Critical Thinking
Dr. Matt McCormick
Phil. 4
Spring, 2009
Section 9, TTh 10:30-11:45, MND 3009
Section 10, TTh 12:00-1:15, MND 3009
Office: Mendocino 3020 Office Hours email: mccormick@csus.edu Office phone: 278-7372
Webpage: www.csus.edu/indiv/m/mccormickm Philosophy Department, Mendocino 3032, 278-6424
There is no required text for the course. You will need reliable computer and Internet access for SacCT.
Course Description: This course is designed to improve one of the fundamental intellectual abilities, the ability to think critically. A well-trained critical thinker has a number of skills that we will develop and practice.
The knowledge and skills to be studied in this course include:
- Logical analysis and the identification and construction of arguments.
- Understanding logical relations, in particular the relations between premises and conclusions.
- Recognizing the more common forms of formal and informal fallacies.
- Evaluating the relevance, validity, and strength of arguments.
- Understanding the logical structure of deductive and inductive arguments.
- Awareness of the abuses of language, including connotation, ambiguity, and definition.
- Recognizing arguments in a variety of contexts, including other disciplines as well as in public affairs.
- Improve ‘information competence’: the ability to find out what one needs to know in order to have a responsible position on an issue.
- Acquiring an immunity to propaganda.
- Developing not only the capacity but the disposition to use good reasoning in a variety of contexts.
- Developing a sense of fairness and respect for opposing positions.
- Developing basic thinking skills that are applicable to a variety of academic subjects and students' lives as citizens, consumers, leaders, and moral agents.
- Improving our ability to argue fairly, and to handle bias, emotion, and propaganda.
Student Outcome Goals:
At the end of the course the student should have the ability to:
- Locate the argument in a passage.
- Detect errors of reasoning and explain how the reasoning is in error.
- Engage in cogent and respectful discussion.
- Analyze specific arguments for consistency and credibility.
- Apply good reasoning to issues in professional and personal contexts.
- Evaluate evidence and make appropriate inferences from that evidence.
- Determine what evidence is necessary and know how to find that evidence, if possible.
- Construct and defend arguments in support of or in opposition to particular propositions.
- Analyze and solve complicated strategic challenges.
Critical Thinking and the Paranormal: We will be considering arguments from a variety of sources such as the television news media, newspapers, politicians, statistical studies, science, parapsychologists, pseudo-science and so on. American pop culture provides lots of interesting critical thinking case studies. Among other things, we will be looking at a number of claims and arguments offered by parapsychologists, paranormalists, and pseudo-science as test cases for critical thinking analysis. Critical thinking skills can be applied to great advantage to topics like ESP, clairvoyance, astrology, chiropractic, homeopathy, ghosts, unusual creatures like Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, alien visitations, and so on. We will conduct some experiments in class, including a test for astrology. This test will give us an opportunity to analyze and evaluate the scientific method as a method for arriving at true, well-justified beliefs.
Student Assessment: Students' abilities to meet these outcome goals will be evaluated with WebCT assessments, a midterm exam, a final exam, and class attendance and participation.
Grading: There will be 12 WebCT assignments given throughout the semester (5% of the course grade each=60%). There will be a Argument Strength homework assignment (7%) and an Argument Reconstruction Homework assignment (8%). And there will be a midterm exam (10%) and a final exam (10%). Class attendance and participation will count for 5% of the grade.
WebCT quiz assessments: 12 @ 5% each = 60%
Strength Homework Assignment 7%
Reconstruction Homework Assignment 8%
Midterm Exam 10%
Final Exam 10%
Class Attendance and Participation 5%
Some Advice about the WebCT assessments: The quizzes on WebCT are designed to assess student's mastery of concepts, techniques, and content that is presented in lectures and in the book. They are also designed to teach--later quizzes depend upon former quizzes, they are progressively harder, and they focus on different aspects of the various critical thinking skills we are trying to learn. The quizzes are timed, usually an hour long, and they are not repeatable. They are also only availble to be taken for a limited time. So plan accordingly and be thoroughly prepared when you begin the quiz.
Readings
Week 1-(Jan. 27 and 29)
First class: Introduction, Syllabus, Policies
Second class: The Basic Elements of Argument.
Assignment: WebCT Quiz 1: Consistency1. Available from Thursday, 3:00 until the following Thursday, 9:00am. Two attempts.
Week 2- (Feb. 3 and 5)
First class: no meeting
Second Class: Validity
Assignment: WebCT Quiz 2: Validity Quiz 1 Available from Thursday, 3:00 until the following Thursday, 9:00am. Two attempts.
Week 3- (Feb. 10 and 12)
First class: No meeting
Second class: Validity continued.
Assignment: WebCT Quiz 3: Validity Quiz 2 Available from Thursday, 3:00 until the following Thursday, 9:00am. Two attempts.
Assignment: WebCT Quiz 4: Validity Reverse Quiz 1. Available from Thursday, 3:00 until the following Thursday, 9:00am. Two attempts.
Week 4- (Feb. 17 and 19)
First class: no class
Second class: Cogency
Assignment: WebCT Quiz 5: Cogency Quiz 1 Available from Thursday, 3:00 until the following Thursday, 9:00am. Two attempts.
Week 5- (Feb. 24 and 26)
First class: no class
Second class: Deductively Strong Arguments
Assignment: WebCT Quiz 6: Find the Conclusion Quiz Available from Thursday, 3:00 until the following Thursday, 9:00am. Two attempts.
Week 6- (Mar. 3 and 5)
First class: no class
Second class: Inductively Strong Arguments
Assignment: WebCT Quiz 7: Deductive and Inductive Strength Quiz Available from Thursday, 3:00 until the following Thursday, 9:00am. Two attempts.
Assignment: Strength Homework due. Due by Friday, 3:00 in my office (MND 3020)
Week 7- (March 10 and 12)
First Class: no class
Second class: Reconstructing Arguments
Assignment: WebCT Quiz 8: Argument Analysis Available from Thursday, 3:00 until the following Thursday, 9:00am. Two attempts.
Week 8- (March 17 and 19)
First Class: no class
Second class: Reconstructing Arguments and Critically Evaluating Arguments
Some documents in SacCT are relevant to the concepts covered by the Disproving Claims Quiz for this week. Study:
Conditional Reasoning document in the Validity and Cogency folder, and
Critical Evaluations document in the Critically Evaluating Arguments folder.
Assignment: WebCT Quiz 9: Disproving Claims Quiz Available from Thursday, 3:00 until the following Thursday, 9:00am. Two attempts.
Assignment: Argument Reconstruction Homework. Due Friday by 3:00 in my office (MND 3020).
Week 9- (March 24 and 26)
First Class: no class
Second Class: Critically Evaluating Arguments concluded, review.
Midterm: WebCT Note: ONE try on the midterm--1 hour time limit.
Available from Thursday,
March 26, 3:00 pm until Thursday, April 2, 9:00am.
Week 10 (March 31 and April 2)
Spring Break
Week 11- (April 7 and 9)
First Class: no class
Second class: Critical Thinking: Pseudoscience and the Paranormal.
Presentation: Evaluating the Claims of Alternative Medicine
Readings: Paranormal and Pseudoscience Articles
The Placebo Effect: http://www.humphrey.org.uk/papers/2004Placebo.pdf
Placebo, Children, and Professional Ethics
Assignments: WebCT Quiz 10: Note: one attempt only on this quiz Paranormal and Pseudoscience Quiz 1 (questions on reading linked above.) Available from Thursday, 3:00 until the following Thursday, 9:00am.
Week 12- (April 14 and 16)
First Class: no class
Second class: Pseudoscience and the Paranormal continued.
Reading: Paranormal and Pseudoscience Articles
Magical thinking in Complementary and Alternative Medicine: http://www.csicop.org/si/2001-11/alternative.html
An Investigation into Alleged "Hauntings": http://www.psy.herts.ac.uk/wiseman/papers/BJP-hauntings.pdf
More on Magical Thinking: http://www.csus.edu/indiv/m/mayesgr/ScienceValues.htm#Magical%20Thinking
Richard Dawkins: The Enemies of Reason
Assignments: none
Week 13- (April 21 and 23)
First Class: no class
Second Class: Statistical Arguments
Assignments: WebCT Quiz 11: Statistical Arguments Quiz 1 Available from Thursday, 3:00 until the following Thursday, 9:00am. Two attempts.
Week 14- (April 28 and 30)
First Class: no class
Second class: Correlation Arguments.
Assignments: WebCT Quiz 12: Correlations Quiz 1 Available from Thursday, 3:00 until the following Thursday, 9:00am. Two attempts.
Week 15- (May 5 and 7)
First Class: no class
Second class: Causal Arguments
Assignment: none
Week 16- (May 12 and 14)First Class: no class
Second class: Last day of class: Causal Arguments concluded, review
Assignments: WebCT Quiz 13: Causal Arguments Quiz 13 Available from Thursday, 3:00 until the following Thursday, 9:00am. Two attempts.
Final Exam: Final in WebCT open from Monday, May 18 8:00am through Friday, May 22, 5:00pm. Final Exam on WebCT Note: One attempt only on the final, 2 hour time period.
Research on biases, mistakes, and bad reasoning:
Pronin, Gilovich, and Ross, Objectivity in the Eye of the Beholder: Divergent Perceptions of Bias in Self Versus Others:
http://www.psych.cornell.edu/sec/pubPeople/tdg1/Pronin_Gilo_&_Ross_05.pdfThe Myth of the Hot Hand: http://www.psych.cornell.edu/sec/pubPeople/tdg1/Gilo.Vallone.Tversky.pdf
Pronin, Berger, Mouluki, I'm Not a Conformist: http://weblamp.princeton.edu/~psych/psychology/research/pronin/pubs/2007Conformity.pdf