Skip to main content

On critical thinking in an age of science denialism

Image
By
I've fantasized for a long time about the class on critical thinking that I would teach if I was ever given the opportunity. (I also fantasize about what I would do with the winnings from lotteries I never play and where I would go if I could time travel, but I digress.) We live in a world where there are powerful forces (e.g. Big Tobacco, Big Oil) with millions of dollars to spend sowing doubt about the scientific consensus on smoking, climate change, and more. We live in a world of self-styled experts who have discovered there are millions of dollars to be made from peddling conspiracy theories about vaccines, GMOs, the 9/11 attacks, and more. 

A number of years ago I watched the 1999 Errol Morris documentary "Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr." and knew immediately how I would use it to talk about the limitations of forming an opinion without knowledge or expertise.

First, I would show my fictional class these three clips to provide the necessary context and set the stage: Fred Leuchter is an expert on execution techniques, including execution by cyanide gas. He travels to Auschwitz to take samples from the gas chambers there to test whether or not they were indeed used as gas chambers. He sends those samples to a reputable lab for analysis.



Clip 1 of 4- The trial of Ernst Zündel.From "Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr." Errol Morris, 1999.
Posted by A Mile Wide, An Inch Deep on Tuesday, December 22, 2015



Clip 2 of 4- Leuchter collects samples from Auschwitz. From "M...
Posted by A Mile Wide, An Inch Deep on Tuesday, December 22, 2015



Clip 3 of 4- Lab returns the analysis. From "Mr. Death: The Ri...
Posted by A Mile Wide, An Inch Deep on Tuesday, December 22, 2015


The result? "All of their tests came back, and they did several types of tests to determine whether or not there was any hydrogen cyanide, and they were negative. These facilities never saw any gas."

The clips make a pretty convincing case. He took samples, he documented what he was doing, he sent them to an independent lab... and no evidence of cyanide residue was found. That's pretty shocking, pretty alarming stuff.

Unless you know...


Clip 4 of 4- Leuchter claims are debunked. From "Mr. Death: Th...
Posted by A Mile Wide, An Inch Deep on Tuesday, December 22, 2015


"The test was not the correct one to have been used for the analysis. He presented us with rock samples anywhere from the size of your thumb up to half the size of your fist. We broke 'em up with a hammer so that we could get a sub-sample.  ... You have to look at what happens to cyanide when it reacts with a wall. Where does it go? How far does it go? Cyanide is a surface reaction. It's probably not going to penetrate more than 10 microns. A human hair is 100 microns in diameter.

"Crush the sample up, I have just diluted that sample 10,000... 100,000 times. If you're gonna go look for it, you're gonna look on the surface only. There's no reason to go deeper, because it is not going to be there. Which was the exposed surface? I didn't even have any idea. That's like analyzing paint on a wall by analyzing the timber that's behind it.

"If they go in with blinders on, they will see what they want to see."
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What Two Religions Tell Us About the Modern Dating Crisis - TIME

By
This article is so interesting to me, and seems to touch on so many different aspects of our current culture, both secular and non. I have no objection to cosmetic surgery. I've had both lasik eye surgery and liposuction over the years -- the former an equal measure of laziness and vanity, the latter pure vanity. I'd hated that little spare tire since I was 6 years old and so one day I had it delightfully sucked right out of me! But the stories over the years about the enormous amount of plastic surgery -- particularly breast augmentations -- performed in Utah have been eye-catching (not the least of which because the Church frowns so heavily on other much-less-invasive violations of the body-is-a-temple principle, like tattoos and multiple ear-piercings in an earlobe). When we were still friends, the husband of my old roommate continually pushed her to get a 'boob job' because everyone else in their ward had gotten one and he wanted her to have bigger breasts....
Post a Comment
Read more

John McCain: 2009 ACA debate "one of most hard-fought and fair" in my time

By
Was the ACA rammed through Congress with no Republican opportunity to amend the bill? Nope. But don't take my word for it. Here is Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) on the Senate floor, September 24, 2013. He notes that 160 Republican amendments were accepted in the HELP committee alone. He says the ACA fight was "one of the most hard-fought and fair, in my view, debates that has taken place on the floor of the Senate in the time I have been here." He says he's "proud of the effort we made and, frankly, the other side of the aisle allowed that debate to take place." Mr. McCAIN. It is a matter of record that the Senate Finance Committee considered the Affordable Care Act over several weeks and approved the bill on October 13, 2009. At that time members of the Finance Committee submitted 564 amendments, 135 amendments were considered, 79 rollcall votes were taken, and 41 amendments were adopted. Then the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Saving the ACA — installment #2

By
If you've ended up here from installment #1 , you already know that congressional Republicans plan to use a parliamentary tool known as 'budget reconciliation' to partially repeal the ACA. And you know that if Republicans are able to pass a reconciliation-based repeal this winter/spring, they'll create a big chaotic mess in the health insurance markets just in time for the 2018 mid-terms. (Click here for a checklist of where Republicans are in the process and an overview of what they're planning for the next two years.) But that's only part of the story. What do the politics look like for Republicans now that their rhetoric around repeal is suddenly being taken seriously? Republican Congressman Mike Coffman (CO) got a small taste when he was forced to sneak out of his own constituent meeting early. But Republicans have reason to worry about much more than just contentious constituent meetings because... There are big differences between what Republ...
Post a Comment
Read more