Critical thinking

2% of the people think; 3% of the people think they think; and95% of the people would rather die than think.

- George Bernard Shaw

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When "The War of the

Worlds" of H.G. Welles

was presented on

American radio in 1938,

it caused mass panic,

because many listeners

decided, that an

actual alien

invasion by Martians w

as currently in progress.

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People generally trust mass media

People tend to believe in bad news

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"Genius detective proved to be a

fraud." I read it in the paper so it must be true. I love newspapers. Fairy tales...

- Moriarty, Sherlock BBC

..over half of news articles

were misleading.. to

increase the story's appeal,

help cut down the cost of

reporting..

John McManus

http://www.humantruth.info/mass_media.html#Top

Statistically Germans and

Americans are nations,

which the most try to check

several sources of news

rather than rely on just one.

Trust in mass media depends on source and country

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Most important news sources we trust to:

http://www.globescan.com/news_archives/bbcreut_country.html

Inability to distinguish between facts and opinions leads to mistakes

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IS there a Shocking Connection Between Eating More Chocolate And Winning The Nobel Prize ?

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMon1211064

Chocolate consumption by country is a fact (survey). Nobel laureates by country are a fact (statistics).

But correlation between them is not justified.

Conformity prevents critical thinking

How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?”“Four.”“And if the Party says that it is not four but five — then how many?”

- Orwell, 1984

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Asch experiment showed the impact of social pressure

Solomon Asch (1951) experiment onthe extent to which social pressure from a majority group could affect a person to conform.

About 75% of participants conformed at least once.

WHY?

1. because we want to fit in with the group (normative influence)

2. we believe the group is better informed (informational influence).

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Doubt!

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R

E

D

Anna Adel, IBL A

Need more info on critical thinking? http://www.criticalthinking.org/

Brainy is the new sexy.

- Iren Adler, Sherlock BBC

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And think!