Critical Thinking

I just ran across the following list of skills that comprise critical thinking.

* Evaluate and interpret the meaning of the textual material.
* Support a thesis with evidence appropriate to position and audience.
* Organize and connect ideas.
* View situations from different perspectives.
* Compare and contrast source material so that analysis can be made and theories can be proved or disproved.
* Draw inferences, suppositions, and conclusions from source materials.
* Perform a medley of solutions to a possible problem and present those solutions in a logical, coherent manner.
* Differentiate between fact and fiction, concrete and abstract, theory and practice.
* Make estimates and approximations and judge the reasonableness of the result.
* Apply quantitative and/or qualitative techniques, tools, formulas and theories in the solution of real-life problems and recognize when to apply those techniques, tools, formulas, and theories.
* Interpret data presented in tabular and graphical form and utilize that data to draw conclusions.
* Use quantitative relationships to describe results obtained by observation and experimentation.
* Interpret in non-quantitative language relationships presented in quantitative form.
* Apply the scientific method including methods of validating the results of scientific inquiry.

By these definitions, any course can be a critical thinking course! What do you think?

"Shattering the Glass Closet"

If you think women in science have it hard, what about gays and lesbians in science? (It's a long article, but well-written.)

Academic Freedom

There is a bill in the House right now called "H.R. 4137, The College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007." This bill is designed to help students access higher education, regardless of their financial situation. This is a highly laudable goal. Moreover, this specific bill reauthorizes a system already in place, and already proven to work reasonably well - sure not perfectly, but without the bill going through things would be MUCH worse.

However, there are people planning to tack on an "Academic Bill of Rights" amendment. At first glance this seems harmless - it's supposed to give students the right to free speech and congregation on campuses. Take another look at that. How long have our universities and colleges, both public and private, already been providing the right to free speech and meeting and even civil protests on our campuses without interference from the Feds? When problems come up, have we ever turned to the Feds for their so-called help? You know where else the Feds are sitting on our campuses? Behind tables saying "Join the Army - you'll only have to train two weekends a year and we promise, cross our hearts, that we won't send you to Iraq to be blown up! and we'll even take you if you're schizophrenic or retarded because we need more cannon fodder people who can't understand the situation they're in while on the front lines eager recruits who we can prey upon recruit because of their debt and help to become financially solvent!"

Yeah, I want them legislating for more Federal presence on my campus. Where do I sign up?

To send a letter to your Rep, here is where you sign up.

And in case you think I'm saying this just b/c I'm a flaming Liberal, quoted directly from the model letter on that page,

Over the last four years, 28 states have considered legislation aimed at correcting an alleged “political bias” at their state colleges and universities. After examining the evidence and assessing existing institutional policies, no state enacted this legislation, regardless of which party held a political majority.

How to Become a Scientist

Just found this resource from an LJ community I follow. It's a discussion of what to do academically to become a scientist. Reminds me of my similar post (concentrating more on the time scales) from 2005.

"Why do we need to know...?"

Well, on the upside, I'm glad to know it's not just students in science classes.