Think Again IV
How to Avoid Fallacies

Perhaps all you lovely skeptics might enjoy these?

Thought you might be interested in these interesting (and free) online courses. "Think Again: How to Reason and Argue" taught by Walter Sinnot-Armstrong (familiar from Beyond Belief: Candles in the Dark) and "A Beginner's Guide to Irrational Behavior" with Dan Ariely. There's some really nice stuff offered on this site. I've signed up for 9 courses.. gulp :P

EXTRA NOTE: I've signed up for:

A History of the World since 1300

Think Again: How to Reason and Argue

Astrobiology

Intro to Philosophy

A Beginner's Guide to Irrational Behaviour

Intro to Genetics and Evolution

Planet Earth

Nanotechnology

Basic Behavioural Neurology

It'd be great to join some of you there :)

Coursera course byDuke University- Think Again: How to Reason and Argue. Starts tomorrow.

[META] Online 12-week course "How to Reason and Argue" from Duke University

I thought that this would be interesting for all here:

https://www.coursera.org/course/thinkagain

Taking "Think Again: How to Reason and Argue". Anyone else?

Think Again: How to Reason and Argue. Duke university's free course has started

Some of you may also be interested in this introduction to better reasoning

https://www.coursera.org/course/thinkagain

About the Course

Reasoning is important. This course will teach you how to do it well. You will learn some simple but vital rules to follow in thinking about any topic at all and some common and tempting mistakes to avoid in reasoning. We will discuss how to identify, analyze, and evaluate arguments by other people (including politicians, used car salesmen, and teachers) and how to construct arguments of your own in order to help you decide what to believe or what to do. These skills will be useful in dealing with whatever matters most to you.

Course Syllabus

PART I: HOW TO ANALYZE ARGUMENTS

Week 1: How to Spot an Argument

Week 2: How to Untangle an Argument

Week 3: How to Reconstruct an Argument

Quiz #1: At the end of Week 3, students will take their first quiz.

PART II: HOW TO EVALUATE DEDUCTIVE ARGUMENTS

Week 4: Propositional Logic and Truth Tables

Week 5: Categorical Logic and Syllogisms

Week 6: Representing Information

Quiz #2: At the end of Week 6, students will take their second quiz.

PART III: HOW TO EVALUATE INDUCTIVE ARGUMENTS

Week 7: Inductive Arguments

Week 8: Causal Reasoning

Week 9: Chance and Choice

Quiz #3: At the end of Week 9, students will take their third quiz.

PART IV: HOW TO MESS UP ARGUMENTS

Week 10: Fallacies of Unclarity

Week 11: Fallacies of Relevance and of Vacuity

Week 12: Refutation

Think Again!

I'm taking thisonline course currently which so far has been pretty interesting. I thought I would share some of the first few things that has happened within it. If you're interested in taking it, you can still join. The format is easy, and it's free (like free beer!).

The first lecture snags your attention by talking about a skit from Monty Python. It seems these people know their likely audience.

From that I've gotten into some pretty interesting things. Here are a few of the more interesting points made so far.

• Not every argument is intended to persuade. A solid way to identify persuasion vs. justification is to ask questions. One such question may be, "is this person trying to change my mind?"

• Persuasion is successful depending on the effect is has over the audience.

• To justify a conclusion is to give a reason for that conclusion, but the audience might not understand or accept that reason, even when it is a good reason.

• An argument is NOT a verbal fight

• Arguments are defined, so that they must have a conclusion.

• Historical or chronological sandwhichs are not arguments, rational order is.

• Refusing to give up a strongly held belief can prevent someone from being persuaded, sometimes justified, and sometimes not.

I thought people interested in self nature may be also interested in this course. I'm enjoying myself so far, I really wish this was something I had picked up earlier.

Questions?

Anyone else doing a MOOC?

MOOC stands for Massive Open Online Course, and is an online, open-access course, usually free, with video lectures, problem sets and discussion forums for participants.

Some providers of MOOCs I've used are Coursera, edX, and Open2Study. I'm particularly fond of Coursera, as I'm more interested in humanities/social sciences, and MOOCs are often inclined toward topics in computer science, though this is changing.

Currently, I'm doing Dino 101, an introduction course to paleobiology. It has absolutely nothing to do with anything I do in my daily life, but I've been fascinated by dinosaurs all my life. It's a great intro course, it's technical but not incomprehensible!

I'm also doing Think Again: How to Reason and Argue, though I've fallen a bit behind.

Anyone else doing a MOOC this round or like doing MOOCs in general?

Coursera course on critical thinking: Think Again!....Starts in 2 weeks

People who have taken a "Coursera" course, what is it like?

If you don't know what Coursera, I definitely recomend you check it out. Link: https://www.coursera.org/

This is the one I am taking, (https://www.coursera.org/course/thinkagain): Think Again: How to reason and argue with Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and Ram Neta as the teachers.

Anyway, to those who have taken a course. What is it like? Is it difficult? Did you drop out? If you could give me a general feeling about it, I would much appreciate it. Cheers!

Any noteworthy "meta' courses? Learning to learn, other similar skills?

Obviously the best way to go about learning large amounts of information would be to constantly optimize the way you learn. So, are there any courses or other reliable resources you could suggest for that sort of thing?

I'm interested in all sorts of things that help with learning: improving memory, improving understanding, critical thinking, time management, stress management, motivation, logical thinking/mathematical thinking and other such frameworks.

So far I have:

Past/Archived:

A Beginner's Guide to Irrational Behavior - Not precisely the subject matter, but it's very close. Includes a section on self control, and being aware of the your biases in general ought to help you think better. Also a very enjoyable course, left me wanting more.

Effective Thinking Through Mathematics - seems to focus on creative mathematical thinking in general.

Street Fighting Mathematics - by contrast, this one focuses more on practical applications of maths.

Upcoming:

Learning How to Learn - Aug 1st - The course syllabus sounds potentially quite useful, and some of the information isn't easily found outside of it.

Think Again: How to Reason and Argue - Aug 25th - Seems like fairly interesting course about reasoning, apparently includes some formal logic as well.

Algorithmic Thinking - Aug 25th - The description and introduction sound promising. I think some information may be redundant with any algorithms course, but we'll see.

Creative Problem Solving - Sep 3rd - Some of the syllabus is similar to "Learning How to Learn", but the focus is different. Seems more concrete than a lot of creativity related stuff floating around.

Critical Thinking in Global Challenges - January 2015 - Apparently focused on arguing and critical thinking.