Tim Farley has put together an amazingly thorough database of direct harm caused by sloppy thinking at http://whatstheharm.net.
