Learn the truth

A short blog-post today about two ways to question, and learn, the ”truth”.

In psychology and neurology one of the most repeated ”facts” is what happened to Phineas Gage in 1848. (He got an iron rod through his head and survived it, making the rest of his life very interesting to everyone who studies the brain.) In Slate there is an article about how one of the most told stories when retold, even to university students, is largely fictional. Or to be kind, even some scientists have used poetic freedom when describing the case of Phineas Gage. Now anecdotes are an important part of describing the world including science, but it is somewhat depressing that one of the great scientific stories are also one of the great examples of how to spin a story. It appears that there is a lack of information about what actually happened to Phineas Gage after the accident and that people have filled in the blanks with what they think should be the truth.

There is a lot of debate about energy, arguments about the environment, safety, and world politics is a huge part of the debate. Yesterday in the book store I came across a book arguing that nuclear energy is something bad, using Fukushima as an example of the dangers of nuclear energy. There is no doubt that nuclear energy is dangerous, but everything in life is associated with some danger. The question we need to ask is how dangerous nuclear energy is and anyone who wants to use Fukushima as an example should read this UN-report.
A small extract from the report:

38.
No radiation-related deaths or acute diseases have been observed among the workers and general public exposed to radiation from the accident.
39.
The doses to the general public, both those incurred during the first year and estimated for their lifetimes, are generally low or very low. No discernible increased incidence of radiation-related health effects are expected among exposed members of the public or their descendants. The most important health effect is on mental and social well-being, related to the enormous impact of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident, and the fear and stigma related to the perceived risk of exposure to ionizing radiation. Effects such as depression and post-traumatic stress symptoms have already been reported. Estimation of the occurrence and severity of such health effects are outside the Committee’s remit.

Page 10 of SOURCES, EFFECTS AND RISKS OF IONIZING RADIATION, UNSCEAR 2013 Report,Volume I, REPORT TO THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY, SCIENTIFIC ANNEX A:
Levels and effects of radiation exposure due to the nuclear accident after the 2011 great east-Japan earthquake and tsunami

I want to emphasise that nuclear energy is dangerous and that the text above is cherry picked to show that it is not as dangerous as some people say it is.

What is critical thinking?

I have an acquaintance who is very much familiar with what is happening in the education system in Sweden. He knows about different schools and different methods for teaching and he expressed to me that he was just sick of all the talk about critical thinking. Everywhere the term ”critical thinking” is used almost as a spell, as long as the pupils are taught critical thinking it's not very important that they know anything else. If the schools just teach critical thinking skills the pupils will find all the other information that they need by themselves.
This is of course idiotic and anyone who used critical thinking would realise that this is the case. My guess is that too many fall in the trap of using a popular word without even trying to think about what critical thinking really is.

What it isn't
To think critical about something is not to be able to find the correct information about that something or the correct answer to a question. (Here ”correct” is of course only a temporary property for a certain set of statements. The term ”correct” is relating to the ”truth” which is only an approximation, our current knowledge of the ”Truth” - how things really are.) To do that is to expand the existing knowledge either for oneself, a group of people, or for humanity if what is discovered is something not previously known. To be able to establish the truth is not the same as being able to think critically. To think critically comes before finding the truth and sometimes a truth cannot be found but it is still possible to think critically before that.
To think critically is not to doubt everything. That is what skepticism is often accused of as well, being nothing but doubt of all assertions. But there is not much thinking involved in doubting everything. It is also not very efficient to doubt everything even if one tries to do it in a Cartesian way in order to find a fundamental Truth, something that cannot be a mistaken impression or a lie by a deceitful god. It would also be difficult to avoid solipsism if one begin to doubt everything.

It is in my opinion likely that critical thinking is not one thing but a collection of different important techniques that has to be used and weighted with judgement. To do this is to employ critical thinking skills. The indiscriminating doubt of everything is not critical thinking but doubt is likely to sometimes be the result of judging the evidence at hand, and it can also be an important part in weighing the evidence. To acquire the skill for critical thinking include both knowing the different techniques and having the experience of using them, non of which is easy or comes natural to us humans. Today I am beginning to write a series of blog-posts about important elements of critical thinking. The first one is Heuristics

Important parts of critical thinking – Heuristics
Some relatively simple heuristics is a part of critical thinking. These might be so well known that they are even made into proverbs. If something sounds too good to be true it probably is – is one that most people have heard. It is probably also possible to include longer stories that are teaching an important lesson of what to do or not to do. To cry wolf is something that is bad, you can understand this either by thinking about how people would react to constantly get false alarms or you can learn it from the story.
But is it critical thinking to know that crying wolf is not a good thing to do? No, not really, the critical thinking part comes earlier. If we get the impulse to sound the alarm even if we know that there is no danger, we can either act on the impulse or think about it and chose not to. In reality we have a choice between the immediate satisfaction of an impulse or to consider what might be good for us in the future if we would need to sound the alarm for real. That it is bad to cry wolf is not something that is set in stone, from an individuals point of view it might be more rewarding to follow the initial impulse and have a laugh sounding the alarm. It can probably be argued that for a society it is bad if people have the habit of crying wolf. But what says that an individual should place the benefit of society above the joy of following an impulse? This is one reason why heuristics are never 100%. But this kind of reasoning is not likely to take place in the head of the person tempted to sound the alarm. The Story About the Boy Who Cried Wolf is a way to avoid thinking critically and arrive at the conclusion without thinking. That is to say the opposite of critical thinking. If we start to think critically about heuristics we realise that they are general rules that are questionable.
I still consider heuristics to be an important part of critical thinking, not because it always leads one to a correct result but because it gives us a quick warning about when we need to start thinking. The heuristics are there because we as a species have learned to not trust our impulses all the time, and we use our culture to give us warnings in tricky situations. The heuristics are something like a starting point for critical thinking. Unfortunately we don't have heuristics for all situations and some people follow them more or less blindly. They have limits but with all their faults they can still not be ignored.

First ever Uppsala Magic & Comedy or What I Did Last Weekend

Friday the 25th to Sunday the 27th was the dates for the first ever Uppsala Magic & Comedy festival, an opportunity for people to see some high class magic and comedy. There was also the opportunity to see the Swedish Championships in Magic so many magicians were at the festival for that reason as well.
The person that we have to thank for the festival and its success is Johan Ståhl who created and organised the festival. Of course also all the magicians and other artist at the festival helped making it a huge success. Finally the audience was important to make the festival the greatest magic & comedy festival in Scandinavia, all from the youngest children to senior citizens where there.
I was myself to some degree involved in organising the competitions so I didn't get to see all of them but I have been told that they where over all quite good. Unfortunately it was as always difficult for the people competing in the mentalism category although they had very good acts.

Johan Ståhl the person responsible for everything and probably the one who slept the least.

There were some acts for the very young. Zillah och Totte was a big success with the youngest children.

Tom Stone, one of the greatest magicians in Sweden and known among magicians all over the world, both performed and gave a lecture about how people are being fooled.

You could also learn magic either from Magnus Vihagen if you were a little bit younger or from Andreas Mattisson if you were more interested in manipulation. It was also possible to buy magic tricks from the dealers, some who came from so far away as Denmark.

From even further away than Denmark was one of the stars of the festival Inez from Spain. She had a very pleasing combination of comedy and great magical moments in her acts.

The two greatest international stars was without doubt David Williamson and Yu Ho Sin. They represent two completely different forms of magic. I learned that some thought that David Williamson was too pushy and harsh towards the spectators he brought on to the stage. I was on the other hand impressed by that in my opinion he never crossed the line even though he was pushing it. Yu Ho Sin on the other hand didn't need any spectators on stage. His act is pure magic and the manipulations that he is doing are not possible, that's how good he is.

The photos were taken by Theresa Kriegler and she will probably write something about the festival on the blog TrixxBox (in German)

If you want to read more about the festival right away it is possible to do that at Magi-arkivet (in Swedish) There you will also find the results from the competitions.