Critical Thinking Skills

(H/T DawgNotes, via Telic Thoughts)

1. Gather complete information - more than one source
2. Understand and define terms (make others define terms, too)
3. Question the methods by which results were derived
4. Question the conclusion: do the facts support it? is there evidence of bias? remember correlation does not equal causation.
5. Uncover assumptions and biases
6. Question the source of information
7. Don't expect all the answers
8. Examine the big picture
9. Look for multiple cause and effect
10. Watch for thought-stopping sensationalism
11. Understand your own biases and values

A couple of Radio 4 recommends ...

More or Less - "takes you on a journey through the often abused but ever ubiquitous world of numbers." This week's episode (available on "Listen Again") did a good analysis of recent research which was presented as showing that half the new mothers that die are overweight.

"Three Minute Education" isn't available on Listen Again, so there's not much point in linking to it. But it was an interesting look at the influence of rock music on reading habits. "Wuthering Heights" is the tip of the iceberg!

Low energy lightbulbs

... have to be a good idea, right? The Energy Saving Trust said, on "You and Yours", the Radio 4 consumer programme, that they'd like to see the selling of tungsten lightbulbs phased out, so that only low energy ones were available in the fullness of time. If every house in the UK used three, then over their lifetime they would save enough energy to power the UK for a year (or something like that).

But hang on, correspondents pointed out. The truth isn't that simple. The low efficiency ones are less efficient because they generate more heat than light - a 100W lightbulb generates 80W of heat. If those watts of heat aren't being generated by lightbulbs, the house will be being warmed up less by the lightbulbs, which means that the heating will have to generate more heat to compensate. So there is no net benefit.

But hang on. The truth isn't that simple, either! Firstly, you have to take into account the environmental impact of manufacturing different sorts of lightbulbs. If the impact of making just one low energy lightbulb is lower than that of making the five or so inefficient ones, then this represents an advantage that needs to be considered. Also, for a significant proportion of the year - say six months - homes aren't heated using central heating. So for this part of the year, the heat energy that is produced is simply gradually dissipated - that is, used to directly warm up the atmosphere! - through open windows. Also, a lot of us have lights outside the heated part of the house - in porches, for example. In these cases, all of the heat energy is just lost in any case. And finally, you have to take into consideration the relative environmental impact of the energy sources used - is 80W of heat generated electrically in a lightbulb - with perhaps efficient generation but less efficient distribution - more environmentally friendly than 80W of heat generated through central heating.

The bottom line is that low energy lightbulbs are probably not as good for the environment as the manufacturers would like us to believe. But neither are they as "neutral" as the "You and Yours" correspondents were suggesting. It would take some careful research to get to the real truth of this question.

In Our Time ...

... in case you missed it, or are unaware of it, featured Richard Dawkins (amongst others) talking to the presenter Melvyn Bragg about altruism.

I didn't hear it all - if you are interested, the BBC has a "Listen Again" feature that doesn't in fact require you to have heard it once already. Go to this page and follow the link.

There was the odd bit even in what I heard. In talking about the different effects of culture, Dawkins talked about the "darwinian foundation" - but then added that the zeitgeist might be different from decade to decade. One was tempted to ask - in that case, what exactly is the predictive significance of the darwinian foundation?

And David Stove's commentary on Darwinism was not mentioned, as far as I know.

Humphrys in Search of God - to an extent

If you are going to ask somebody to try and convert you, it is unlikely to be the Archbishop of Canterbury. But then, neither are you likely to make a radio programme out of the conversation. These were two somewhat flawed premises of what was nonetheless an interesting programme on Radio 4. John Humphrys, a well-known and acerbic radio journalist, is inviting leaders of the three monotheistic religions to “convert” him in a half-hour radio programme. If you want to listen for yourself, you can listen to an extended version of the first interview through the link.

When Rowan Williams was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury – probably one of the most intellectual of the bishops in the Church of England, following George Carey who was considered to be an evangelical – many evangelicals had serious concerns that the church would be led abruptly in a liberal direction. We picked up various papers and talks he had given in the past in support of this view. But at least in this conversation, the archbishop presented Christianity in a form which, whilst perhaps not exactly as many evangelicals might have hoped for, was certainly as close as many of them would expect to get in a similar conversation at work, or down the pub.

What Rowan Williams did say.

He defended evil as the outcome of genuine free will. Along the lines of: “If God is going to give creatures free will, then there has to be a sense in which the outcome of this may be evil.” He nonetheless sought to defend the sovereignty and goodness of God. Whilst not quite saying that “death isn't actually the worst thing that can happen to somebody”, there was certainly that sense in what he did say. And whilst not quite saying that God has an overall plan which is good, there was again this sense in what he said.

He also didn't shy away from the exclusive claims of Christianity – in a setting in which it would have been easy and acceptable to do so. In talking about how he would engage with people of other faiths, he pointed to the fact that even in the New Testament (Paul's engagement with pagan cultures), engagement with different cultures was a process, not a simple assertion. Given his position, it would be difficult politically to go much further.

From an evangelistic point of view, he was also good at not offering formulaic answers, but getting John Humphries to explain what he thought – what it was exactly he “lost” when he lost his belief in God; what exactly he thought was the “faith” he was looking for (which to an extent, underlined the fact that this programme was somewhat artificial in its concept).

He also pointed out that, in considering the problem of suffering (why bad things happen to good people), there was a difference in thinking about it as an intellectual issue and as a pastoral issue.

What Rowan Williams didn't say.

He didn't mention Jesus in the whole programme, I think. He talked about the love that God has for people – without saying how that love is most visibly expressed.

He didn't mention eternal judgement (I don't think). Humphries tried to pin him down towards the end of the interview about this – but Williams leaned towards the idea that even after death, we still have the opportunity to respond to God. Similar ideas seem to be expressed in, for example, “The Great Divorce” by C.S.Lewis – but the weight even of this book is that the patterns that are established before somebody dies are pretty much final, and this is probably as far down the line of “non-final-judgement” that any evangelical would be prepared to go. In the archbishop's position, I would probably have wanted to point out that if somebody has rejected God throughout their life, then separation from the presence of God (which is part of the imagery of God's judgement) would seem as much an act of mercy as judgement. Also, God's love and the death of Jesus in place of the sinner are somewhat meaningless if you take away the idea of God's judgement.

This was an interesting programme, even though it had its flaws. I have no doubt that there will be other evangelicals who will be profoundly negative about what Rowan Williams said – but I thought it could have been an awful lot worse.