Dan’s Ten Rules for Critical Thinking on the Internet
Feel free to add your own rules in the comments below.
1. One statistic can never tell the whole story.
2. A meme does not constitute an argument. It is an advertisement for a particular point of view.
3. Do not agree or disagree with anything based solely on Rule 1 or Rule 2.
4. Always seek and cite multiple original sources.
5. Life is not simple and cannot be boiled down to a catchphrase.
6. Exception to rule #5: “Life’s a bitch and then you die.”
7. Strive to be fair in your thought process. “We can never hope to be objective we can only hope to be fair.” (I am paraphrasing and I don’t recall the original source of this quote.)
8. Read “How to Lie with Statistics” by Darrel Huff.
9. Freely allow facts to get in the way of your preconceived notions.
10. Be willing to change your mind in the presence of a winning argument.
Don’t lose a friend because you have a differing opinion.
May I quote you?
You mean me or Kim? You can quote me with reckless abandon. I need all the help I can get.
Don’t post anything you wouldn’t want your mother to read.
Aaaaand… it’s already started about the President’s 8pm speech tonight. That was fast.
If one would do all of these things, one might never arrive at an opinion.
Rule 11: synthesize, compute, react.
Common sense, the missing ingredient in Web perusal.
Thanks Bugsy,for verbalizing what my gut was thinking…
Alas,Common sense is no longer common… :/
The validity of any given argument is not related to the personal virtues, or lack thereof, of its proponents.
Is not an argument also an advertisement for a particular point of view?
Also there’s too many words in #7. “Don’t be a dick.” will suffice.
Good luck in your crusade to civilize the internet B-)
Can we also make a rule that once the person or group that is the target of the critique is referred to with 5th grade name-calling, the argument is not valid and must end immediately!!!
#12 sometime you’ll just have to agree to disagree.
I’m especially tired of the Memes.
lovely:
“5. Life is not simple and cannot be boiled down to a catchphrase.”