Goodbye to Yesterday...

In case you hadn't seen already, your grades are now posted. Have a great summer!

Final Exam

Just a reminder that the final exam is Tuesday, May 5th at 8:00 a.m. in Science 128. (Note that it's not in our usual classroom or building.) The test should take you about an hour, but you will have until 10:00 a.m. to take it.

After a Word From These Sponsors...

Here are some links on advertising and reasoning.

• The first is about the underlying intellectual dishonesty in even the most honest of ad campaigns.
  
• By the way, if you're into advertising, that entire blog is great. I'm a bit biased, though, since I used to work with the guy who writes it.
• Here's a radio interview with the director of FactCheck.org, a great website devoted to debunking claims in political ads.
• I also used to work with the guy who interviewed FactCheck's director. Yup, I'm a pretty big deal.
• I wish those fact checking websites made a difference. Actually, I just wish they didn't hurt their own cause. Silly humans and your naturally biased minds!
  

Now for some news stuff.

• Lots of people worry about conservative or liberal news media bias. But there are several interesting biases that are much less talked about. Here's a discussion of the bias toward anything that's dangerous or newsworthy.
  
• Here's an interview with a scientist who claims that similar biases exist in scienctific research journals.
  
• What's so important about news, anyway? Here's an interesting argument against caring so much about current events.

Finally, here's a recent Saturday Night Live skit on the distortions of political ads:

Prepare to Cry

Aaron Neville had me at "hello."

Stubborn = Intellectually Dishonest

Here's a little rant on a favorite topic of mine: intellectual honesty. A simple goal of this class is to get us all to recognize what counts as good evidence and what counts as bad evidence for a claim. I think we're getting better at that. But it's not clear that we're caring about the difference once we figure it out.

Getting us to care is the real goal of this class. We should care about good evidence. We should care about it because it's what gets us closer to the truth. When we judge an argument to be overall good, THE POWER OF LOGIC COMPELS US to believe the conclusion. If we like an arg, but still stubbornly disagree with its conclusion, we are just being irrational.

This means we should be open-minded. We should be willing to let new evidence change our current beliefs. We should be open to the possibility that we might be wrong. This is how Todd Glass puts it:


Here are the first two paragraphs of a great article I read in the Fall on this:

Last week, I jokingly asked a health club acquaintance whether he would change his mind about his choice for president if presented with sufficient facts that contradicted his present beliefs. He responded with utter confidence. "Absolutely not," he said. "No new facts will change my mind because I know that these facts are correct."

I was floored. In his brief rebuttal, he blindly demonstrated overconfidence in his own ideas and the inability to consider how new facts might alter a presently cherished opinion. Worse, he seemed unaware of how irrational his response might appear to others. It's clear, I thought, that carefully constructed arguments and presentation of irrefutable evidence will not change this man's mind.

Ironically, having extreme confidence in oneself is often a sign of ignorance. Remember, in many cases, such stubborn certainty is unwarranted.

Homework #3

Homework #3 is due at the beginning of class on Tuesday, April 28th. Your assignment is to choose an ad (on TV or from a magazine or wherever) and evaluate it from a logic & reasoning perspective.

• First, briefly explain the ad. If you don't want to summarize it yourself, you can attach it if it's from a newspaper or magazine, or transcribe it if it's a commercial on TV.
  
• Then, explain the argument that the ad offers to sell its product.
• Finally, list and explain the mistakes in reasoning that the ad commits.

No, You're Not

One of my favorite topics is I'M-SPECIAL-ism. Psychological research has repeatedly shown that most Americans overestimate their own abilities. This is one of the biggest hurdles to proper reasoning: the natural tendency to think that we're smarter--or more powerful, or prettier, or whatever--than we really are.

One of my favorite blogs is Overcoming Bias. Their mission statement is sublimely anti-I'M-SPECIAL-ist:

"How can we better believe what is true? While it is of course useful to seek and study relevant information, our minds are full of natural tendencies to bias our beliefs via overconfidence, wishful thinking, and so on. Worse, our minds seem to have a natural tendency to convince us that we are aware of and have adequately corrected for such biases, when we have done no such thing."

This may sound insulting, but one of the goals of this class is getting us to recognize that we're not as smart as we think we are. All of us. You. Me! That one. You again. Me again!

So in the next couple classes, at least, I hope you'll join me in my campaign to end I'M-SPECIAL-ism.

Group Presentations

Here are the group assignments for our presentations. If you're not in a group yet, let me know as soon as possible so we can get you in one.

Team God Stuff (1st on Tuesday, 4/28/09)
Danica, Dave L., Janna, Nick, Wendy

Team Weed (2nd on Tuesday, 4/28/09)
Carissa, Dana, Heather, Kelli, Lindsay, Robin

Team Drinking Age (3rd on Tuesday, 4/28/09)
Bill D., Dave K., Fred, Jerry, Matt

Team Voting Age (1st on Thursday, 4/30/09)
Andrew, Bill P., Brian, Kevin

Team Prostitution (2nd on Thursday, 4/30/09)
Caitlin, David O., Jess, Katie, Mike

Also, I mentioned this in class, but just in case...

Attendance is mandatory for the group presentations on Tuesday (4/28/09), and Thursday (4/30/09). It's the only time I'll be a stickler for it. Basically, I want you to show respect for the other groups presenting.

If you don't attend on either the days your group isn't presenting (and your absence isn't excused), your own personal presentation grade will drop. Each day you don't attend will lower your grade by a full letter grade.

One last thing: be sure to keep the presentations under 15 minutes. A 10-minute presentation is ideal, so we can have time for a short question-and-answer session afterward.

I'll Rationalize... Later

Links-a-plenty on superstition and rationalization:

• Even the least superstitious of us believe in magic a little bit. I'm looking at you, sports fans.
  
• Recent moral psychology suggests that we simply rationalize our snap moral judgments. (Or worse: we undercut our snap judgments to defend whatever we do.)
  
• Humans' judge-first, rationalize-later approach stems in part from the two competing decision-making styles inside our heads.
  

And some links on procrastination:

• Why do we do it?
• How can we stop doing it?
• A website devoted to getting you to stop it.
  
• How to use it to your advantage.
  
• Is it really so bad? After all, da Vinci did it all the time.

Wished Pots Never Boil

Here are a few links on the psychological impediments we're discussing recently:

• Malcolm Gladwell argues that stereotyping is unethical AND illogical.
• If you're a fan of The Secret, you should beware that it's basic message is wishful thinking run amok.
• Why don't we give more aid to those in need? Psychological impediments are at least partly to blame.
  

Impeding Us Since Birth

So, I love research on psychological impediments. Here are some links:

• Here's an article about a cool study on the relationship between risk and provincialism.
• Here's a summary of two recent studies which suggest that partisan mindset stems from a feeling of moral superiority.
• Here is a bunch of insightful videos of Daniel Kahneman, one of the pioneers of research into psychological impediments.
• Here's a review of a well-written book on the natural ways we're all irrational.
  
• Wikipedia's great, complete list of cognitive biases is available here.
  

Finally, I know some of us are still pining for the WHY BAD? glory days of fallacies. Here's something for you:

• Julian Baggini runs through some really great fallacies, many of which we didn't discuss in class. He turned this series into a book: The Duck That Won the Lottery.
  

Team Prostitution

Here are some links on prostitution:

Feminism & Prostitution (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Radio Show on Morality of Prostitution (Philosophy Talk: check the additional links at the bottom of this page)
Why Is Prostitution Illegal? (Slate)
So Why Is Porn Legal? (Slate)
Legalize It, Already! (Reason)
Prostitution in America and Europe (Atlantic Monthly)
Sex Trafficking Around the World (NY Review of Books)
It Helps Marriages! (Times of London)
Utilitarians for Hookers? (National Review)
Criticism of the Utilitarian Arg (National Review)

Team Drinking Age

Here are some links on the legal drinking age of alcohol:

• Lower it!
  
• Don't lower it!
  
• Counterintuitive Research: Will lowering the drinking age make college students drink less?
• Some more links on lowering it.
• A radio show on the drinking age.
  
• 60 Minutes weighs in on the drinking age debate.
  
• World Map of Legal Drinking Ages
  

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
John McCardell
colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor NASA Name Contest

Team Weed

Here are some links on marijuana:

• Here's a recent article celebrating the 10-year anniversary of the groundbreaking study on the medical value of marijuana.
• The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency's case against legalizing drugs.
• Another classic defense of keeping drugs illegal.
• A case for keeping pot specifically illegal.
  
• Legalize Pot? We Think Not!
• Criminalizing pot keeps cops from doing police work, and crowds prisons.
• The two faces of America's drug policy.
• What was the Supreme Court thinking?
  
• A radio show on drug legalization. And another on pot laws.
  
• Facts on weed, from an organization trying to stop the drug war.
• Slippery Slope? Pot doesn't lead to heroin!

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Better Know a Lobby - Drug Lobby
colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor NASA Name Contest

Team God Stuff

Here are some links to articles that could help the group presenting on god stuff.

One big argument for the existence of god is the design argument.

• Here's a nice rundown of the design arg (along with a weirder god arg) by an excellent philosopher.
• Here is a radio interview on David Hume's criticisms of the design arg.
  
• Here is an article on evolution versus intelligent design.
• A fancy version of this arg is about how fine-tuned the universe is to support life. Or is it?
  
• If the universe is designed, what's with all the "design flaws" in nature?
  
• The classic "design flaw" example is the appendix ("It serves no purpose!"). But recent research suggests the appendix serves a purpose!
  

One big argument against the existence of God is the problem of evil.

• Here is a collection of resources all about the problem of evil, including criticisms of several different responses to the problem. I mean, wow.
• One response to this arg is to say that "God works in mysterious ways." Do we have enough evidence to believe that there is a reason for all the suffering in the world, but humans aren't smart enough to understand what that reason is?
• The NPR program Fresh Air has an audio interview with Bart Ehrman on the problem of suffering.

Fresh Air also ran a pair of interviews with two scientists on god stuff: Richard Dawkins pushing atheism, and Francis Collins pushing theism.

Also, there's some interesting research in psychological impediments about the widespread belief in gods.

Finally, is appealing to a personal experience you had ("I felt God's presence") a good arg for god?