Gregg R Thomas

Thanks Simon, Bayesian thinking is all about checking out new ideas. We don’t want kids to hold beliefs, we want them to have “understandings”. Then when a new idea (information) comes along, they will have the skills to reason through it and adapt their understanding accordingly.

Bayesian reasoning, logic, and fallacy recognition would do more…[Read more]

I think that’s brilliant Reg.  I’m not sure about Bayesian thinking though – it seems to repackage “what’s possible” as “based on what’s already the case” – not allowing in new ideas.

The United States sent $50 million in condoms to Hamas. Diversity programs caused a plane crash. China controls the Panama Canal. Ukraine started the war with Russia.

Except, no. None of that is true. Not that it stops President Trump. In the first month since he returned to power, he has demonstrated once again a brazen willingness to advance…[Read more]

I have more to add but decided to start  with this. Let’s see how it develops.

@Jakelafort…..I am going to post something on Critical Thinking and improving Education for children soon.  A “first draft” that we can build upon.

@Strega, as always you are very welcome. Any break in the weather there?

@unapologetic – Point 3 – I always help xians by  correcting the chapter and verse notations when they start quoting scripture as some type of proof. I then explain the circular nature of their argument and say “If you are trying to prove the Bible is the word of your god by quoting it, then I will quote from Dracula to prove it also is”.

@Enco, Thanks, I blame cuts to the editing dept for not replying to emails asking them to explain what they actually do!!  Typo has been corrected.

Also, there is no historical evidence that Charles Darwin ever wrote, said, or implied that his goal was to “murder God.”

Thanks, Reg!

Have a great week folks!

TheEncogitationer wrote:
And the capital and most of the underlying ideas for all of it came from the West. Credit where credit is due indeed

Science grows based on what discoveries and developments came before.

The claim that Russia’s postwar successes were all (every single one, apparently) based on ideas that came from “the West” (as if…[Read more]

Strega wrote:
Regarding wishing we could all see each other as equals, that’s not how humans evolved. We are an instinctive tribal species, and there’s always “the enemy” somewhere to fight. If you’ve got no-one to fight, you’ll lose your fighting people.

You see it in football in Europe. Each team has a particular nemesis team. We love compet…

[Read more]

Firstly, “Jake spake” is possibly the coolest signoff line I’ve seen 😎.

Regarding wishing we could all see each other as equals, that’s not how humans evolved. We are an instinctive tribal species, and there’s always “the enemy” somewhere to fight. If you’ve got no-one to fight, you’ll lose your fighting people.

You see it in football in Europ…[Read more]

_Robert_ wrote:
Do Americans even have the credibility to condemn authoritarian dictatorships these days? Our new allies are North Korea and Russia. Our enemies are Europe, Canada and Mexico.

Exactly. Trump is ignoring the “coequal branches” thing and is using his chief executive role to ruin America. Whatever America’s faults, he’s taking us…[Read more]

TheEncogitationer wrote:
My concern is not with being “balanced” but being right.

If by “right” you mean “to the right”  then yeah, I get it.

The questions you pose are very hypothetical and are thus unanswerable. They are also polluted by unstated and/or unsupported assumptions and presumptions.

A lot of the criticism of Russia, yours incl…[Read more]

Ukraine was not “part of Russia” in the sense of always being a subordinate region—it had distinct periods of autonomy and foreign rule. Russia gradually annexed much of Ukraine in the 17th and 18th centuries, fully integrating it into the Russian Empire by the late 18th century. While it was a republic of the USSR, it had its own identity, c…[Read more]