Designed for a three-hour workshop teaching adult learners. Download it. Make it your own- and please have some fun along the way! This is my instructor slide deck for teaching an introductory workshop on critical thinking. This session focuses on business applications of critical thinking skills in entrepreneurship. Featured are the nine tools from Carl Sagan's "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection." Also included are challenging supplemental learning materials: Here Be Dragons, Marooned, Inquiring Minds, Word Circle, and Connect the Dots.
2. Lesson Preface
“The Fine Art of Baloney Detection” was developed by author Carl
Sagan to reveal the many types of deception to which we are
susceptible.
3. Our Purpose
• This class is focused on building
business skills.
• We will explore critical thinking
theory only as it relates to
business decisions.
• We are intentionally limiting the
scope of this tool, though it has
wider implications.
4. Sagan asserts that his Baloney Detection Kit isn’t merely a tool of
science — rather, it contains invaluable tools of healthy skepticism
that apply to everyday life. By using it, we can shield ourselves
against deception and deliberate manipulation.
5. What’s a Baloney Detection Kit?
BDK is a set of nine cognitive tools and techniques that
strengthen one’s mind against penetration by falsehoods.
6. The BDK is brought out whenever
new ideas or information
are offered for consideration.
7. FACTOID: The BDK is extremely light-weight (3.3 Lbs.) and easily accessible.
If a new idea survives close examination by the
tools in our kit, we grant it tentative acceptance.
10. This brings up the heated question of …
Where do we find reliable
and credible sources of
information?
Is it based on inductive or deductive logic?
Process?
Are you familiar with the Wiki experiment?
www.wikipedia.org/
11. Encourage substantive debate (discussion) on the evidence
by knowledgeable sources and proponents of all points of
view.
TOOL #2
Substance, Source & Scope
The great debate!
12. Controversial issues generate strong feelings.
• Be open.
• Be respectful.
• Be civil.
• But mostly, be thorough.
• Where’s the baloney?
Debate
15. Thinking?
Arguments from authority carry little
or no weight — “authorities” have
made mistakes in the past.
They will do so again in the future.
Assertion: No one can predict the future.
16. P e r s p e c t i v e s / P r e j u d i c e s ?
Where and from whom do you get your
information to make decisions?
18. • If something needs to be explained, consider all of
the different ways in which it can be explained.
• Think of how you might generate multiple ideas
and systematically validate or disprove each.
• What survives among “multiple working
hypotheses,” has a much better chance of being
the best answer than if you had simply run with
the first idea that seemed plausible.
P r o c e s s ?
19. How can we design an
experiment to either
prove or disprove each of
these theories and
objections?
Our E-Waste Experiment- Here are some objections we’ve heard
thus far:
• Recycling old electronics is too difficult.
• Old computers are worthless junk.
• There is no money to be made in e-waste.
• You have to do it on a large scale to make it viable financially.
• Electronics contain many toxins and are expensive to dispose of.
• Big money can be made if and only if you discover a new process for
recycling e-waste
• Recycling is bad because it uses more energy than it saves
20. Think Time: Connect all nine dots using four straight lines and without picking up your pencil
21. TOOL #5
Invite questions. Do not get overly attached to a hypothesis
just because it is yours.
• Ask yourself why you like the idea. Dig five levels.
• Compare your idea fairly with all the competing
alternatives.
• See if you can find reasons for rejecting it.
• If you don’t honestly and fully explore these
reasons, others will.
Avoid Personal Attachment
22. Quantify data if at all possible
TOOL #6
Assertion: There is uncertainty in all scientific data and the best scientist
finds some degree of error and uncertainty in their measurements.
23. If whatever it is you’re explaining
has some measure or numerical
quantity attached to it, you’ll be
much better able to discern more
information among competing
theories.
What is qualitative is vague and open to many
explanations.
24. Every link in the logic chain must hold true
TOOL #7
Assertion: Every progression or step must be logical.
25. If there’s a chain of argument,
every link in the chain must work
(including the premise) — not just
some or most of them.
Don’t accept mixed logic or verbosity. Emotion sells but truth tells.
Fallacies
26. When faced with two hypotheses that explain
the data equally well, choose the simpler.
TOOL #8
27. TOOL #9
Seek to disprove.
Always ask whether the hypothesis can be,
at least in principle, falsified.
When might a theory ever be conditional?
28. Propositions that
are untestable are
not worth very much.
• Consider if an idea is not capable of
disproof.
• You must be able to check out assertions.
• Skeptics must be given the chance to follow
your reasoning, to duplicate your
experiments, to follow your logic, and see if
they get the same result.
Skeptic?
29. Summary
1. Independent Work Experience
2. Substance, Source & Scope Study source
3. Challenge Authority Devi’s Advocate
4. Consider More Than One Hypothesis Multiple ideas
5. Avoid Personal Attachment Invite questions
6. Quantify Data If Possible Metrics
7. Every Link In Chain Must Hold True All True
8. Simplify Easiest if equal
9. Seek to Disprove Invalidate
32. Marooned
Scenario:
You are marooned on an island.
Please write down your answer to
this question:
Based solely in present day reality, what five items
would you have brought with you if you knew there
was a chance that you might be stranded?
PEER REVIEW AND PRIZES WILL BE AWARDED!
33. Inquiring Minds
A genie has granted your
wish for financial freedom
and you will receive
$1,440.00 daily for life!
*You must spend all of it every day.
• What will you do with it?
We all have the exact same amount of time each day. 1440 minutes.
Time is money! Focus your time, dream big, and make a firm plan.
Experiment in the margins of your life.
35. Lessons In Critical Thinking
Mary Jane Clark, Certified Kauffman Foundation Ice House Facilitator
Contact mjclark@stepupministry.org
(Glad to connect with inquiring minds)
Do the work. Examine results. Seek credible sources & input. Adjust plan. Execute. Repeat.
Hinweis der Redaktion
Need to give more background on Sagan and principles involved – Some humor will help! Use the BILLIONS info!
This got a laugh.
Encourage them to begin thinking about what baloney they are accepting in their lives now.
How do we do this in product research?
How do we do this in market research?
Do you find that direct EXPERIENCE matters?
How can we personally verify facts? By direct experience.
This is a primary lesson of entrepreneurship. Experience and knowing.
Juan Nelson’s adage: You may have feelings, but feelings are not facts.
We can’t possibly experience everything. What’s reliably recommended? In business, we find it in business journals. We examine our competitors. We examine our ideas by testing, reading the bottom line on a balance sheet, obtaining feedback as to levels of employee and customer satisfaction-- and we measure our condition again others in similar situations or against benchmarks we set for ourselves. You must identify for yourself who has the standards and reputation for veracity in your field. Identify trusted sources.
Avoid narrow-minded decision-making
Confirmation Bias
Limiting thoughts
Peer Group Pressure
Cultural
Consider other opinions, but know that we are all generally flawed!
Our sun orbits around Earth
Earth is flat
The US moon walk was a fake
Critical Thinking Exercise: 9 dots. Please connect them using 4 straight lines and without picking up your pencil
Sq up your dots!
Attached to scrap exchange at Kauffman!
Who has data skills and would be willing to track data on this project?
Qualitative – Pick out some of the qualitative words used in the initial objects to the hypothesis of the E-Waste Project
Recycling is too difficult.
Old computers are worthless junk.
There is no money to be made in e-waste.
You have to do it on a large scale to make it viable financially.
Electronics contain many toxins and are expensive to dispose of.
Big money can be made if and only if you discover a new process for recycling e-waste
Recycling is bad because it uses more energy than it saves
Logic 101.
Process and design thinking will be vital here. Who can answer this question?
This is where the rubber hits the road in personal relationships!
Feelings are not facts.
You are entitled to your feelings as long as they are logical!
STICKY WICKETTTTTTT!
Personally, it is not my advice to ever argue with someone’s feelings. However, I do not accept emotional arguments as fact.
The most valuable contributions engineers make to humanity are probably not high-tech electronics, but, rather, they are simple and inexpensive solutions that work!
We use this principle in bootstrapping a business. Keep it simple and inexpensive while testing to see if it works.
It is simple to make things complex, but it is complex to make things simple.
Keep working at solutions for simple solutions.
When faced with opposition to an idea or irrational please, explore more deeply.
You teenaged son says he will just die if he doesn’t get an X-Box for Christmas.
Actually, he may die because he had an X-Box and someone else used force to take it away.
Other examples?
Fine, I accept you at your word. However, I will not be giving you any money to buy one and there is no Santa Clause delivering an X-Box for Christmas.
So, how can I help youfigure out what you are going to do or make to earn the money to buy that X-Box by drop dead date of Christmas?
Refer back to Here Be Dragons.
I’m still confused over organics and more! Claims and counter-claims in politics, science, and in everyday business decisions!
Here’s what it takes
What have you learned from someone already in this class that sparks curiosity or a new ideas and how will you explore them further?