Futurology

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After a week of far-right rioting fuelled by online misinformation, the British government is to change the school curriculum so English schoolchildren are taught critical thinking skills to tackle it (www.telegraph.co.uk)

submitted 4 months ago by Lugh to c/futurology

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[–] streetfestival@lemmy.ca 19 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Canada here. I feel like I wasn't taught critical thinking, either directly (eg, how valid is an argument) or indirectly (eg, evaluating research), until undergraduate. High school didn't really tap critical thinking. Science and math were about learning skills, history was just memorizing a narrative, English was reading comprehension, writing ability, and literary theory.

Also, in the last 15-20 years, we've went from widely thinking that online sources are untrustworthy and that using Wikipedia was lazy to the mainstream never talking about being a critical user of the online world and people from students to politicians using chatgpt to write their assignments.

On another note, I wonder if susceptibility to far-right misinformation is purely a critical thinking issue and not also about a lack of cultural/intersectional self-reflection and awareness. I spoke to a family member recently (we're White), and he caught me completely off-guard by ranting about how White people are being erased (eg, no White people in a group of people in an ad he saw). I didn't know how to respond - I think that's an absurd concern - and I still don't, but his perspective seemed informed by a lack of more than just critical thinking

[–] conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works 7 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

On another note, I wonder if susceptibility to far-right misinformation is purely a critical thinking issue and not also about a lack of cultural/intersectional self-reflection and awareness.

So I read a lot of psychology by researchers looking at things like decision making and bias, and I've seen several of them acknowledge falling prey to the same things they research. Additionally, being better at logic makes you better at motivated reasoning.

Knowledge is absolutely valuable (and gives you tools to identify the failures after the fact, which has its own value), but your belief that self evaluation and a consistent effort to improve your process is also critically important is accurate. If you don't make the effort, the knowledge doesn't do a lot.

Edit: A source for the motivated reasoning, though it's something I've seen referenced by a lot of sources with a variety of different original research behind it.