Think: Why You Should Question Everything
Guy P. Harrison
Language: English
Pages: 300
ISBN: 1616148071
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Think more critically, learn to question everything, and don't let your own brain trip you up.
This fresh and exciting approach to science, skepticism, and critical thinking will enlighten and inspire readers of all ages. With a mix of wit and wisdom, it challenges everyone to think like a scientist, embrace the skeptical life, and improve their critical thinking skills.
Think shows you how to better navigate through the maze of biases and traps that are standard features of every human brain. These innate pitfalls threaten to trick us into seeing, hearing, thinking, remembering, and believing things that are not real or true. Guy Harrison's straightforward text will help you trim away the nonsense, deflect bad ideas, and keep both feet firmly planted in reality.
With an upbeat and friendly tone, Harrison shows how it's in everyone's best interest to question everything. He brands skepticism as a constructive and optimistic attitude--a way of life that anyone can embrace. An antidote to nonsense and delusion, this accessible guide to critical thinking is the perfect book for anyone seeking a jolt of inspiration.
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right? You don’t have to disprove the troll story. That might be impossible. We don’t know with absolute certainty that winged, green-skinned trolls do not exist. Maybe they do, and if they do exist, we don’t know that they don’t need money. We can’t even say for sure whether or not they look great dressed in red. But that’s okay. Doubt is enough. Being a good skeptic doesn’t mean you have to know everything. It certainly doesn’t mean you have to disprove every claim believers make. The burden
month. Log how accurate the horoscope is each day. At the end of the month, see if the horoscopes based on your “real sign” were accurate more often than the others. Share ideas and conclusions with others. This is a great way to get feedback from people who may know more than you about a given claim. The more good information, the better. Remember the goal is not to debunk or discredit. The goal is to get to the truth, whatever it may be. The scientific process is not perfect, but nothing else
made-up tale is the fact that no one in 1947 said anything about seeing an obvious spaceship or alien bodies being recovered and sent to Area 51 for study. All those juicy elements didn’t emerge and become standard components of the story until thirty years later. Only after UFO belief grew, Hollywood unleashed its barrage of alien sci-fi films, alien abduction stories were told, and the classic big-head and tiny-body alien became a prominent fixture in pop culture did the Roswell story morph
was so great, in fact, that Apollo 16 astronaut Charlie Duke says he couldn’t even see stars with his eyes while on the surface of the Moon.52 The flag waved. There is a film clip hoax believers say shows the American flag waving in the wind on the Moon. Of course, this could not have happened because the Moon has no atmosphere, no wind. But there it is, plain as day for anyone to see, flapping around. Clearly somebody opened a door in the studio or turned on a fan while the fake flag planting
Think about Weird Things. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2011. Shermer, Michael. The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies—How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths. New York: Times Books, 2011. Skeptic (magazine), www.skeptic.com. Skeptical Inquirer magazine, www.csicop.org/si. Skepticality (official podcast of Skeptic magazine), www.skepticality.com. Smith, Jonathan C. Pseudoscience and Extraordinary Claims of the Paranormal: A Critical Thinker’s Toolkit.