Category: reason

Book: Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell

January 27, 2015

“In his landmark bestseller The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell redefined how we understand the world around us. Now, in Blink, he revolutionizes the way we understand the world within.

Blink is a book about how we think without thinking, about choices that seem to be made in an instant-in the blink of an eye-that actually aren’t as simple as they seem. Why are some people brilliant decision makers, while others are consistently inept? Why do some people follow their instincts and win, while others end up stumbling into error? How do our brains really work-in the office, in the classroom, in the kitchen, and in the bedroom? And why are the best decisions often those that are impossible to explain to others?”

-Amazon Review

http://www.amazon.com/Blink-The-Power-Thinking-Without/dp/0316010669/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1422319653&sr=8-1

Lyndon B Johnson’s famous “Daisy Ad”

January 27, 2015

One of the most famous and controversial political ads in American history, LBJ’s “Daisy Ad” was a great example of an appeal to emotion argument. Rather than present a reasoned argument or discuss facts, the ad takes one of the scariest prospects of the time, or any time, nuclear war, and tries to capitalize on people’s emotions by saying that a vote for the other guy would lead to nuclear war. The ad was only aired once but had a huge impact.

Rational and Irrational Thought: The Thinking That IQ Tests Miss

January 22, 2015

Why smart people sometimes do dumb things

“No doubt you know several folks with perfectly respectable IQs who repeatedly make poor decisions. The behavior of such people tells us that we are missing something important by treating intelligence as if it encompassed all cognitive abilities. I coined the term ‘dysrationalia’ (analogous to ‘dyslexia’), meaning the inability to think and behave rationally despite having adequate intelligence, to draw attention to a large domain of cognitive life that intelligence tests fail to assess. Although most people recognize that IQ tests do not measure every important mental faculty, we behave as if they do. We have an implicit assumption that intelligence and rationality go together—or else why would we be so surprised when smart people do foolish things?”

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/rational-and-irrational-thought-the-thinking-that-iq-tests-miss/?utm_source=digg&utm_medium=email

How Critical Thinkers Lose Their Faith in God

January 22, 2015

“Religious belief drops when analytical thinking rises.

“Why are some people more religious than others? Answers to this question often focus on the role of culture or upbringing.  While these influences are important, new research suggests that whether we believe may also have to do with how much we rely on intuition versus analytical thinking.”

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-critical-thinkers-lose-faith-god/