When Critical Thinking Proponents Fail to Think Critically

Posted on March 28, 2013 by zoeweil
Image courtesy vipez/Flickr.

For the past several years I’ve been reading lots of books about why we often believe so many unsubstantiated things.

Part of this reading is due to my fascination with human belief systems – something I’ve pursued for decades and which compelled me to study world religions at Harvard Divinity School. Part of it is due to my commitment to find a good book on critical thinking to include in our graduate programs at the Institute for Humane Education. And part of it is because I want to understand how to better teach, inspire, and ignite critical thinking myself, because not only are critical and creative thinking hallmarks of humane education, but also because I don’t think we’ll be able to solve our gravest challenges if young people don’t learn to think critically and creatively.

I’ve written about critical thinking many times (such as here, here, and here), but I’ve yet to find the perfect book to include in our graduate programs. Over the weekend I began a book titled Hoaxes, Myths and Manias: Why we need Critical Thinking. I had high hopes. This book seemed to have all the right ingredients. But very quickly I read this paragraph:

“Possession of emotions is one of the things that defines us as people. While other animals may be said to have moods, instincts, or even thoughts, the human animal is the only one with true emotions as we know them. We experience avarice and anger, joy and jealousy, hatred and love….”

For such thoughtful authors — who are attempting to raise the bar on critical thinking and ensure that readers learn to distinguish fact from opinion and make reasoned arguments — to make such an unsubstantiated, and really quite ridiculous assertion (particularly when it doesn’t even advance their thesis), undermined for me their ability to do the job their book demanded and diminished their credibility.

Ironically, in this case, their statement actually stands in opposition to most of the false claims about human and nonhuman animal distinctions, which argue that animals may have emotions (one need not look far to witness jealousy, joy, and love among other species, not to mention fear) but cannot think.

I am trying to not judge the entire book by such an early statement, but it casts doubt on the authors’ own ability to think critically, not a good sign in a book on critical thinking.

But their flip comment about human v. animal emotions also raised a bigger issue for me. Too many sociologists, psychologists, cognitive scientists and others feel compelled to insert false and regularly debunked (and practically always different) claims about human uniqueness, even when entirely misplaced to advance their larger argument.

Until and unless these specious comments cease and these science-loving authors cite actual scientific studies of nonhuman animals, they can’t expect others not to embrace their own equally unsubstantiated beliefs.

~ Zoe

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm; Above All, Be Kind; and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDxDirigo talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“
My TEDxYouth@BFS “Educating for Freedom”
My TEDxYouth@CEHS “How to Be a Solutionary”

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The “Truth” About MLK, Jr.: Why We Must Teach Our Children to Think Critically

Posted on January 21, 2013 by zoeweil
Image courtesy of minasi.

Ever since I was a child, I’ve heard the injunction “Don’t believe everything you read.” This has been a warning that’s been difficult for me to heed. By nature I’m very trusting. I expect that others will tell the truth just as I endeavor to tell the truth. But years of study, research, graduate school, and the influence of my scientist husband, who’s the best critical thinker I know, have honed my own critical thinking skills, and I’m pretty good about not believing everything I read.

It’s even more important in today’s world – with “facts” at our fingertips through our various electronic devices – to be vigilant about assessing the truthfulness, accuracy, and bias of the sources to which we are quickly led when we seek information.

Let’s say that you are a high school student asked to do a report on Martin Luther King, Jr. And let’s say that you Google “Martin Luther King,” as I just did. The first URL that came up was Wikipedia. The second was his biography on the Nobel Prize website. The third was http://www.martinlutherking dot org, presumably a non-profit (.orgs are usually not-for-profits) dedicated to King and his work.

If you were a student you’d likely eschew Wikipedia, because you’ve been told to by your teachers, even though Wikipedia is often far more accurate than other sites, crowdsourced as it is. You might skip over the Nobel Prize site because it represents just one award in his life (albeit a great one). And there’s a good chance you’d land at the third site.

It turns out that martinlutherking dot org is a front for a white supremacy group, but you’d have to dig into the site to find this out. Clicking on a link for “The Creativity Movement,” that’s found on a PDF document, (or clicking on the small “Hosted by Stormfront” link at the very bottom) leads you to websites for an explicitly white supremacist movement. It’s likely that many students wouldn’t get that far, instead taking the pop quiz on the home page and “learning” all sorts of things about Martin Luther King, Jr., brought to you by a white supremacist.

It’s always been too easy to be misinformed, manipulated, and misled, but in today’s world it is even easier. Which is why teaching our children how to think critically, to research, to identify sources, to corroborate information, and to be truth-finders, not simply truth-seekers, is paramount. Without these skills, they will too easily be swayed by those sources that tell them what they want to know – of which there will be many.

This is another reason I always tell my students: Don’t believe a word I say.

~ Zoe

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDxConejo talk: “Solutionaries”
My TEDxDirigo talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“
My TEDxYouth@BFS “Educating for Freedom”

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No Mean Girls Here: The Kindness of High School Girls

Posted on January 14, 2013 by zoeweil

On December 7, I was slated to give another TEDx talk at Cape Elizabeth High School (CEHS) in southern Maine. This was a fabulous TEDxYouth event, and I was so honored to be part of it and to get to be the last adult speaker at the end of the day. The entire junior and senior class at CEHS attended, and loving teenagers as I do, I decided to join them for lunch.

The speakers were all provided with box lunches, so I grabbed mine and headed to the cafeteria. The students were just lining up and the tables were empty, so I sat down in the middle of the cafeteria at one of the round tables that seated eight. I figured students would get their meals and some would join me. I was wrong.

The tables around me all filled up. Some were all boy tables; some mixed, and the one directly in front of me was all girls. It was full, so a couple of girls asked if they could take one of the chairs at my table. I said sure. As I watched them squeeze into the now overfull table, one girl came up and asked if she could take another chair. There were four left at my empty table. I said “sure” again, but added with a smile (not in any guilt-trippy way, I promise), “No one’s going to sit here anyway.”

Moments later, I saw that girl lean over to talk to a couple of others. The next thing I knew, four of them picked up their trays, walked over to me and asked if they could join me. I was so happy to have their company. Kira, Haley, Sammy, and Casey sat down and introduced themselves. They didn’t know who I was, because I hadn’t yet given my talk, but were eager to learn about humane education. They were lovely. They were poised, friendly, compassionate, and bright. They spoke about their school in such positive ways. They talked about the lack of clicks and bullies. They talked about their dreams and interests.

I told the girls who joined me how glad I was that they did. I shared that I was finding myself wondering if I was getting a taste of what it’s like to be an ostracized girl, someone no one will sit with in the cafeteria. We commiserated about what that would be like. One admitted that she has a lunch period each week during a time when none of her friends have lunch and so she spreads her books around her and does homework, ensuring that at least she doesn’t appear ostracized.

Middle and high school girls have a reputation for being mean and gossipy. TV shows like Gossip Girl reinforce this stereotype. I well remember those girls in my own school who fit the stereotype. Even worse, I recall a couple of times when I was truly unkind, too. But this stereotype may have the unintended consequence of reinforcing itself, as it did in the Gossip Girl series when the new Queen Bee of the class felt compelled to be mean, against her desires and nature, to maintain her status. But as often as not, high school girls – like all of us – are kind, and this is the stereotype we should be reinforcing.

My conversation with these girls made my wonderful day at TEDxYouth@CEHS even better. And it reminded me that these lovely young women were not only already making a difference but were also poised to do great things in the world.

~ Zoe

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDxConejo talk: “Solutionaries”
My TEDxDirigo talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“
My TEDxYouth@BFS “Educating for Freedom”

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Rethinking Assumptions: Roman Sablin and Russian Eco-Consciousness

Posted on November 5, 2012 by zoeweil
Screenshot copyright Sustainable Ukraine.

I was in Krasnodar, Russia, this summer for a couple of days. As a foreign traveler, I was advised to drink bottled water, but it was frustrating to have to throw the bottles in the trash because I couldn’t find any place to recycle them. I was disappointed in the apparent lack of concern for the environment. So I was surprised to read an article on Roman Sablin in the Aeroflot magazine on the Russian airline on my way home.

In all my years of traveling on U.S. airlines, I’ve never read such an in-depth article on eco-consciousness. Roman Sablin is a philologist and artist who grew disturbed by the waste he and his friends were generating and launched an eco movement that would rival the most committed environmentalist anywhere in the world. He went beyond replacing his light bulbs and began shaving his hair to reduce water consumption when showering and became a vegetarian (in a country where vegetarianism is quite uncommon). He leads eco-seminars and has become “something of a celebrity” according to the profile. In fact, all the Russian TV stations have been to his eco-loft, as have the major newspapers and magazines.

Reading the article reminded me that things are sometimes not as they seem. Movements take different trajectories in different countries. Certain norms – like ubiquitous recycling bins in the U.S. – may mask a complacency, while a lack of such norms may potentially spur a more rapid, inventive movement.

While I don’t know how a restorative, healthy, and sustainable world will unfold; where it will take root most deeply and spread; or whose ideas will generate the largest shifts in systems, consciousness, and actions, it was good to see my own assumptions challenged by Aeroflot’s profile of Roman Sablin.

~ Zoe

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDxConejo talk: “Solutionaries”
My TEDxDirigo talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“
My TEDxYouth@BFS “Educating for Freedom”

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Be Kind: Everyone is Fighting a Great Battle

Posted on October 1, 2012 by zoeweil
Image courtesy treehouse1977
via Creative Commons.

Periodically, an essay I write elicits a lot of comments, and when that happens it’s a pretty sure bet that among the thoughtful responses will be a few comments full of vitriol. A recent essay, “Since other animals are predators, why shouldn’t we eat animals?”, was one of those. One responder wrote:

“I truly do feel that you should be free to eat poop. Please start immediately. With any luck for the rest of us in humanity, it will at the very least cut down your time on a keyboard.” 

This was mild (and at least vaguely amusing) compared to some comments I’ve received over the years. Every time I read such commentary, though, I always wonder: Who are these people who write such nasty things? Who resort to name-calling? Who are so full of hate? If I met them, would they be rude and nasty to me in person?

I doubt it.

The great majority of us treat each other civilly when we meet and interact. We are generally polite. But behind our screens and on our keyboards, such civility often eludes us. We feel free to spew our nastiest thoughts at one another. I know how it feels to want to pen my angriest, most judgmental thoughts. I have never written anything truly nasty, but I’ve been sarcastic and snide in writing. I used to make sure that I waited a few hours before sending a letter to the editor about something that made me angry or upset. Often, after calming down, I’d see that my writing wouldn’t advance my cause, that it was reactive, not productive; and I would then modify it before putting it in the mail.

But now our “letters to the editor” are instant responses in the comment sections of Internet sites. Many (most?) of us don’t even proofread our comments; don’t even read them through once before sending them out into the world to do their damage. And they do damage. They prevent real dialogue and discussion. They hamper deeper thought and reflection. They crush creative thinking and problem-solving. They create us and thems and foster hatred.

When next you read something that makes you angry, challenge yourself to respond, not react, with your very best, kindest, and most thoughtful communication skills. Imagine saying those same words if the recipient were looking you in the eyes. Use your words as a gift, not a punishment. Remember the saying: “Be kind, for everyone is fighting a great battle.”

~ Zoe

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDxConejo talk: “Solutionaries”
My TEDxDirigo talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

Get tickets now for the October 13 NYC debut of my 1-woman show — My Ongoing Problems with Kindness: Confessions of MOGO Girl – at United Solo, the world’s largest solo theatre festival.

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The Peter v. Paul Debate: Are We Too Optimistic (and Too Blind) About the Power (and Limits) of Technology?

Posted on September 3, 2012 by zoeweil

For my post today, I want to share Sailesh Rao’s blog post about two TED talks. Before reading Sailesh’s post, make sure to watch these two TED talks to which he refers in the first paragraph:

Paul Gilding: The Earth is Full

Peter Diamandis: Abundance is Our Future

When you’re done watching the talks, have watched the subsequent Peter/Paul debate, and have read Sailesh’s blog post, ask yourself: If you were to bring these talks and the questions and issues they raise to others to educate and launch discussion, what would you hope to achieve through such a conversation? What would you want such discussions to create? Where should we go from here?

~ Zoe

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDxConejo talk: “Solutionaries”
My TEDxDirigo talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

Get tickets to the October 13 NYC performance of my 1-woman show: “My Ongoing Problems with Kindness: Confessions of MOGO Girl.”

Like my blog? Please share it with others, comment, and/or subscribe to the RSS feed. 

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Replacing Fear of the Unknown with Curiosity

Posted on August 23, 2012 by zoeweil

I grew up in New York City. I didn’t have much access to the natural world, but when I did find myself in a park or the landscaped environs of the suburbs, I loved it. But I was also scared of the insects and animals I would find. Visiting a cousin who had a huge garden, I was almost immobilized with fear because of the hundreds of bees buzzing all around me. Once, in Central Park, I saw some boys digging up earthworms and those scared me too. On a suburban lawn, a teenager I admired caught a big black shiny cricket and that cricket terrified me. But it was when I went to sleepaway camp in Maine at age nine and discovered that there were bats who flew around inside our bunk at night that I thought I could not possibly bear it.

But each time, my fears were allayed by knowledge. I learned that the bees would not sting me, and I just needed to take care where I walked; that the earthworms were actually amazingly cool, transforming waste into fertile soil; that the crickets were completely harmless and were relatives of the grasshoppers I’d read about in storybooks and loved; and that bats could hear where I was with their sonar and would never choose to fly into me. I also learned that they’d be eating the mosquitoes that would otherwise be likely to suck my blood and leave me itchy at night. And so my fears abated, as they almost always do when we understand.

It’s not surprising we would be afraid of the unknown. Millions of years of evolution have prepared us to fear lots of things that might threaten us, and our fear is a good protector much of the time. But our unexamined fears cause a host of problems. They lead to bigotry and prejudice; insular behaviors and group-think; judgment and assumptions; stagnation and lack of creativity.

Our best corrective to unwarranted fear is curiosity. The more we can approach what is new and potentially frightening with an open and curious mind, the better our chances of learning and understanding rather than judging and assuming. And the greater the possibilities for living harmoniously and sustainably.

Today, try just being curious. Suspend your judgments and assumptions to the greatest degree possible and embrace your capacity to ask questions and learn. See what happens.

~ Zoe

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDxConejo talk: “Solutionaries”
My TEDxDirigo talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

Get tickets to the October 13 NYC performance of my 1-woman show: “My Ongoing Problems with Kindness: Confessions of MOGO Girl.”

Like my blog? Please share it with others, comment, and/or subscribe to the RSS feed.

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Occam’s Razor and Animal Cognition and Emotion

Posted on May 28, 2012 by zoeweil
I’m sometimes startled by the lengths to which some scientists will go in insisting that nonhuman animals cannot feel, think, plan ahead, mourn, etc. In a recent Wired Science essay, “Stone-throwing Chimp Thinks Ahead,” author Michael Balter cites psychologist Sara Shettleworth’s article denying that the chimp in question actually planned ahead when he gathered stones to throw at visitors. The actual language Balter uses is whether “some humanlike animal behaviors might have simpler explanations.”

Occam’s Razor, the principle of accepting the simpler theory or hypothesis over a more complex or convoluted one, is normally accepted as a worthwhile guiding approach to adopting explanations; yet when it comes to animals, scientists often go out of their way to refute the simplest explanation, which is that many other animals are able to think, feel, plan ahead, mourn, and so on.

Anthropomorphism can be dangerous and misleading, and readers of my blog know how much I appreciate the scientific method for determining what is true and what is not; yet it’s ironic that Occam’s Razor is so quickly abandoned when it comes to anything related to animal cognition and feeling.

Isn’t is simpler to assume that other mammals evolved to learn from experience, plan ahead (what else are squirrels doing when they store nuts for winter), and to feel? Descartes’ belief that a dog’s yelp was akin to a robotic program rather than an expression of feeling is preposterous to anyone who’s ever spent any time with a canine, yet such outdated opinions about animal emotions are still normative among many scientists. It seems both silly and unscientific to believe that humans are unique in our capacity to feel and think, as if we didn’t evolve, along with other mammals, to have these capacities for a purpose. Such assumptions seem more the purview of those who deny the reality of evolution than those who embrace science.

But things are changing. Jane Goodall, who was once excoriated for naming the chimpanzees she studied in Gombe, is now a widely respected ethologist. Other ethologists, like Marc Bekoff who wrote the wonderful book, The Emotional Lives of Animals, are published regularly in respected journals. And stories about chimps thinking ahead make sense to most of us, even as the citations of those who deny this ability seem odd, old-fashioned, and unscientific.

For a humane world,

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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“I have to return these because I’m having a girl”: Beyond Gender Identity

Posted on April 23, 2012 by zoeweil
Image courtesy of [F]oxymoron via Creative Commons.

I was with a friend who was exchanging some clothes at Target, and I overheard the person ahead of us in the returns and exchanges line explaining that she had to exchange a bunch of items because she found out that the baby she was carrying was a girl, not a boy, as she’d first been told.

She said she needed to get pink now instead of blue. She had purchased a big navy blue plastic bucket, a small turquoise throw rug, and a toy truck. Her new items were the same big plastic bucket, now in pink, a pink throw rug, and a tiny dress.

Although this woman’s actions were not unusual, I found myself startled by the attachment we still have to forced gender identification. Her baby won’t likely care much about the color of the throw rug and bucket for some time, if ever. Nor will she care one whit about the dress, which she will outgrow by 6 months old. And she might well have liked that truck in the years to come, but she probably won’t ever get one now.

I remember when my son was four, and we were going to paint his room. We let him choose the color. At the time, his favorite color was pink – bubblegum pink. Pink hasn’t been his favorite color for 13 years, but somehow, we never got around to repainting his room. It didn’t matter.

What does matter is whether this woman’s baby will be loved and cherished; whether her curiosity and wonder will be nourished; whether the world she grows up in will be fair and healthy and just and humane; whether she will be able to discern good from bad and become wise and generous; whether stores like Target will be filled with products and clothes that come at the expense of other children, other species, and the environment. And so much more.

I wish that mom-to-be had just kept her blue bucket and turquoise throw rug and truck and allowed the child she bears to lead her toward choices that reflect that child’s individuality, proclivities, and interests, and not those dictated by silly social norms.

For a humane world,

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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Avis Ex Machina or “I Can’t Believe That’s a Bird!”

Posted on February 29, 2012 by zoeweil
Image courtesy of corvidaceous
via Creative Commons.

Many years ago, my husband and I began noticing a strange recurrence in the woods. Periodically, we’d be walking along and hear the start of an engine, putt-putt-putt, followed by the revving up as the engine catches, followed by… silence. How odd. It was as if our distant neighbors (we live in rural Maine where dwellings are far apart) started up their chainsaws only to stop before actually using them.

What was especially weird was that this kept happening, on walks to the ocean by our house, and in the wilderness far from any people at all, and it always followed the exact same pattern: a slow start, the roar of the engine, and nothing. Why were there machines starting and stopping all over the woods? And why could I find no one else who’d ever noticed this?

Last weekend, my husband was listening to his bird song app on his iPhone, and he clicked on the Ruffed Grouse. Lo and behold, there was the machine noise, called “drumming,” that the male makes by rapidly flapping his wings while puffing out his chest. At long last, our mystery was solved.

After this discovery, I found myself thinking that on the one hand we’ve been pretty observant visitors to the woods. We’ve noticed a sound no one else we know has ever noticed. But on the other hand, I’m struck by the fact that in all these years, it took an iPhone app to identify the source of that sound, and that what we have been convinced had to be mechanical was actually just a bird, the size of a small chicken, flapping his wings. Reason and sleuthing should have led us to the Ruffed Grouse years ago, but we were easily led astray by our senses, which insisted that this sound was a human-made machine, however illogical this obviously was.

How easily we come up with faulty explanations for the unknown, believing in false premises, jumping to conclusions, becoming superstitious. But if we’re willing to persevere and allow our curiosity, coupled with our reason, to steer us toward truth, we may yet get there.

(Here is a link to hear and see the drumming of the male Ruffed Grouse yourself . You will need good speakers as the frequency is so low that most computers won’t do the sound justice.)

For a humane world,

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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