Lawrence Krauss on How to Develop Your Critical Thinking Skills | Big Think
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- Опубліковано 9 жов 2024
- Lawrence Krauss on How to Develop Your Critical Thinking Skills
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Strange answers aren’t inherently wrong, and satisfying answers aren’t inherently right, says Lawrence Krauss in this critical thinking crash course. The astrophysicist explains how principles of scientific skepticism can be applied beyond the laboratory; it can be a filter for the nonsense and misinformation we encounter each and every day. Here, he establishes a handful of core questions that critical thinkers ask themselves, which can be used to challenge your misconceptions and sense of comfort, question inconsistency, and think past your brain's evolved biases. Piece by piece, you can systematically remove nonsense from your life. Lawrence Krauss' most recent book is The Greatest Story Ever Told -- So Far: Why Are We Here?
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LAWRENCE M. KRAUSS:
Lawrence Maxwell Krauss is a Canadian-American theoretical physicist who is a professor of physics, and the author of several bestselling books, including The Physics of Star Trek and A Universe from Nothing. He is an advocate of scientific skepticism, science education, and the science of morality. Krauss is one of the few living physicists referred to by Scientific American as a "public intellectual", and he is the only physicist to have received awards from all three major U.S. physics societies: the American Physical Society, the American Association of Physics Teachers, and the American Institute of Physics.
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TRANSCRIPT:
LAWRENCE KRAUSS: One of my favorite quotes, which I've used in my writing, comes from the former publisher of The New York Times who said, "I'd like to keep an open mind, but not so open that my brains fall out." And that's the key point. We have to skeptically assess the information we receive, we can't be gullible because when we get a lot of information it's absolutely certain that some of that information is wrong and so we have to always filter what we get and we have to ask ourselves the following question: how open does my brain have to be to accept that information? Does it have to fall out? And by that I mean, when someone tells you something you have to ask: is this consistent with my experience? Is it consistent with the experience of other people around me? And if it isn't then probably there's a good reason to be skeptical about it-it's probably wrong. If it makes predictions that also appear to be in disagreement with things that you observe around you, you should question it. And so we should never take anything on faith. That's really the mantra of science, if you want, that faith is the enemy of science. We often talk about a loss of faith in the world today; you don't lose anything by losing faith. What you gain is reality.
And so skepticism plays a key role in science simply because we also are hardwired to want to believe, we're hardwired to want to find reasons for things. In the savanna in Africa, the trees could be rustling and you could choose to say, 'Well there's no reason for that,' or, 'Maybe it's due to a lion.' And those individuals who thought there might be no reason never lived long enough to survive to procreate, and so it's not too surprising we want to find explanations for everything and we create them if we need to, to satisfy ourselves, because we need to make sense of the world around us. And what we have to understand is, what makes sense to the universe is not the same as what makes sense to us and we can't impose our beliefs on the universe. And the way we get around that inherent bias is by constantly questioning both ourselves and all the information we receive from others. That's what we do in science and it works beautifully in the real world as well.
When you're presented with questions or answers about any problem there are a few questions you can ask yourself, that you should ask yourself right away. First of all, you can ask yourself, 'Do I like this answer?' And if you do you should be suspicious because you're much more likely to accept something that appeals to you whether it's right or not. So if you inherently like something in some sense that's a reason to be almost more suspicious of it, if you're a scientist. But then you can ask the question, when you're presented with information, is that information consistent with what I know already based on data I've taken about the world around me? And by data, it's not just scientists. If you're a child-all children do this-you put your hand in a flame, okay, ...
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".. You don't loose anything when you loose faith, what u gain is reality." love that!
What even is reality if not a construct of your brain perceiving this world. That's the backbone of most eastern spiritual beliefs, and with faith or guidance you can influence this. You tell me that is not reality.
"You don't lose anything by losing faith, what you gain is reality"___L.K.
#Kanye2020
I gained depression and nihilism too :D
Losing faith may cause you to feel sad and anger. It's like having a hole put inside everything you do. But the good news is that hole can be filled, you just need to figure out what to fill it with.
M3rc1fu7Mast3r - That's what he said.
Yeah, we know what that hole is filled with: arrogance and false humility
To be open minded is to seek patterns and relations.
In Japan they have the phrase, "Shoshin," which means "beginner's mind." Our "original mind" includes everything within itself. It is always rich and sufficient within itself. This does not mean a closed mind, but actually an empty mind and a ready mind. If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything. It is open to everything. In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind there are few.
Prof. Walter Kotschnig told Holyoke College students to keep their minds open-“but not so open that your brains fall out.”
He condemned the purpose of students who go to college merely to learn skill and urged his listeners to find the “real aim of education, to acquire a philosophy of life, intellectual honesty, and a constant search for truth.”
In a universe where nearly anything is POSSIBLE, Scientific Method is, by far, the best way to determine what is most PROBABLE! BTW, Dr. Krauss' "A Universe from Nothing" blew my mind!
yes I went through this process, and arguably still doing so. but when your faith eventually is replaced, reality is far more comforting in many ways. first my dreams were scary, then strange. this to me was a subconscious change over. it takes time, but it is most certainly worth it. thanks
A superb summary of critical thinking skills in six minutes, very well done Dr. Krauss and the filming/editing team at Big Think. From an overview on how to filter out incorrect information to a set of rules on how to steer oneself towards correct information, this was great. Also, the point about constantly being skeptical of ones own prejudices and biases is a very important one.
11th grade year I took a class called critical thinking... Two years later and I feel BLESSED.. That was legit the only class besides maybe CPR that prepared me for the real world!
"You don't lose anything by losing faith, what you gain is reality". That is a really important statement. I think many people see the opposite of faith as some kind of cynicism and despair. "I have lost faith in you", or whatever. But, to be cynical is not to be rational. That is as irrational as blind faith. A cynical person, by definition, draws the wrong conclusions and hence is irrational.
The Universe is under NO obligation to make sense to you.
I like this, you should be scientist supreme.
hainley simpson It's a Neil deGrasse Tyson quote. LOVE him.
Sigma
From overwatch lmaooo
I'm losing friends because of my forward thinking in science and nature, 🍏 but i will persevere and will try and leave this world in better place ❤
You haven’t lost friends Sugar. Tip your hat and thank them for getting out of your way
Is no one going to mention his Flying Spaghetti Monster pin?
The Dawkins Foundation was selling those pretty cheaply a few years ago, probably still are...probably still have mine lying around from my Reddit Atheism phase.
I was just thinking that. Top marks to you, young man.
You look disappointed about it?
thank you so much for pointing out the spaghetti monster pin
Does he have secret blind faith in the thing? Why keep it secret
"The only way we learn is by confronting our own misconceptions"- LK
I love the 'finger in the flame' analogy. Mainly because not all flames burn at the same temperature. Some fuels/substances are actually known to 'burn cool'.
*It's a game of probabilities.* You can't be 100% sure of anything, but you can weigh probabilities.
Empathy Lessons Exactly
If you accept that your mind, or subjective experience, exists, which is the only thing solipsists accept, then you have to accept that it exists in a realm of reality-a realm that exists despite the inclusion of your subjective experience. You are real insofar as you accept that there is such a thing as reality. So, since you are 100% sure that you are having a subjective experience, you are 100% sure that there is such a thing as an objective reality. Not probably, definitely. And this reality has to allow for your subjective experience to happen. And what else is there for you to subjectively experience but this objective reality? Thus, your subjective experience is capable of acquiring data or facts about the objective reality. Facts, as in things that are 100% true, not probably true. Now, there are complicated issues that we are not 100% sure about, but how do we get closer to being 100% sure? By acquiring data and skeptically evaluating that data until we are 100% sure of the more complex issue.
All this New Age nonsense about perception is everything, there are no facts, everything is subjective, is just a way to pontificate yourself into oblivion and lose all sense of rationality. And postmodernists have somehow extended their uncertainty of language to the uncertainty of reality. But anyways, just felt like ranting. byeeeee
neyoBear
I don't disagree with you. (Although personally I reject "I think therefor I am", I could be a boltzman brain, I could be living in a simulation inside a supercomputer, but I'm probably not.) I agree that there IS an objective reality out there.
But we can never know when we know it.
Yes, using the scientific method we can theoretically get closer towards reality, but we don't know what we don't know.
We could be moving away when we think we're getting closer.
Just because we have to work with probabilities doesn't mean we can't talk about our subjective theory about the objective reality that is out there.
Based on emperical evidence, I can say that there is a much higher probability that the earth is round than it being flat, so I'll live my life as if it is round.
Yes, reality holds either an 100% round earth or a 0% round earth. But as a human, regardless of my tools, I can never reach 100% certainty about anything.
In other words, reality exists, but humans can never know "fact". That is a word better suited for religion.
This all being said, if I build a bridge, I'll account for the curvature of the earth. Because that is what's practical, and it probably reflects the objective reality.
Empathy Lessons Illogical rambling. Study logic. Just because there are things we don't know doesn't mean we can't use logical consistency.
neyoBear Well said my man.
I love the professor and I wish I could meet him.
The gift Dr. Kraus imparts in this video is the closest thing to real and usable knowledge that I have come across in a long while.
The last sentence smashed everything I was gaining from this video.
I liked the video but more so for the fact that there are so few helpful resources in coaching folks to improve Critical Thinking. What makes this huge is that our culture has reached a point where Knowing (Cognition) and Believing (Faith) are viewed as mutually exclusive. The only effective way to appreciate the relationship between these aspects of our Humanity......as well as Behavior (Action) and Feelings (Emotion) is to continually study ourselves with naked honesty. In this way having some coaching is not altogether a bad thing.
"Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones." - Bertrand Russel.
This applies to news reporting as well.
in order to seek truth you have to be constantly seeking truth...you cannot stop an say now i know the truth...you have to be always open to looking for the truth...the only way to find truth is through group discussion....otherwise its just everyone giving there own opinion an very often they are wrong...so keep an open mind an keep an open discussion.
Thanks! Great advice.
Thanks LK!
I am skeptical of this video.
Skeptical of skepticism? ))
Listen to it 5 more times and then read his book. That's a good start.
I definitely feel that I need to watch this a few more times to get a full grasp of the process of healthy decision making.
These videos are incredibly useful and are very thought provoking, but I feel as though there are no definitive answers being given as though there is no closure in the ideas being presented.
I still love this channel. Many things worth analyzing and discussing.
2 citates from me:
1. "The possibilities of the universe are endless, but it can be as hard to imagine as to imagine a new color."
2. "If we come to a Point in time when we will "know" the universal truth of everything, how can we really know it is the truth?"
Thats my crash course in critical thinking. Enjoy! :D
Krause is awesome!! People like him have made science cool!! We need more like him and Tyson and the like!!
@0.44 "Is this consistent with my experience? Is it consistent with the experience of other people around me?" - Laurence Krauss
- This is the problem of widespread false beliefs. When everyone around you shares the same beliefs, that makes those experiences consistent.
_The first question should be, do I like this answer..._
So I asked myself if I liked that advice and I didn't. I like to accept things that I like. And then I laughed at myself for thinking that. That simple advice actually worked. I didn't like it, so maybe I should investigate honestly and when I did I found out that the advice is sound and it works and that I am now thinking in circles because I applied the method on the method to see if it works and I didn't like it but it works and that just made me burst out in laughter :p
Great video!! Thank you Lawrence!
this is what I do everyday now
I wish it was taught earlier since childhood instead of going to church every Sunday
well spoken
"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen", ...........Paul
Awesome video
"If we pretend gods are as "Alive" as we are, How can a god know if it is living in a simulation or not"?
The choice between science education & the humanities is forced on students anytime between Year 8 & Year 11 of high school. This frequently leaves humanities students with limited or absent understanding of scientific method & almost total ignorance of the various conceptual frameworks used to judge the strength & reliability of evidence. In discussions with folk not educated on scientific method & evidence, it is frequently very frustrating & difficult to have one's evidence based arguments dismissed on the basis of anecdotes, pseudoscience & conspiracy theories. Often, such responses close off discussion & debate because having to explain that the argument you've just heard is actually not an argument at all, is a conversation killer!
Yes, I have tried to tell them that anecdotal evidence is not evidence and they will insist that it is because it has the word evidence right there in the name. Very frustrating.
I'm not sure what classes you were taking, but I had critical thinking and scientific method throughout high school in all classes. I'm taking a sociology class right now and that's all well covered in research methods.
It also leaves science students without any historical or moral context for what they're doing...science is all about "can we do a thing?", the humanities are about "should we do a thing?".
The humanities doesn't propose the question "should we do a thing" anymore. It poses the question at the start sure, but by the end the humanities has told you the answer. "We should do a thing as long as it fits lock step with our ideology, which by our estimation is simple pragmatism." That's why it's dangerous and cancerous.
Is this how it works in the US. In Brazil it's qute different. High School is actually pretty tough on content, but there isn't much focus on critical thinking. So, your best hope is being good in math or physics.
That's why so many rely on religion and god/s, because they do not wish to die, all their memories and emotions to be lost - the fear of losing everything makes someone feel helpless, until you bring the promise of eternal life into play.
It's an excellent trap that many religions use to gain followers.
Great concept. But since LK is against International Space Station then I've to take his concepts skeptically 🙂
You can convince yourself of anything if you try hard enough.
brilliant
"Loss of Faith" needs to be changed to something like "rejection of Faith" or "Obsolescence of Faith"
Without faith grounded in reason we have nothing!
Of course, faith is an integral part of science, as long as it is temporary and changeable.
If lose faith lose progress ! reality is relative because our perception can be in ilusyon ........
Faith is the excuse people give to believe in nonsensical claims without reason and evidence.
first to develop an information processing mechanism.
did you question if that hat looks good or not?
skepticism is key for understanding the physical world, bug the inner world of meaning benefits from some faith in some things: I am worth love, I have value, and the same for my neighbor.
Amen
I suggest, you use the thoughts in this video ON the video itself. And just for fun here is a question. Is there empirical evidence to support the assumption that parallel lines never meet? Let us not confuse belief with faith. They are not synonymous.
If only Lawrence developed his critical thinking skills when it comes to evaluating political issues.
11 Faith is the assured expectation of things hoped for, the evident demonstration of realities though not beheld
Hebrews 11:1 .... Just thought a definition would be helpful.
Magneto looks great
when you hate someone, they could walk on water and they will complain you can't swim.
Krauss: On my way out the door to enjoy the day
Big Think: Hey, Krauss, you have a second?
People don't want to know the truth They just want to think they're right
3:58 ..*cough* religion, *cough*...
We get it, you're atheist.
.... *cough* materialism.... *cough, cough, cough!!!* ....wheeeze...
Abdul is correct even if he wasn't atheist. LK was already talking towards religion and faith vs science.
I talk about understanding but can't see the shortcomings of capitalism. And I never heard about a resource based economy as defined by the Zeitgeist movement, TZM.
Lawrence Krauss- Reality is a misnomer. What is real, as far as what we sense, has little to do with any universal truths. Survival didn't guide us to see truth. So by losing faith and gaining reality, are we then gaining falsity? Or gaining non-truths?
Read "Don't Get Fooled!" if you want to learn critical thinking.
Scientists know we have a genome e.g. do you believe that genome has an architecture that can motivate a certain type of mental function??? Can it help you prevent destroying your health mentally and physically??? Please talk about this so everyone can hear you.
the only point i disagree with is 'reliability' .. is there not such a device in narrative fiction called .. the 'unreliable author' ?
I guess my brain didn't stop at nice because most things suck.
Dr. Krauss looks like Freddy Krueger here
I think why people miss something spiritual is because it's useless being over critical of yourself and it turns into some self loathing.
Occam's razor in reverse?
"...be willing to realize that sometimes what you think is skepticism is really myopia."
When adopt religion, you're throwing reason and logic out of the window.
And when you question that rather common assumption you're on the way to becoming to a more intelligent person.
Nope. That's not to say reason and logic are the best things for any situation. I have unreasonable faith in my friends and family. Just not in some God that was made up in a book.
Otis Miller To have an intelligent debate on this we would have to define God and religion. Is the god one that is anthropomorphized and the religion based on that? Or is the definition of God "the gestalt of the system of energy in the universe en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergentism and it turns out that the religious awe, the same awe that nature lovers experience in an old growth forest, is simply that of one part of the system being conscious of the whole?
Don't throw out the baby with the bath water...oh, and that unreasonable faith you mention is actually learned cognition or behavior, whatever.
Albert C That's my point, is that science has progressed enough so that we can understand the basic nature of reality, through emergentism and complexity science. Religion addressed those things that the old science couldn't, but had bias and superstition and became a tool for power and control, yet still had value in the realms of morality and fellowship. Let's not forget we live in an economic system that has great power and influence but no real morality other than efficiency, and to some degree is co-opting science. So the way I see it we should take the good from each area and leave the bad behind. In the case of religion, tie it in with science to see the small patterns repeating themselves at higher levels of complexity, which is truly awesome, and leave the old guy sitting on a throne in heaven behind along with all the strife that goes along with it.
No you're embracing it.. Jesus is the Logos. Logos means reason and logic in Greek
nice lion reference
im becoming a fan
of lions
How many of us ever experienced E=MC squared??...yet we believe...
ZpointG I believe in the fact that I did read many scientific reports from a lot of sources.
Sorry I dont speak english very well.
+Sergio Loza _" I believe in the fact that I did read many scientific reports from a lot of sources."_
Reading is not experiencing...
Refer to Jiddu Krishnamurti's teaching for deeper understanding of what this speaker is talking about in much more deeper sense.
I'm here for the inevitable debate.😈
So... I'm supposed to question the validity of the information presented in this video?
ZeroSumJ1 yes
XOX Thank You
I wish I could like a video more than once :(
...then others can dislike it more than once too...
"What one man can do, any man can do"
🙏FSM
What if your experiences are not entirely indicative of truth? E.g. I have not seen a Black Swan, therefore there are no Black Swans.
Question whther something matches my previous beliefs or those of others can be problematic. Especially if you're in some self-inforcing social bubble.
Now is really not the time to tell people if it isn't your own experience it might not be true. Not unless you work in a Covid-19 ward or drive an ambulance.
I am little skeptical about this video.
flying spaghetti monster pin!!!!
(To the best of my memory it wasn’t so...) Why exactly is this sort of stuff not fought in school!?.
He's looks like a offspring from Simon and Garfunkel...
Question everything. Even ideas from people considered experts in their field.
Thanks ed.
Faith in science is not different to faith in a religious belief. It is still a faith. How can anybody say he knows enough to tell the difference between reality and mere faith, considering the immense quantity of knowledge that exists and the incredibly tiny fraction that a person can get to know in its lifetime. Nobody can tell where faith ends and where reality starts, even if the person feels sufficiently superior. Actually nothing can be done without faith. And be it faith in natural laws, like the faith that you can fall asleep without having to worry if you will keep on breathing or that if you jump gravity will bring you back to the ground. The strict seperation between faith and "reality" of atheist neo-liberals lacks of logic and is more a psycologic mechanism in order to reject the undeniable past.
Sources like CNN... I've thrown it out based on my previous experience knowing that it's unreliable.
critical thinking, i wish to turn it off to be happier. Im constantly annoying friends with critics. And is not sign of been intelligent. There is a chapter in house md tv series where a delivery guy gets sick and house discovers he is or was in fact a young genius in physics and that what was making it ill was a combination of a drug with vodka to make himself dumb.He took it in daily basis. To be Less clever. Because his girlfriend was a normal girl and to be with her he cant be intelligent or would not work the relationship. Critical thinking is fine is true helps you see the true among all the information we get some are false assumptions, but we dont do it all the time not in conversations to make them a competition to who is right. We would be left with no friends. Is true important? is relevant?.
As this man says the mind open is key to be connected and some amount of critical thinking also but i would say not too much. I can't handle the true.
Pielke, an expert on expertise (who gave evidence to the US senate) on the really obvious reasons why one should never trust approved (science) experts
If the practice of science advice is to improve, scientific leaders in and outside government will have to show a deeper commitment to strengthening institutions of scientific advice. This means that some scientific leaders should step back from the political battles of the day.
For instance, Ann Glover, chief scientific adviser to the president of the European Commission, recently complained that politicians often seek out scientific advice to support a particular agenda. She said politicians routinely ask their experts to, “Find me the evidence that demonstrates that this is the case.”
www.theguardian.com/science/political-science/2014/aug/26/government-science-advice-honest-brokers
Krauss assumes that everything is known or knowable. If that were true, I'd agree with him on most anything. But the truth is that is that there is very little that is known by the microscope of the scientific method. Both believers and atheists have their leaps of faith. In the 1920s, Hubble showed that the universe was not static and finite but instead was rapidly expanding and had no detectable limit. If you accepted this discovery, you had to come to the conclusion that the universe had a beginning - creation. A battle raged on this discovery until 1961 when Wilson and Penzias detected the Cosmic Microwave Background which put an end to the "creation" controversy: there was a moment of creation. I hate to bring it up, but this squares with the Genesis account, maybe not in detail, but there it is. Then there is the "first cause" argument: how did the first of anything pop into existence? Was it created, or did it just pop into existence from something else? I mean it popped and never left any trace of how A turned into B even though there are many thousands of differences between A and B that had to occur simultaneously at the moment of pop. I'm in no position to judge how good or bad a physicist Krauss is, but his views on God and the universe have lots of gaps. As for his statement on losing faith; when you lose faith, you lose faith - you don't gain anything. Reality remains the same.
Bob Crunch lets just assume that everything we don't currently know is unknowable... excellent policy for the advancement of mankind.
Atheists don't have any leaps of faith. NONE. ZERO. ZILCH. We assess based on the evidence at hand, and we are always hungry for more knowledge, because we know we don't know everything. Nothing "squares" with the Genesis account, either. Sorry. Grasp at those straws all you want. You're wrong.
The discovery of DNA etc etc etc it didn't make sense to them because it hadn't been discovered and therefore there was nothing to question as there was no reference. Therefore this synopsis is flawed.
Navel Gazing.
THE UNIVERSE IS A UNICORNS FART CLOUD BEFORE THE RED SHIFT
0:50 - 1:00
"Is this consistent with my experience or the people around me...
and if it isn't... then it's probably wrong."
This is poor logic, suggesting that just because we haven't observed something that it likely isn't true.
This is the core that promotes ignorance and bias.
He redeams himself by quoting:
"The only way we learn anything is by confronting our own misconceptions"
I want to like parts of what he says here a lot, but it's just on the uncanny valley for me of big ideas juuuust slightly missing the point. Like a few great ideas glued together the wrong way.
Is there an afterlife? Maybe or maybe not. "it is simply impossible to directly prove a purely negative claim." (That's the logical law "sceptics" tend to forget). Will atheism get you in trouble in that case? Maybe. Will not being an atheist get you in trouble in this world? Not necessarily. Perception of reality for example is not only a matter of being an atheist or not but of intelligence, self discipline and education. So I have logically proven, that you gain nothing by being an atheist.
Good, a real scientist. Not a "science guy".
Who tells you that something you don't want to hear can still be true.
Maybe listen to the video.
Why don't you look up evidence on what Bill Nye actually claims?
I think you'll find his claims are backed up by scientific research.
OH the irony man!!
WOW! Did you even critically think while watching this video??
Guy Guisbane who you believe what he says is true because you want it to be so #confirmationbias
TheMasonator777 Hahaha, Dummy.
Be skeptical?? No
Great video. Could do without the edgy atheists in the comments though.
You cannot think critically if you do not have an absolute foundation for believing anything. You must first have faith in the eyewitness testimony of the observers before you can begin to judge anything at all. Even science requires faith in the observers. Are you going to believe the ancient observers or the modern observers who reject all past knowledge? Just because something is old doesn't mean it is not true. Lots of true things have happened in the past and we do not have absolute tools for establishing all of the events of history as we are limited by time. Modern science denies most of true history. Modern science is fallible and changes with the wind. It has no absolute criteria which can judge history or origins of the cosmos. Modern science cannot prove the world is billions of years old. All the evidence suggests the cosmos is very young and was brought into existence with instant events limited to a very short span of time. Most people who follow modern science are just practicing a modern natural religion that is supported by eyewitnesses and supporting doctrine that cannot be verified. Modern science is purely sustained by faith alone as most if not all people cannot verify the claims made by the eyewitnesses.
The New York Times? Open-minded? That's a laugh.
getting pretty mad listening to captain obvious on his high chair...