Repairing the American Mind

I was delighted to read Guy Harrison’s article espousing the need for critical thinking education (May/June 2021). On one count, however, he is thankfully wrong. At the college level, said education is not limited to “university philosophy courses.” For close to one hundred years, Speech Communication (or Communication Studies) Departments have been teaching courses in critical thinking, argumentation theory, and rhetoric. These same departments are often the sponsors of collegiate forensics teams (a cocurricular activity that is also active at the high school level). By championing critical thinking, advocacy, and public speaking, these departments continue to help develop an educated and deliberative citizenry.

Mark J. Porrovecchio
Associate Prof. of Rhetoric
Director of Forensics
Oregon State University
Corvallis, Oregon

I fully agree with Harrison that having more people using critical thinking is a good thing and that anyone can be taught to think this way—just as people are trained in other skills “like learning a trade.” I fear he underestimates the amount of effort it takes to learn critical thinking. Furthermore, he provides no incentive or motivation for people to learn critical thinking.

I would estimate the effort it takes to really apply critical thinking is akin to the effort it took for this average math user to scrape through three or four courses in statistics.

Harrison provides no motivation for people to get into and stick at training in critical thinking. If you stick at training to be a welder for a long enough time, you end up fabricating metal objects. If you stick at critical thinking for long enough, you may think you have a clearer picture of the world, but there are millions of others who will surmise that you are a deluded part of the sheeple.

It seems to me that the greatest difficulty in getting people to accept critical thinking—as Harrison delineates it—is that while critical thinking may have demonstrable group benefits, we rarely hear how it can benefit the individual critical thinker. Until we can provide a strong statement of its individual benefits, it will continue to be a hard sell—especially when those individuals already have such strong motivations behind their current beliefs.

James Mica
Endicott, New York 

I fear that Guy P. Harrison’s advocacy of “critical thinking education” as the best means to advance reason and belief in reality in the United States, while admirable, is nothing more than a forlorn hope. Such an approach might be viable in a nation with a nationally centralized education system, as is the case in other industrialized nations. However, in the United States, with its highly localized education system spread out over thousands of school districts across the length and breadth of the country, many of which are controlled by religious zealots and ultra-conservatives, that would be an impossibility. The last thing the powers that be in all too many parts of the nation want to see is a population that embraces critical thinking and accepts reality! That would include the powers that be on all too many school boards.

Dennis Middlebrooks
Brooklyn, New York

I appreciate Guy Harrison’s portrayal of America’s cognitive crisis, the need to establish corrective steps to reduce its destructive effects, and his plan to advance measures to correct it. It struck me, however, that a giant gorilla in the room was completely unmentioned. That gorilla is religion and the uncritical indoctrination most religious people’s children receive throughout their lives that encourage gullibility. Harrison mentions mass delusions but never once mentions the powerful impact of religious indoctrination. He also discusses the importance of making critical thinking an educational norm and suggests that good thinking alleviates bad thinking. But he never addresses the problem of simultaneously teaching good thinking and bad thinking.

Critical thinking is evidence-based thinking built from substantiated facts. Believing in supernatural phenomena requires an absence of evidence. Because a supernatural realm is not known to exist, it is not supported by any verifiable evidence. Whether you are a scientist or the pope, your awareness is of the natural world and nothing beyond. All supernatural claims are unverified speculations. Because most American children are indoctrinated to believe in supernatural phenomena as reality, a main purpose of education should be to help children recognize what is supported by evidence, what is falsified by evidence, and what is left uncertain based on current evidence. Education should also help children unlearn what is promoted as truth that is not supported by evidence. Religion’s unverified speculations should not be protected from this scrutiny any more than that of an unverifiable pseudoscience.

Jeff Holtmeier
Silver Spring, Maryland

Harrison replies to Jeff Holtmeier:

Holtmeier is right, but it was a conscious omission. Religious belief is too entrenched and politically charged to mention in passing in a broad essay and expect believers to keep reading. That’s why I wrote two books specifically about it.

Critical thinking has to compete with attractive fantasies that—by intention or passively—interfere with critical thought. One need look no further than our consumer economy and the advertising that supports it. Critical thinking doesn’t “move product” the way half-formed half-truths accompanied by a musical background with carefully constructed images do when they elicit particular emotional responses. Today, critical thinking means being constantly aware of thousands of attempts every day to distract us from what? Critical thinking. It’s not like we are in a neutral environment where all we need is a little critical thinking when we get the chance. Some people don’t have the capacity to maintain the levels of vigilance required to question the sea of misleading information we are bombarded with hour by hour. Also, critical thinking is not nearly as much fun as swallowing the available BS, at least for large parts of the human population.

Another aspect of this is identifying and naming who is lying intentionally to mislead, whether for profit or political advantage. We may assume the backlash against that would be severe. Even in this issue of Skeptical Inquirer, there are some objecting to the politicization of some of the content. Teaching critical thinking as if we live in the rarefied atmosphere of intellectuals and scientists won’t cut it. Even scientific journals such as Scientific American are realizing that bare bones critical thinking isn’t enough if it’s not put in context of our political reality.

Leonard Bohlman
Waterloo, Wisconsin

Although I completely agree with the insightful analysis provided in Guy Harrison’s article, “How to Repair the American Mind,” the odds of his proposed solution being implemented are close to zero.

Harrison asserts that political propaganda and irrational beliefs have reached crisis levels in the United States. His assertion is irrefutable, although the American public never has exhibited a fondness or proclivity for rational thought. To alleviate the crisis, he suggests incorporating the teaching of critical thinking skills into our public-school curricula. Once again, his suggestion is spot on and may indeed be the only possible antidote. There’s only one problem: it won’t happen.

As Harrison notes, “critical thinking” is viewed by many as an elitist concept. The muddled masses who ascribe to this viewpoint include the same religious fundamentalists, MAGA people, conspiracy theorists, and white supremacists who managed to elect (and nearly re-elect) Donald Trump and his ilk. Today’s Republican party would universally oppose the teaching of critical thinking, mainly because such a program would eventually result in most Republican politicians being booted out of office. Most religious institutions would oppose the idea as well, because it would threaten their congregations’ beliefs in the fairy tales composing their core narratives.

I’m with you, Mr. Harrison, but your proposal is an impossible dream. We’ll never reach herd immunity to America’s stupidity pandemic.

Dan Davis
Elk Grove, California

At the beginning of Obama’s administration, he turned his education portfolio over to his old friend Arne Duncan, who brought in a consultant, David Coleman, to develop the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Then–New York State Commissioner of Education David Steiner received a one-time waiver to develop a curriculum that could be used for free by all states in English Language Arts (ELA) and mathematics. After the curriculum and accompanying testing were developed, it was mandated with high stakes in most states. The ELA curriculum was especially poor, because it’s hard to teach and test in a multiple-choice format, and it reflected Coleman’s often-quirky curriculum ideas. Because of all this, the CCSS curriculum monopolized the school day, particularly in lower-achieving populations. It wasn’t about learning but rather test prep. Science and social studies went by the wayside. Richer schools would get higher scores no matter what, so they had more latitude for topics such as, yes, critical thinking. 

President Biden isn’t mandating testing, but it’s still in place in many districts, often with test scores affecting teacher salaries. So don’t expect to find room for critical thinking classes in every school, particularly high-poverty ones. In the meantime, a longitudinal report from the National Assessment of Educational Progress was issued, showing the long-term effects of the CCSS. Achievement during those years was lower than if the standards had never been instituted, at a huge financial cost and, more importantly, a huge cost in learning. David Coleman became the president of the College Board, where he developed identically modeled tests for high school equivalency, the SAT, and more. The SAT tests, which can be found online, are now being rejected by many colleges as admission tests because they consider them racist. They’re basically parallel to the ones being used in public school classrooms. 

Sandra Wilde
Hunter College
City University of New York, retired

Distrust of Science

Peter Lantos does a fine job of enumerating reasons the public doesn’t trust science or scientists (May/June 2021), but he ignores the elephant in the room: for decades, a variety of industries from tobacco to fossil fuels have spent billions and billions of dollars in sophisticated campaigns precisely to convince us to not trust science or scientists. They create doubt and confusion (“more studies are needed,” “scientists say what they need to get their grant money”), and their fake “think tanks” provide alternative realities (“CO₂ comes from volcanoes”). Naomi Oreskes has done a brilliant job in her must-read book Merchants of Doubt. A huge part of the reason people don’t trust scientists is because of this well-funded decades-long effort to get them to not trust it.

John Mosley
St. George, Utah

Concussion-Like Symptoms

I agree with Benjamin Radford that the conclusions of authors Baloh and Bartholomew put forth in their book Havana Syndrome (that the symptoms could be explained as a case of mass hysteria) may or may not be the correct explanation (May/June 2021). However, the quotation on page 59, “In fact, concussion-like symptoms have been reported in American soldiers returning home from every major conflict …” is possibly the worst possible and least surprising example to use in support of the authors’ conclusions. High explosives can and often do cause “concussion-like symptoms,” ranging from head trauma with no visible external injuries to death by concussion caused by the shock waves of an explosion—again often with no apparent external injuries. 

The American Academy of Neurology defines concussion as a trauma-induced alteration in mental status that may or may not involve loss of consciousness. It would be an enormous unexplainable anomaly if all soldiers returning from active war zones never had concussion-like symptoms. See, for example, “Managing Traumatic Brain Injury Secondary to Explosions” by Burgess et al. 2010 or any of dozens of other papers available on this subject. Perhaps some important context was edited out, but to present the quoted statement as support of mass hysteria in the Havana incident is simply not relevant.

Alan McBrayer
Charlotte, North Carolina

Visiting Aliens?

In response to the book review “UFO Believers” by Terence Hines of a book by Sarah Scoles (May/June 2021): One can easily fall into the “visiting alien” theories, but really? 

A species in a far galaxy might decipher that Earth was in turmoil, but after sending ships to check it out, they would discover that Earth was a burnt cinder. Oops, too late, time wins.

A more realistic(?) explanation would follow the ideas presented by films such as Timescape (1992, starring Jeff Daniels) and Thrill Seekers (1999, starring Martin Sheen) where disaster time-traveling tourists drop in from the future to witness notable events and move on. Except our travelers send back in time a drone with X-century technology for observation while executing radical movements and cloaking technology. That being so, what disaster might they be recording? Climate catastrophe?

Michael Beneke
Kelso, Washington

BMI Index

Regarding the usefulness of BMI as even a marginal indicator of good health (“Skeptical Inquiree” column, May/June 2021), I should point out that a University of Idaho study found the average height and weight of an NFL linebacker is approximately 6’2” and 245 pounds, which translates to a BMI of 31.5. I can only say that I would not consider myself to be in better shape than these, according to the BMI index, obese people.

I have personal experience of numerous powerlifting competitions in which competitors whose BMI would put them in the morbidly obese category would have no trouble simultaneously lifting the author of the article and whoever proofed it. Spare a thought also for all those poor morbidly obese winners of bodybuilding meets.

Alan Dean Foster
Prescott, Arizona

Benjamin Radford replies:

I’m honored that Foster read my column and replied, but there is no contradiction; my column specifically states that BMI is not a good indicator of health for athletes—just as he says!

Ambrose Bierce

As a lifelong fan of Ambrose Bierce, I was pleased to see Joe Nickell’s column “Incredible Vanishings” (March/April 2021). Alas, Nickell relies on hearsay and speculation but lacks a smoking gun from Bierce. I still like the Mexico story, but it seems unlikely it will be proven.

What Nickell neglected are some interesting developments in the Bierce saga, including the novel The Old Gringo (1985) by the Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes—a surreal account of Bierce’s time in Mexico. Then came the 1989 movie Old Gringo starring Gregory Peck as Bierce and Jane Fonda as the American governess who became his friend. The movie was a flop and adds little to the story.

Bierce also wrote Civil War stories that are still with us, including the oft-reprinted “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” and the fantasy “An Inhabitant of Carcosa,” which is still popular with the Lovecraft crowd.

As a longtime fan of Charles Fort’s brand of humor, I was pleased to see Nickell touched base there in passing with his mention of Canadian businessman Ambrose Small. Fort’s unanswerable question is, “Was somebody collecting Ambroses?”

Neal Wilgus
Corrales, New Mexico

Joe Nickell replies:

I’m not sure whose article Mr. Wilgus read, but mine did not contain a reference to “Canadian businessman Ambrose Small.” I wonder what ambrosia they’re sipping there in Corrales.

I also didn’t rely on “hearsay and speculation.” Bierce wrote a powerful essay advocating suicide and indicated his personal intent in final letters to friends (e.g., “My work is finished and so am I”). These add to what is known in investigating suicides as a “psychological autopsy.” So does the fact that Bierce permanently closed out his affairs. Corroboratively, we have testimony of Bierce’s close friend Walter Neal, a thoroughly reputable man, whom Bierce showed a photo of his intended resting place in the gorge of the Colorado and described a “German revolver” he had for the purpose.

If Wilgus needs more of a “smoking gun,” it was the pen with which Bierce wrote the stunning letter to his daughter in 1913, giving up his cemetery plot. It ends with the statement that he did “not wish to lie there. That matter is all arranged and you will not be bothered about the mortal part of [signed] Your Daddy.” This gives the lie to Bierce’s whole Mexico misdirection because, if anything happened to him there, his body might’ve been shipped home—surely no way to disappear! The U.S. government could not confirm that the author (who also wrote a “Mysterious Disappearances” trilogy) had crossed into Mexico.

For Mr. Wilgus and others who wished to read more, there is my book, Ambrose Bierce Is Missing (1992). Also Bierce biographer Roy Morris Jr. has developed my solution in his Ambrose Bierce: Alone in Bad Company (1995).

Science, Logic, and Evolution

Charles Hawkins (Letters, May/June 2021) raises some points that merit further discussion, such as my claim that the theory of evolution is provably correct. Statements can be of two kinds: universal and existential. (The negation of a universal statement is an existential statement, and vice versa.) Most scientific theories are universal statements: they are claims that are purported to be valid throughout the entire universe. These include theories in physics, chemistry, and many other disciplines, which we use because they work and, more particularly, have never been shown to be wrong. (See Popper, Conjectures and Refutations.) In other words, they are refutable in principle but haven’t been refuted. 

But the theory of evolution is different; it consists of two existential statements: 1) Heritable mutations occur with every reproduction. 2) Some mutations are favorable for survival and reproduction. Both of these statements are demonstrably true, and because the theory of evolution relies on these two premises and on nothing else, it is necessarily true also. For details, see my book Knowledge: What Can We Know, and How Can We Know That We Know It? available on Amazon.

Also, Hawkins is correct that the Bible is many things—but factual is not one of them. There are errors of fact, logic, and consistency running into the thousands. (See McKinzey, Biblical Errancy: A Reference Guide.)

Robert A. Saunders
Rohnert Park California

Science Can Guide

I enjoyed the many interesting and thought-provoking points offered in the exchange between Charles H. Jones and Massimo Pigliucci (“Is There a Philosophical Magisterium?” March/April 2021). In the most course-grained synopsis, Jones argues that if something is real—and all that affects us is real—it is testable by science, whereas Pigliucci counters that certain questions cannot be answered with science. He uses abortion as an example. 

With abortion, Pigliucci explains, science can determine the approximate age of a fetus when it begins to feel pain, but science will not lead one to conclude that abortion should not be permissible when the fetus experiences pain. The gist of his argument is that the permissibility of abortion can be arrived at from argumentation based on a starting criterion that is not grounded in empirical facts.

I would argue that science can inform the whole process. Starting criteria based solely on religious dogma or political ideology can be eliminated as irrelevant. Then, the nuanced understanding provided by science can guide the formulation of starting criteria.

The strength of science is not in its ability to answer questions but in its power to provide understanding and context that can be applied to making informed decisions. Pigliucci is right that starting criteria cannot be determined from science alone, but a productive process requires that science play a far greater role than he implies.

Mark G. Kuzyk
Regents Professor of Physics
Washington State University
Pullman, Washington