Off My Chest
RULES:
I am looking for mods!
1. The "good" part of our community means we are pro-empathy and anti-harassment. However, we don't intend to make this a "safe space" where everyone has to be a saint. Sh*t happens, and life is messy. That's why we get things off our chests.
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I see your point.
Certainly I think teaching skepticism and critical thinking should be part of any education, an ongoing theme.
I'm a fan of the skeptics guide podcast, and of identifying and challenging biases, including my own.
I remember as a child I went to a religious school, and they claimed that they focused on building "critical thinking" skills. Of course you were only allowed to criticise ideas and theories designated as wrongthink.
Anyhow, I think that learning skepticism and learning about cognitive biases is important, but honestly I think it's just education in general that has improved my own meager abilities. I'm no academic success story, I got a bachelor degree in my early 30s. In my 20s I had some weird ideas - just latching onto thoughts and phrases that resonated with me as beliefs and seeking evidence to support them.
It was really only long hours of struggling with learning that kind of helped me to kind of reason about things with a little more skepticism and humility.