Gold Panning
Sponge Absorbing.
The more information you absorb about the world, the more capable you are of understanding its complexities. Knowledge you have acquired provides the foundation for more complicated thinking later.
Sponge absorbing is relatively passive. Rather than requiring strenuous mental effort, it tends to be rather quick and easy, especially when the material is presented in a clear and interesting fashion. The primary mental effort involves concentration and memory.
** This is what the heck Asian education emphasized, this way had been ruined many students.
While absorbing information provides a productive start toward becoming a thoughtful person, the sponge approach has a serious disadvantage :
It provides no method for deciding which information and opinion to believe and which to reject. If the reader relies on the sponge approach all the time, he would believe whatever he read last. The idea of being the mental puppet of whomever one happens to encounter is horrible imagery for a person and community. Decisions become accidents of association, instead of reflective judgments.
What doses the individual who takes the sponge approach do when he reads material ??
He reads sentences carefully, trying to remember as much as he can. He may underline and highlight key words and sentences. he may take notes summarizing the major topics and points. He checks his underlining or notes to be sure that he is not forgetting anything important. His mission is to find and understand what the author has to say. He memorized the reasoning, but doesn't evaluate it.
Panning Shot (Camera). Moto GP.
Camera (Photographer) : Motorbike = Rifle (Sniper) : Enemy
The first photo, Gold Panning is about to percolate the gold from gravel in the creek.
The second photo, Panning shot is about to trail the moving the motorbike.
The third photo, Depth of Field is about to attract attention on the hitter.
From the the above photos, we can easily find that we need to focus on what we need to present.
The process of panning of gold provides the model for active readers and listeners as they try to determine the worth of what they read and hear. The task is challenging and tedious, but the reward can tremendous. To distinguish the gold from the gravel in a conversation requires you to ask frequent questions and to reflect on the answer.
The " Sponge Absorbing " emphasized knowledge acquisition; the " Panning for Gold " stresses active interaction with knowledge as it is being acquired.
Like the person using the sponge approach, he approaches his reading with the hope that he will require new knowledge. There the similarity ends. The panning for gold requires that the reader asks himself a number of questions designed to uncover the best available decisions or beliefs.
Mental Check:
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1. Did I ask " Why " someone wants me to believe something ??
2. Did I take notes as I thought about potential problems what was being said ??
3. Did I evaluate what was being said ??
4. Did I form my own conclusion about the topic ??
The Myth of the " Right Answers "
Justice: What's the right thing to do.
Is it moral for the surrogate pregnancy ??
Ford Pinto case. Ford company calculated the value of human, the cost of changing design
was more expensive than car accident insurance. Is it right that Ford company calculated the value of human ??
Our ability to find definite answers to questions often depends on the type of question that puzzled us. " Scientific Questions " about the physical world are the most likely to have answers that reasonable people will accept, because the physical world is in certain ways
more " Dependable " or " Predictable " than the social world. While the precise distance to
the moon or the age of an newly discovered bone from an ancient civilization may not be absolutely certain, agreement about the dimension of our physical environment is widespread. Thus, in the physical science, we frequently can arrive at " The Right Answer ".
Questions about " Human Behavior " are different. The cause of human behavior are so complex that we frequently can not do much more than form intelligence guesses about why or when certain behavior will occur. Such as unemployment rate, the rate of abortion... Hence, we bring our preferences to any discussion of those issues and resist arguments that are inconsistent with them. Because human behavior are so controversial and complex, the best answers that we can find for many questions about our behavior are probabilistic in nature.
When you first encounter a conclusion, you do so with a history. You have learned to care about
certain things, to support particular interests, and to discount claims of a particular type. So you
always start to think critically in the midst of existing opinions. you have emotional commitment to these existing opinions. We bring lots of " Personal Baggage " to every decision we make, experience, dreams, values, training, and cultural habits.
Put " Personal Baggage " on the shelf for a bit. Critical thinking can be used either " Defend " or " Evaluate " and revise your initial beliefs.
" Weak-Sense " critical thinking is the use of critical thinking to defend your current beliefs.
To be unconcerned with moving forward truth and virtue. Resist and annihilate opinions and reasoning different from yours.
" Strong-Sense " critical thinking is the use of the same skills to evaluate all claims and beliefs.
We help protect against self-deception and conformity. It is easy to stick with current beliefs,
particularly when many people share them.
The Right Questions:
1. What are the issues and the conclusions ??
2. What are the reasons ??
3. Which words or phrases are ambiguous ??
4. What are the value conflicts and assumptions ??
5. What are the descriptive assumptions ??
6. Are there any fallacies in the reasoning ??
7. How good is the evidence ??
8. Are there rival causes ??
9. Are the statistics deceptive ??
10. What significant information is omitted ??
11. What reasonable conclusions are possible ??
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