-=> Björn Felten wrote to Michiel van der Vlist <=-

 BF>   A lot of people have not been taught critical thinking at school.
 BF> They believe everything they are being told. Inject bleach or stick a
 BF> UV light up your ass to cure you from COVID-19, the election was
 BF> rigged, USA is a democracy (blissfully unaware of Gerrymandering and
 BF> Electoral College) and so on.

Two experiences that I benefited from was 1) a critical thinking class in 
college that included a debate piece as well as dissecting various attempts 
to manipulate the reader, the Skeptic's board (a BBS in the San Francisco 
Bay Area) in the 1990s, and the old Fido SKEPTIC echo.

There's a lot to be said for questioning claims and asking for citations or 
backup - that shows the true basis of the claim.  Too many debates online 
fall into buckets similar to these.

1. The claimant has a solid reference backing up their claim.

2. The claimant cites an obscure web source that either validates a portion 
of their claim, doesn't validate it at all (and they expect you not to read 
it!)

3. The claimant states that their claim is so prevalent that it doesn't 
require validation - or they claim that there are so many citations out 
there that they leave the proof of their claim up to you.

or 

4. (insert organization here) is in bed with mainstream media, and since you 
don't read the same web sites the claimant does, you're ill-informed.


It's gotten pretty predictable.





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