These look like trick questions.....

[nancylebov]

From The Last Psychaitrist:

Was Brontosaurus A Herbivore?




I.

1a. George Washington is the father of our country, the Revolutionary War general who helped free the colonies from their British rule. In what country was George Washington born?

2a. What modern animal is most genetically similar to a triceratops?

3a. T or F: The majority of the available scientific evidence strongly suggests that nicotine increases the risk of cancer.

4a. Your best friend in the whole world, Tom, sends you a letter which begins with the first two lines of Richard III: "Now is the winter of our discontent..." That's bad, right?

5a. Galileo, the scientist famously remembered by his first name, invented the 3x telescope. What, if anything, was going on in America at the same time?

The questions are entertaining, but I'm most interested in one of the comments, which says that European schools do a better job of teaching critical thinking in the primary and secondary schools than the fact-based early education in the US.

As far as I can remember critical and contextual thinking were hardly touched on in my primary and secondary education, which was at what were considered pretty good public schools in the US. (1959-1971)

I'm curious-- were you taught critical thinking in primary and/or secondary school? When and where were your schools?

And would smoking be safer if nicotine was added to cigarettes?

Comments

[sterlingspider.livejournal.com]

I was most definitely taught critical thinking, but by the same token I also picked it up far better then most of my classmates, so I won't go out on a limb to say it was taught well. But I definitely remember doing critical thinking exercises along with readings all the way back to first grade.

I also went to primarily upper middle class schools in suburban Long Island NY prior to No Child Left Behind, where private school was considered to be where you sent your kid when they got kicked out of public school. Again, not exactly typical of the average American student.

[sterlingspider.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I graduated HS in 1997.

[communicator.livejournal.com]

The work we have been doing on the curriculum in the UK increasingly emphasises cognitive skills. However, I think we haven't got as far as we should, and I think it may be reversed when the Tories win the next election. Their educaiton spokesman Michael Gove gave a speech at the RSA two weeks ago, which explicitly rejects cognitive skills in favour of teaching mastery of a canon of knowledge.

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

No critical thinking until my senior year in high school, and then only with American literature. It was all rote learning, the library has all the answers, make a project every year with no teacher advice or supervision. Feh.

Of course, the problem with critical thinking is that kids immediately apply it to the most personally convenient target- the teachers themselves.

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

1a) The British colony of Virginia

2a) The one test I could find suggests it's closest to a Turkey.

3a) F

4a) I don't have a best friend in the world named Tom.

5a)This is what was happening in the Crown Colonies at the time -

The Second Charter of Virginia is officially ratified, which is intended to replace the council with a Governor who has absolute control in the colony.

At what is now Crown Point, New York, Samuel de Champlain participates in a battle between the Huron and Iroquois, shooting and killing two Iroquois chiefs; this helps set the tone for French-Iroquois relations for the next 100 years.

Henry Hudson discovers the Hudson River.

(all yanked from Wikipedia)

Yes, I was taught critical thinking in high school (Singapore American School)

No, smoking would not be safer if we added nicotine.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

No, smoking would not be safer if we added nicotine.

Why not?

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

Because its already there in tobacco. I suppose we could add it to non tobacco products, but the question didn't specify that. Plus it's horribly addictive.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Apparently nicotine is one of the very few things in cigarette smoke that isn't carcinogenic. Afaik, cigarette smokers adjust their smoking to get the amount of nicotine they want. This implies that (unless inhaled nicotine is extremely likely to cause emphesema or somesuch), smokers will inhale less of the dangerous stuff if they have high nicotine cigarettes.

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

It's possibly this could work, but I'm skeptical it would work to modify anyone's behavior.

[inquisitiveravn.livejournal.com]

How carefully did you read the piece? A few paragraphs down from where he says it isn't carcinogenic, he drops this paragraph:

Unfortunately, nicotine does increase the risk of cancer-- just not in the same way that other carcinogens do it. (It facilitates the development of lung cancer, and possible breast cancer.) The evidence for this is not substantial but it isn't inconsequential, either. So telling people it doesn't cause cancer-- the information you were motivated to disseminate-- is absolutely, and dangerously, wrong.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Obviously not carefully enough, though I wonder what the difference is between "carcinogenic" and "facilitates the development of cancer".

[siderea]

I'd guess that he means nicotine either potentiates carcinogens or exacerbates some aspect of tumor growth (e.g. blood vessel formation, something that without cancer might not have any deleterious effects and even be healing) One of the special things about cancer is that it's a normal process (cell division, the basis of tissue repair) run amok; cancer is a circumstance in which what is normally innocuous or even healthy is potentially lethal, and the deadliest poisons are the preferred medicine.

[inquisitiveravn.livejournal.com]

This is sheer speculation, but possibly "carcinogenic" means damages cells directly and "facilitates development of" means interferes with the body's mechanisms for get rid of damaged cells?

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

Two problems.

First, megadosing on nicotine doesn't make it last any longer, which means the time an addict can go between smokes won't get longer, which means just the same smoking level.

Second, nicotine has its own pretty bad effects- mostly on the cardiovascular system. It raises heartrate and blood pressure, putting extra strain on the system.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I'm assuming that people would give themselves the same amount of nicotine, but with less of the other sorts of smoke mixed in.

I'm not suggesting that smoking enhanced cigarettes would be as safe as not smoking, just that it might be safer than smoking standard cigarettes.

[inquisitiveravn.livejournal.com]

Nothing to do with cigarettes per se, but I was at BJ's today and spotted nicotine gum, in mint and some kind of fruit flavor at that. While I don't think I've posted anything about my ideas on harm reduction and nicotine on LJ, it looks like some of them aren't as far fetched as I thought.

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

Even though it's not carcinogenic... nicotine has one of the *lowest* ratios of lethal-dose to effective-dose among psychoactives. If someone is truly after a nicotine "high", once they're there it doesn't take much more to kill them.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Still, people seem to smoke without a high risk of nicotine poisoning.

This suggests that doubling the amount of nicotine in a cigarette might be safe.

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

4a) Your best friend whoever sending you the first two lines of Richard III would be a GOOD thing... the full quote is:

"Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this son of York."

[nosebeepbear.livejournal.com]

Your best friend whoever sending you the first two lines of Richard III would be a GOOD thing

...assuming your friend actually knows the whole quote, which most people don't. (sigh).

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

The original question was whether it would be a good or bad thing for Friend of Whatever Name to send you a message beginning with the first two lines of Richard III. Obviously, in order to send both lines, said friend has to know both lines (or have a book handy). }:-{D

The aim of the question is to see if the respondent, i. e. you, know both lines.

[milimod.livejournal.com]

I attended public school on Long Island during the 1960s and 1970s. I don't believe we were taught critical thinking, except that the teachers wanted to believe they were teaching it. We had straitlaced schoolmarm types in elementary school teaching us to shut up and obey and be good citizens; in jr high and high school we had a few younger activist teachers who tried to tell us that everything we'd been taught up until that time was a lie. Either way, no one wanted us to think for ourselves. If you answered questions on tests that went against their agenda, they'd find a way to flunk you.

I think the most constructive teacher I ever had was a Spanish teacher who had traveled the world and lived in Manhattan. Her wise words were: "One day, if you're lucky, you will all come to understand how terribly provincial your existence is." I found out what the word meant and made up my mind that the last thing I ever wanted to be was provincial. Judging from what I've seen and heard of some former classmates, the words did not make any difference for them.

[sterlingspider.livejournal.com]

It took me a long time to realize that we on Long Island really are the bizarre timeless village shut off from the rest of the world by impassable mountains and cruel dragons.

It sounds ridiculous initially, but the geographical barrier of the city makes it so difficult to come here or leave (between the time sink, the expense, and the danger if you are not familiar with city traffic) that our world is impossibly tiny and squished.

[richardthinks.livejournal.com]

Ah, education rage. I've had a lot of it in my time. Britain, fee-paying school, 1970s. I don't recall being taught any kind of critical thinking formally, but I believe that the teaching of tools may be both more implicit and harder to remember than the teaching of fact(oid)s, since the latter is explicitly an exercise in memorisation, so I'm not a reliable witness. I do recall being outraged several times that I had apparently been taught false information at various times in my schooling, when first my secondary school history contradicted my primary school, and later when my A level (high school) Chemistry contradicted my O level (middle school, roughly). In the latter case, I now understand that there might have been a justification based on how much background was required to understand the concepts, but at the time I was disgusted.
So I sympathise with the poster, and I think there might be a kernel of truth behind the hyperbole. I can't resist pointing out a couple of cases of muphry's law, though:
King Arthur (500AD) - source for this factoid?
there's no such thing as a brontosaurus well, there was in the 60s. Later it more or less got folded in with diplodocus (the one I was taught) and eventually emerged as Apatosaurus, but really we're dealing with an evolving category system here, and as far as we know all the candidates were herbivores. Given that some dinosaur bits have subsequently turned out to be fossilised wood, I recommend we all calm down a bit about this particular field of taxonomy.
If Tom supplies the first 2 lines then he includes the "glorious summer" bit: I don't really know what he thinks he's saying, but sans further context I'd imagine he's feeling relieved to be out from under some shadow.
The Galileo question has too many answers for me to choose from. I'm not sure what the point is there, honestly.
Washington had to be born in the U.S. My knowledge regarding the declaration of the US as an entity (NOT an independent entity) is hazy - I can imagine that it might have been established as an administrative area prior to the revolution, but I'm sceptical, because I suspect there would be no need for a declared union before 1776. I'm going to guess that Washington could not possibly have been born in the US, since he helped to invent it.

[deor.livejournal.com]

"there's no such thing as a brontosaurus well, there was in the 60s..."

ObFilk: I'm Gonna Call it "Brontosaur" by Dr. Jane Robinson (Dr. Jane's Remains)

[inquisitiveravn.livejournal.com]

Well, as with my previous reply to nancylebov, reading the post carefully reveals much, although in this case I didn't need to read that part. My home state mandated that in order to graduate from high school, students had to pass tests on the US and state constitutions. The relevant part reads: "No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States." Not something I'd expect a non-USian to know off the top of their head.

Now here's where it gets fun. Thanks to reading "Dispatches From the Culture Wars" about the Obama citizenship manufactroversy, I now know more about the rules for natural born citizens than I ever wanted to. You don't actually have to be born in the US to be a natural born citizen as long as one of your parents meets the requirements listed at the site I linked to. I posted a comment to that effect at the article linked in the OP.

[richardthinks.livejournal.com]

the 14 year thing was confusing me until I realised Washington only became president 13 or 14 years after the declaration of independence.
Now I'm curious about the articles of confederation, and how the government worked in the interim... I want to know just how different things looked before 1812.

[subnumine.livejournal.com]

The 14-year rule was passed during Washington's administration, to keep all those pesky Irish and Huguenot Democrats out.

[solri.livejournal.com]

My 'O' level chemistry teacher acknowledged this by saying "I am now going to tell you a lie."

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Trick questions: training people to be smart-asses since time immemorial.

See also Grice's maxims of conversation.

[solri.livejournal.com]

Amen to that. I recently sat through a two-day workshop on critical thinking which consisted largely of trick questions. I mentioned Grice, but no one seemed to get it.

[redbird]

If they are arguing "there's no such thing as a Brontosaurus," they had better be prepared to say there is no such thing as a lion (genus Leo or oak (mostly Quercus) either. "Brontosaurus" is the common name of those animals in English, and likely to remain so for a long time.

[siderea]

I'm curious-- were you taught critical thinking in primary and/or secondary school? When and where were your schools?

No idea. K-9, mid 70s to mid 80s, NH; 10-12, late 80s, greater SF CA. I got it at home in such a strong dose, that I wouldn't have noticed anything less.

Er, come to think of it, I was probably my peers' lesson in critical thinking....

[siderea]

Hey, waitaminit: Critical thinking and contextual thinking are different. That's obvious because I was raised to be awesome at one, and awful at the other. Critical thinking is not taking presented info at face value; contextual thinking is stitching together all these ideas presenting in isolating silos. I'm naturally good at the latter, and found my education infuriatingly frustrating in how it didn't support my natural way of thinking about things -- I always struggled enormously to retain unrelated facts. It wasn't until I joined the SCA (college) that that I found contextual thinking both demanded and supported, and bloomed really suddenly in that way.

[richardthinks.livejournal.com]

bingo! You've struck on exactly the thing that was really bothering me about the piece - for a paean to critical thinking, it's actually pretty short on the stuff. These days I get praised for critical thinking if I do it but I can get by with contextual thinking just fine, provided I back it up with someone else's critique. The Foucauldian point the poster makes - it's true because it's in the introduction - is one I never see being treated critically.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Which poster made the Foucaldian point?

[richardthinks.livejournal.com]

The Last Psychiatrist wrote it in the original post.

[avram]

I don't remember being taught critical thinking in school (private school, the 1970s). I do remember a lesson in how to follow directions. It's obvious which the school was more interested in teaching.

Douglas Knight

[(Anonymous)]

I thought that it was the European schools that were fact-based, hence lousy at critical thinking.

I would have guessed that nicotine patches have a warning based on no evidence. Your nicotine question was a pretty good example of evoking a stream of rationalizations. My take is that it depends on more details of the addiction. If(!) chain smokers are people who max out their number of smokes, nicotine probably wouldn't make them scale back. But it probably would for others. The net effect would probably be good, since nicotine is pretty safe.