Course in skeptisism for youth?

[Spirous]

Hi,

I am on the board of a secular humanist organization where I live in Norway and I do secular confirmation courses for youth locally (14-15 year old). This course is an alternative to the Christian confirmation held by the state church and today almost 20% of all kids choose our course every year. We try to educate them in ethical and humanist thinking - to help and support them in their passage from kids to adulthood. We have many good subjects that already are covered by the course (war & peace, humanism, ethics, youth & sex, human rights, freedom & responsibility, racism, world religions, etc), but I have always felt it lacked something on critical and skeptical thinking.

So, I wanted to ask here if anybody have some advice, either assistance to find something I can use if it already exists, or to develop something we can use.

The frame is as follows:

- Groups of 15 to 20 youth each (can combine groups if needed).
- 2 hours sessions in the evening.
- Leaded by one or more adults.
- Goal: Promote awareness on skeptical thinking through e.g. provoking examples, role play and discussion.

In working with youth I believe in planting seeds of thought. It is limited what you can get done and cover in 2 hours. But done right, with a good set of examples they can relate to and that surprise them, I believe it is possible to give them an experience they will remember.

It is very important to us that our confirmation course is not to teach the youth a set of opinions. We are only there to help and support them in finding their own unique self - learning to think like adult individuals. They are not taught that secular humanism is best, they are shown that there are many options out there and they are free to make their own decisions about their own lifes. That is why I believe it is so important that we also make them aware of how easy it is to be fooled and duped if we are not aware and know how (or dare) to think skeptically.

Thanks for listening, I hope someone here can help.

[drkitten]

Originally posted by Spirous
Hi,

I am on the board of a secular humanist organization where I live in Norway and I do secular confirmation courses for youth locally (14-15 year old). This course is an alternative to the Christian confirmation held by the state church and today almost 20% of all kids choose our course every year. We try to educate them in ethical and humanist thinking - to help and support them in their passage from kids to adulthood. We have many good subjects that already are covered by the course (war & peace, humanism, ethics, youth & sex, human rights, freedom & responsibility, racism, world religions, etc), but I have always felt it lacked something on critical and skeptical thinking.



One approach that has been tried in various guises in the States is the adoption of so-called "Socratic Seminars" as a teaching method. I happen to have a flyer from a course-for-teachers lying around, and can quote a bit from the sales literature :

"Socratic Seminars are a highly motivating form of classroom discourse that foster active learning as participatns explore and evaluate ideas, issues, and perspectives in a particular text. Socratic Seminars are about creating learning situations to (1) deepen student thinking via the use of the higher order thinking skills of analysis, synthesis, evaluation, and application, (2) promote effective listening and speaking skills, and (3) understand multiple "voices" in an open-ended environment."

Stripped of the marketing hype, they're basically open-ended group discussions of various written texts to promote inter-group critical thinking. I think they would fit well into the structure and time-frame you're discussing. I can't summarize the entire body of teaching theory that underlays them, but that's what the web is for, right?

[Joe_Black]

I just learned at a early age not to believe anything anyone told me, until i had gone out and tried/explorered it for myself in enough depth for me to arrive at clear conclusion on the subject. Not that i would disbelieve it i would just withhold judgement if i had not explorered it.

Remember not too confuse skeptisim and art of debunkery which is a totally different thing.

[Spirous]

drkitten: Thanks, I'll look into that.

Joe_Black: I agree that they are two different things. But what helped me start thinking more as a skeptic was to learn about examples of debunking. Things I had taken for granted turned out to be wrong. Those experiences are what pops up in my mind when my skeptical mind starts. They are my repeating reminders and I would like kids to have similar experiences to guide them.

[Joe_Black]

Just withhold judgement on something until a level of proof that you can agree on too yourself is presented. Most if not all people base 90% of there rational on emotions and use the 10% logic to justify that choice.

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by Joe_Black
I just learned at a early age not to believe anything anyone told me, until i had gone out and tried/explorered it for myself in enough depth for me to arrive at clear conclusion on the subject. Not that i would disbelieve it i would just withhold judgement if i had not explorered it.

Remember not too confuse skeptisim and art of debunkery which is a totally different thing.
So, if I tell you that you'll die if you jump out a 50th story window, you'd do what? Do you see that while you might have a bit of a beginning of a critical thinking toolkit, that there is far more to it than that?

[Joe_Black]

*amends* - trying things the are said to be potentially lethal.

[tamiO]

Originally posted by Joe_Black
*amends* - trying things the are said to be potentially lethal.

Don't mind Billy, he is our resident grouchy skeptic that can't help but insult everyone he can.

At least he didn't use his high brow shakespearianspeak with you and tell the "dear readers" anything.

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by tamiO


Don't mind Billy, he is our resident grouchy skeptic that can't help but insult everyone he can.

At least he didn't use his high brow shakespearianspeak with you and tell the "dear readers" anything.
Tami,

So you agree with this idea of skepticism as simply trying things on for size? How do you, then, get to the truth about disease unless you catch it? How do you get to the truth about the nature of space unless you go there?

Don't you get the sense of wrongness with this approach? The idea of parochialism that severely limits you? How about the flip side, then? That your experience can easily fool you? Placing truth's onus on personal experience is antithetical to everything science has learned in the past five centuries. It is antithetical to everything skepticism stands for.

When will you be ready to understand skepticism, instead of just proclaiming "I is one?" I am honestly ready to help explain it to you when you honestly take the potatoes out of your ears.

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by Joe_Black
*amends* - trying things the are said to be potentially lethal.

The "lethality" example was just in extremis, Joe. You should think about my post to Tami. Skepticism adopts the evidence standards of science. Implicit in that is the idea of intersubjective validation. Intersubjective is a clue of hit-you-over-the-head subtlety that no, your personal experience is not a reliable guide to the truth.

Now what, Joe?

[gjones2]

Originally posted by Joe_Black
Not that i would disbelieve it i would just withhold judgement if i had not explorered it.

I tend to take much of what I hear with a grain of salt too, and I feel much more comfortable once I've done some checking on my own (even in areas in which I have little personal knowledge). Still, what you're saying is practically impossible to put into practice.

I'd estimate that during a typical day moderately active persons are forced to make hundreds -- if not thousands -- of tentative judgments based on imperfect knowledge that they haven't personally confirmed. They may reserve judgment in the sense that they continue to say that they're not sure, but in a practical sense they're forced to make assumptions one way or another.

[T'ai Chi]

Originally posted by BillHoyt

Placing truth's onus on personal experience is antithetical to everything science has learned in the past five centuries.


Could you please list all the science you've done? Thanks.

[gjones2]

Originally posted by BillHoyt
Skepticism adopts the evidence standards of science.
I'm not sure that I understand what you mean by that. Strictly speaking, I don't see how an abstract noun like 'skepticism' can adopt anything. Do you mean any of the following statements?

All, most, or some skeptics adopt the evidence standards of science.
The word 'skeptic' has the generally accepted meaning of adopting the evidence standards of science.
Skeptics should or must -- there's a universal moral imperative -- adopt the evidence standards of science.
Being a skeptic is good, and goodness requires adopting the evidence standards of science.
According to my own set of values skeptics should adopt the evidence standards of science (or I'd like for them to).

Or do you mean something else?

By the way, I notice that you have 'Posts: 5556' next to your name, so I would assume that you've explained this before. I've just read a couple of your posts, though -- and liked them -- but wonder from the tone if there's something a bit authoritarian about your brand of skepticism (or at least about your definition of ‘skepticism’).

I reject the kind of skepticism that claims that we can't be certain about anything, therefore the ideas of the ignorant and erudite are all equally bad. On the other hand, I'm not willing to submit my judgment to any authority, including the currently prevailing scientific ones.

I go by what they say most of the time (because I have no better alternative and don't have the time or background to investigate many of their conclusions). Still, I don't trust them, especially when they step outside the sometimes narrow fields of their expertise. When some of them make mistakes in the statements that they make about subjects that I understand, I begin to doubt the accuracy of what they're saying about subjects that I don't understand.

My attitude is, yeah, they probably know much more about those subjects, but still...they might be wrong there too. :-)

[gjones2]

Originally posted by Spirous
So, I wanted to ask here if anybody have some advice, either assistance to find something I can use if it already exists, or to develop something we can use.

Introductory books on logic and critical thinking contain examples that you may be able to use. Maybe no particular book will be exactly right for your purposes, but some of the material they cover should be helpful.

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by gjones2

I'm not sure that I understand what you mean by that. Strictly speaking, I don't see how an abstract noun like 'skepticism' can adopt anything. Do you mean any of the following statements?

All, most, or some skeptics adopt the evidence standards of science.
The word 'skeptic' has the generally accepted meaning of adopting the evidence standards of science.
Skeptics should or must -- there's a universal moral imperative -- adopt the evidence standards of science.
Being a skeptic is good, and goodness requires adopting the evidence standards of science.
According to my own set of values skeptics should adopt the evidence standards of science (or I'd like for them to).

Or do you mean something else?
I mean skepticism, as a movement, adopts the evidence standards of science. Implicit in that, of course, is that all skeptics adopt the evidence standards of science.

By the way, I notice that you have 'Posts: 5556' next to your name, so I would assume that you've explained this before. I've just read a couple of your posts, though -- and liked them -- but wonder from the tone if there's something a bit authoritarian about your brand of skepticism (or at least about your definition of ‘skepticism’).

I reject the kind of skepticism that claims that we can't be certain about anything, therefore the ideas of the ignorant and erudite are all equally bad. On the other hand, I'm not willing to submit my judgment to any authority, including the currently prevailing scientific ones.
Neither should you submit your judgment to any single authority. You should, however, learn the process and you will come to trust the scientific process. And you need to recognize that scientific conclusions are all provisional. They are subject to change. We accept those changes, though, by running the new hypotheses through the same processes used before. That means, simply, one doesn't accept the argument from ignorance that "science's provisional nature means psi might exist, therefore, it does," or similar formulations.
I go by what they say most of the time (because I have no better alternative and don't have the time or background to investigate many of their conclusions). Still, I don't trust them, especially when they step outside the sometimes narrow fields of their expertise.
Here, you've returned to talking about single scientists or small groups. And, here, you're right not to trust them. When they step outside their expertise and expect you to accept their claims based on their authority (in the other field, of course), they are asking you to commit the fallacy of appeal to false authority. When some of them make mistakes in the statements that they make about subjects that I understand, I begin to doubt the accuracy of what they're saying about subjects that I don't understand.

My attitude is, yeah, they probably know much more about those subjects, but still...they might be wrong there too. :-)
But then what? If you stop here you don't get to the truth. If you continue with a conclusion ("they might be wrong about homeopathy, therefore I'm going to trust my homeoquack") you're squarely in an argument from ignorance. Do you see what I mean?

[gjones2]

Originally posted by BillHoyt
..."they might be wrong about homeopathy, therefore I'm going to trust my homeoquack"...
I'm more skeptical about that sort of stuff than I am about science. As I said, "I reject the kind of skepticism that claims that we can't be certain about anything, therefore the ideas of the ignorant and erudite are all equally bad."
But then what? If you stop here you don't get to the truth.
Life is short, and -- alas -- we can't confirm a large percentage of what we assume to be true. I try to investigate as much as I can in areas that interest me (and many areas do).
I mean skepticism, as a movement, adopts the evidence standards of science. Implicit in that, of course, is that all skeptics adopt the evidence standards of science.
I have no real problem with that but will just note that you're setting up a restricted meaning of 'skepticism' and 'skeptics' that doesn't correspond with the way many educated persons have used those words for a long time. For instance, there's ancient philosophic skepticism, and that seems to have had very little to do with what we now would understand as science.

I assume that you're speaking of a specific modern community of believers (or non-believers :-), and that your definition refers to it. That's a legitimate use of the word, I guess. I just didn't understand how you were using it. Thanks.

[T'ai Chi]

Originally posted by BillHoyt

I mean skepticism, as a movement, adopts the evidence standards of science. Implicit in that, of course, is that all skeptics adopt the evidence standards of science.


That is wrong, since skepticism is not a movement, but rather a way of thinking.

For example, a Christian can be skeptical towards the Taoist idea of Tao; that Christian would be a skeptic, but he still won't be adopting the standards of science when he states his belief that Jesus rose from the dead, etc.

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by gjones2
I have no real problem with that but will just note that you're setting up a restricted meaning of 'skepticism' and 'skeptics' that doesn't correspond with the way many educated persons have used those words for a long time. For instance, there's ancient philosophic skepticism, and that seems to have had very little to do with what we now would understand as science.

I assume that you're speaking of a specific modern community of believers (or non-believers :-), and that your definition refers to it. That's a legitimate use of the word, I guess. I just didn't understand how you were using it. Thanks.
Skepticism, as used on this board, does not refer to the ancient philosophic skepticism, but derives from David Hume. Do an internet search on skepticism and skeptical societies. You'll find my definition corresponds with the modern movement.

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by gjones2
I'm more skeptical about that sort of stuff than I am about science. ..
I assume that you're speaking of a specific modern community of believers (or non-believers :-), and that your definition refers to it.

Addressing these parts of your post more directly,

There is nothing more skeptical than science, so your first sentence above doesn't make much sense to me. Every conclusion in science is considered provisional, even those we deem to have 99.99999999% certainty. Nearly every paper reporting a corroboration or refutation of an hypothesis is met with other papers going at the same question with a different hypothesis or testing method. The aim is to question, to dig and to poke, turn it over and poke it again.

[drkitten]

Originally posted by BillHoyt


There is nothing more skeptical than science, so your first sentence above doesn't make much sense to me.



Well, first, there are lots of things more skeptical than science, starting with nihilistic solipsism, and proceding through malicious pantheism, where everything that is, is conscious and only creating apparent patterns in an effort to lure you into complacency that you understand the world.

But, philosophical psychopaths aside, there's also a difference between the opinion taken by science-as-a-field and the opinion an individual may hold about the field; I can justifiably be skeptical about most research on a particular field because I don't trust the researchers because they're particularly beholden to a specific funding source. This would, for example, describe Soviet-era biology (which was essentially apologetics for Lysenko), atomic health research in the 1950s (which was essentially apologetics for Edward Teller), or cryptography in the 1960s (which was essentially apologetics for J. Edgar Hoover). I could particularly claim that the "science" done was bad science in part because it was politically driven, and thus because most of the individual scientists were not permitted, individually, to be skeptical.


Every conclusion in science is considered provisional, even those we deem to have 99.99999999% certainty. Nearly every paper reporting a corroboration or refutation of an hypothesis is met with other papers going at the same question with a different hypothesis or testing method. The aim is to question, to dig and to poke, turn it over and poke it again.

Or so it would be in an ideal world. The "hypothesis" that fingerprints are good markers for individual identification has been passing unchecked and unchallenged for something like a century, and only recently have "scientists" been able to seriously study the question -- against the FBI's stonewalling, I might add.

So is it reasonable to be "skeptical" regarding the our ability to identify criminals, even if "science" says so? I would argue, yes. So, for that matter, would the court (United States vs. Mitchell discussed this issue extensively.....)

[gjones2]

My first sentence -- "I'm more skeptical about that sort of stuff than I am about science."
Originally posted by BillHoyt
There is nothing more skeptical than science, so your first sentence above doesn't make much sense to me.
As Drkitten points out, there are some things (or kinds of thinkers) that are more skeptical, but my first sentence just says that I myself doubt something else more than I doubt science. It's not about how skeptical science itself is.

I'm aware of the basic principle that all scientific findings should be open to revision. In general I believe that scientific methods are a good way to pursue the truth. I came to this forum because I'm usually sympathetic with those who respect science and expose the fraud and foolishness behind many non-scientific views.

Scientists are fallible human beings, though -- we've agreed about that -- and susceptible to the prejudices of their particular societies and of the age in which they live. Also as individuals they have ambitions and must work in environments in which they know that some hypotheses will be viewed with hostility. Once one view of a controversial question has become accepted by the vast majority of influential scientists, there's great pressure on students and young scientists -- who wish to advance -- to conform with the teachings of their elders. Unless they can come up with something extremely convincing (a major new finding, for instance) it's risky to go against the scientific establishment.

For instance, continental drift now seems to be pretty well accepted, but it wasn't when I was a child. I can recall a teacher using the apparent fit of the east coast of South America with the west coast of Africa as an example of mere coincidence. The idea that they could ever have broken apart was treated as a laughable example of how coincidence can lead us astray. By then -- unbeknownst to my teacher -- the theory was already breaking through at the university level, but it was considered laughable there too just a short time before.

This doesn't mean, of course, that every wacky idea that occurs to us must be treated with respect. (We agree about that.) It does illustrate, though, how near unanimity among scientists can be deceptive. It may have been good evidence that originally pushed scientists in a particular direction, but there's a bandwagon effect, so I always assume that the prevailing views -- while probably true -- are not quite as trustworthy as they seem.

I agree that the intersubjective validation that you mentioned earlier is important, but the pressure to conform is great, so independent findings are often not as independent as they should be. This causes me sometimes to hold on to my own views in opposition to what I'm hearing. (This is especially true in the social sciences, where I believe that many of the so-called studies are ideologically driven.)

[MacGuffin]

In reference to the original question in this thread. Best way to teach skepticism I have found is through set-up experiments where the kids expect one result and all come up with another one.

Randi did this on NOVA where he handed out fake horoscopes to everybody claiming they each got one tailored to them when in fact they all got the same one. Or as done elsewhere with a ouija board you could have them do it with blindfolds on and then turn it upside on them seeing the results. I wish I could find a book that had dozens of these types of experiments written up for teachers. I have just come up with a few of my own. Perhaps I will have to write that book one day. Some science texts have some good ideas here and there.

Put on a big show, with magic tricks, using the same type of persona of those who sell us bunk. I work with students in the same age group as yours and can't get them to listen to much but they always seem to be interested in doing a hands-on experiment and will remember the results.

Share and Enjoy - Aaron