At Portland Community College (Oregon) I took a class called ‘Science and the Paranormal.’ On the first day of class the teacher said ‘if I’d called this class ‘Critical Thinking’ most of the seats would be empty. As it is, I have a waiting list each term.′ It was all critical thinking / formal logic / scientific method / etc. that used student-suggested paranormal topics. No judgement before investigation, no claim of true / false only strong / weak evidence. He did discourage religious claims getting the same treatment in order to ‘be sensitive’ (avoid lawsuits). Otherwise, perfect stem to stern.
Why? In comparison to the rest of the lesson titles, this sort of rhetorical embellishment seems excessive. I at least don’t expect people to be put off by a title such as “Intro to Applied Rationality” or something similar. (But then again, that’s because I wouldn’t be put off by it… Possible mind projection fallacy.)
Maybe if it is called something like “Art and science of better decision-making”...
At Portland Community College (Oregon) I took a class called ‘Science and the Paranormal.’ On the first day of class the teacher said ‘if I’d called this class ‘Critical Thinking’ most of the seats would be empty. As it is, I have a waiting list each term.′ It was all critical thinking / formal logic / scientific method / etc. that used student-suggested paranormal topics. No judgement before investigation, no claim of true / false only strong / weak evidence. He did discourage religious claims getting the same treatment in order to ‘be sensitive’ (avoid lawsuits). Otherwise, perfect stem to stern.
Makes sense that lesson one in the critical thinking course would be about short-circuiting students’ normal thinking :P
Why? In comparison to the rest of the lesson titles, this sort of rhetorical embellishment seems excessive. I at least don’t expect people to be put off by a title such as “Intro to Applied Rationality” or something similar. (But then again, that’s because I wouldn’t be put off by it… Possible mind projection fallacy.)