Critical Voter: Recent Episodes
Jonathan Haber
Towards the end of last year, I was approached by a company called Listenable that produces audio courses built around ten or so podcast-like lectures, each of which are around 5-10 minutes in length. While most of the teaching I’ve done on this subject had a little more room to breathe, this format is comparable in length […]
The post How to Win an Argument appeared first on Critical Voter.
What happened during the last decade that turned the global commons into a sewer?
The post Discourse – Part 1 appeared first on Critical Voter.
Why was the second (and final) presidential debate so much more satisfying than the train wreck that took place the first time the candidates jousted? Kudos have been handed to the debate’s moderator, although changes to the structure of the event (specifically the decision to turn off the microphone of the person who was not […]
The post Deliberation appeared first on Critical Voter.
Did the British leave behind their waffles on the Falkland Islands? The fallacy of equivocation.
The post Equivocation appeared first on Critical Voter.
Taking a break from national politics to logic-check a state ballot initiative on ranked-choice voting.
The post Logic-Checking Ranked Choice appeared first on Critical Voter.
Just in time to navigate the home stretch of the weirdest election in American history, a new edition of Critical Voter!
The post Just Released: the 2020 Edition of Critical Voter appeared first on Critical Voter.
Just hit 100 Amazon ratings for Critical Thinking from MIT Press!
The post Breaking 100 appeared first on Critical Voter.
Having taken a look at fallacies on display in a couple of Joe Biden campaign spots, it’s time to see if his opponent may have also broken a rule or two by committing formal or informal fallacies in some of his video ads.
The post Donald Trump: Acting Base (Rate) appeared first on Critical Voter.
I’ll be reposting articles from my new LogicCheck site over the course of the next election cycle here at Critical Voter. Finishing up with the basics: Many of Joe Biden’s official campaign commercials avoid controversy by highlighting the candidate’s commitment to his family, his passion for driving a classic Corvette, or celebrations of working Americans. These are meant […]
The post Joe Biden: Cool Kid and Rooster appeared first on Critical Voter.
Fallacies are errors in reasoning that come up so frequently that they have been organized, categorized and assigned cool names in both English and Latin (which gives you a sense of how long people have been breaking logical rules).
The post Fallacies appeared first on Critical Voter.
For this week’s LogicChecker, I’d like to look at an argument that relies heavily on the kind of numerical evidence I’ve been talking about over the last few postings where the certainty of mathematics must contend with imperfection of the real-world things being quantified.
The post A Complex Argument for Opening Schools appeared first on Critical Voter.
You would think that counting stuff – the simplest of all mathematical operations – might be free from the ambiguity I have been describing. But if you ever lost track while trying to count just a few dozen similar items (like counting to figure out if a deck of cards is complete), you’ll realize that the human mind’s tendency to wander and miss things (like that forgotten joker) makes even simple counting tasks susceptible to imprecision.
The post Countdown to the Next Big Count appeared first on Critical Voter.
Critical Thinking Essentials from MIT Press will be available from all the usual place in a couple of weeks. Perfect reading when thinking through a crisis (in case one happens along). Journalists interested in a review copy or professors who want a desk copy can reach out to me via the contact page and I’ll arrange to get you […]
The post Look What Just Showed Up in the Mail! appeared first on Critical Voter.
Validity and soundness - Did a visit to the doctor mean Trump was about to resign?
The post Getting Started 4 – Argument Health Check appeared first on Critical Voter.
I’ll be reposting articles from my new LogicCheck site over the course of the next election cycle here at Critical Voter. Continuing with the basics: So far, we’ve taken a look at the logic behind a seemingly spontaneous (but likely pre-planned) quip, and an off-the-cuff set of tweets. Now, let’s begin to look at how to analyze the […]
The post Getting Started 3 – The Editorial appeared first on Critical Voter.
Can the President pack a good argument into a couple of tweets?
The post Getting Started 2 – The Tweet appeared first on Critical Voter.
I’ll be reposting articles from my new LogicCheck site over the course of the next election cycle here at Critical Voter. Starting off with some basics: To introduce you to the concept of logic-checking, let’s start with some timely material related to the Democratic debates. As mentioned previously, logic-checking can help you understand situations when […]
The post LogicCheck – Getting Started 1 – The Zinger appeared first on Critical Voter.
Just wanted to announce a new project called LogicCheck that will be using this coming election cycle to analyze the arguments behind the news. Why logic checking? Well cribbing from my initial post at the new site:As the late Gary Gutting, professor of philosophy at Notre Dame and a regular philosophy columnist at the New […]
The post Introducing LogicCheck.net appeared first on Critical Voter.
Lookee what showed up in my Inbox! I’ll have more news about the new book to supplement the nifty cover art (like release dates and book-event plans) shortly. In the meantime, as some readers may have noticed, I’ve restarted this Degree of Freedom blog and have been updating it with pieces published on this site […]
The post Cover Art appeared first on Critical Voter.
The challenges faced by those dedicated to civic education and the teaching of critical thinking are very similar.
The post Civics and Critical Thinking appeared first on Critical Voter.
From the new blog… Whatever one thinks of our current “Age of Accountability” in public education, it’s not particularly controversial to point out that the American public-school system has historically flexed and reformed to meet accountability requirements. While we can argue over whether that system was assigned the right priorities, or over the consequences (intended […]
The post Re-inventing Civics Education – 3 appeared first on Critical Voter.
Civics education is a perfect example of a problem requiring a critical-thinking approach used to analyze complex issues.
The post Reinventing Civic Education – 2 appeared first on Critical Voter.
Attendees at last week’s Civic Learning Impact and Measurement Convening face a daunting challenge: restoring while reinventing civic education in America.
The post Rethinking Civic Education – 1 appeared first on Critical Voter.
With a mid-term election between now and when Critical Voter first chronicled our turbulent 2016 election cycle (one in which many of the challenges related to critically thinking about anything were made more manifest than in any time in history), I thought it safe to return to the blogging fold with a new project called […]
The post Been a While! appeared first on Critical Voter.
A few months back, I became curious about the alt-right, specifically why this political movement seemed to be choosing a moment of Republican ascendance to foment a civil war within Conservative ranks. Suspecting that I might be getting an incomplete picture from news sources telling me this alt-right consisted of little more than White Nationalist […]
The post Ethical Rebellion appeared first on Critical Voter.
Having covered three Presidential elections with the goal of seeing how they can be used to teach and learn critical-thinking skills, I’m frequently asked the question of whether the latest election results mean we have lost the ability to think at all. This election, with its unexpected and extraordinary results, ratcheted up the intensity of […]
The post Thinking Critically About What Happened appeared first on Critical Voter.
Last night’s election coverage began from a place of familiarity. There were many of the same commentators I’ve seen describing election night events since the 1980s, a bit wrinklier but still talking about the virtues of exit poll data and the importance of what was happening in a particular neighborhood in Ohio. As with previous […]
The post Surprise! appeared first on Critical Voter.
Might this election mean we're starting to approach a ?sheer cliff we have been pretending does not exist?
The post Vote appeared first on Critical Voter.
While not a big cable binger, I’ve recently taken to a new Netflix series called Black Mirror. From what I’ve watched so far, it seems as though producers of each episode were given the mandate to come up with a dystopia that represents just a tiny acceleration of today’s technology trends. For instance, one episode […]
The post Dystopia appeared first on Critical Voter.
With the vote just around the corner and momentous decisions before us, perhaps, it is time to reflect on things closer to home.
The post Thinking Small appeared first on Critical Voter.
I've recently added chapters of Critical Voter to the ?curriculum pages so that teachers using that material can assign readings at no cost.
The post Curriculum Reading appeared first on Critical Voter.
This election campaign provides countless examples of how not to behave when confronted with one’s misdeeds or shortcomings.
The post Apologies appeared first on Critical Voter.
In a Presidential debate (or any form of persuasive communication) you should ask first: who is the audience?
The post Ignoring the Audience appeared first on Critical Voter.
The latest devolution of fact-checking to one more aspect of partisan warfare probably arises from the nature of the candidates.
The post Fact Checking appeared first on Critical Voter.
Analyzing the rhetoric of the first Clinton-Trump debate turned out to be nearly impossible
The post An End to Rhetoric? appeared first on Critical Voter.
The odd thing about the Democratic defections is that they seem to be trending more towards the Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, rather than Jill Stein.
The post Fault Lines appeared first on Critical Voter.
During a normal election year, you can set your watch based on the stages of bias overwhelming the ability to think critically.
The post Disorientation appeared first on Critical Voter.
Ambiguity is great for humor. For critical thinking? Not so much
The post British Left Waffles on Falkland Islands appeared first on Critical Voter.
One of the things we are supposed to be celebrating in this era of social media, open-source everything, citizen journalism, and various forms of “super-enabling” Internet politics is how it frees us from having to rely on authority. In the past, if we wanted news, it was fed to us vetted by a set of […]
The post The Crowd appeared first on Critical Voter.
Critical Voter is now available on all major ebook platforms managed by the Smashwords publishing service.
The post Critical Voter – Available Everywhere! appeared first on Critical Voter.
One of the great pleasures in life is to watch someone you can’t stand make a blunder, preferably publicly, and suffer ridicule (or worse) as the result. In politics, such blunders are referred to as “gaffes,” and it’s interesting to consider the evolution of what constitutes a political gaffe and what this might say about […]
The post The Gaffe appeared first on Critical Voter.
As many of you know, I’m a huge fan of Kevin deLaplante, the man behind Critical Thinker Academy and Critical Thinker Academy podcast, both of which were hugely inspirational when I went down the route of podcasting critical-thinking lessons with the original Critical Voter curriculum in 2008. Well now Kevin has kicked off a new […]
The post Argument Ninja appeared first on Critical Voter.
Does every event in the known universe hinge on the single question of who to vote for in November?
The post The Single Issue Voter appeared first on Critical Voter.
Is Melania Trump alleged “Plagiarism” worth thinking about?
The post Plagiarism appeared first on Critical Voter.
Last chance to receive a free Kindle version of Critical Voter at Amazon, with the last Fre-ebook Tuesday of the season. Speaking of free, with the convention season kicking off I thought I’d provide a couple of free chapters from the book that deal specifically with convention-related issues. You can find them at this new […]
The post Conventional Wisdom appeared first on Critical Voter.
What we mean when we use the phrase “critical thinking”?
The post Convergence appeared first on Critical Voter.
Another chance to get a free Kindle version of Critical Voter by visiting Amazon today. Also, check out some philosophical musings I just wrote at my favorite philosophy site.
The post Another Fre-ebook Tuesday appeared first on Critical Voter.
It seems as though the voters have become the tool of an Internet-enabled information ?Colossus that knows much more about us than we know about it.
The post Noise appeared first on Critical Voter.
That image is of Charles Sanders Peirce, father of Pragmatic philosophy, by the way.
The post Doubt appeared first on Critical Voter.
Just a reminder that today is another Fre-ebook Tuesday where you can get the Kindle version of Critical Voter free from Amazon. Pass along the link/word and remember that Fre-ebook Tuesdays will continue until July 19th. Jonathan
The post Another Fre-ebook Tuesday appeared first on Critical Voter.
The part of our brain that processes information quickly loves to find patterns which then get encoded into stories with enormous staying power.
The post Story Telling appeared first on Critical Voter.
The Kindle version of Critical Voter is available free from Amazon every Tuesday between now and July 19th.
The post Fre-ebook Tuesdays! appeared first on Critical Voter.
Just a couple of quick announcements, including word that the Critical Voter curriculum is now complete. The curriculum includes a complete list of learning objectives, lesson plans and “Check for Understanding” quizzes which can be used to implement material from Critical Voter into classroom study of critical thinking skills. All the material, except for the […]
The post Curriculum Update and Fre-ebook Tuesdays appeared first on Critical Voter.
A rhetorical techniques likely to dominate this year's election is the fallacious Argumentation from Outrage.
The post Argumentation from Outrage appeared first on Critical Voter.
Traditionally, there are two schools of thought regarding the free book strategy.
The post Free Books appeared first on Critical Voter.
I suspect the fallacy we’ll be seeing the most of this election season is the already all-too-common Association Fallacy.
The post Association Fallacy appeared first on Critical Voter.
Your brilliant syllogism and carefully crafted rhetoric won’t get you far, critical thinking-wise, it you don't know what you’re talking about.
The post Background Knowledge appeared first on Critical Voter.
In trying to explain the contemporary state of American politics, one characterized by a revolt of the voters against the established political parties, we’ve tested a couple of hypotheses and found each wanting. A first thesis localized the problem to just one side of the political spectrum (the Right, where Republican primary voters have anointed […]
The post What’s Eating Us? appeared first on Critical Voter.
Still getting my head around the whole “free book” concept, but hope to have something valuable to say about it by next week. Until then, here’s a swell infographic I stumbled on published by the Alliance of Independent Authors (not sure why, but their acronym is ALLi). Check it (and them) out.
The post Self-Publishing Infographic appeared first on Critical Voter.
If political weirdness is breaking out across the political spectrum, perhaps we should replace partisan explanations for more general ones about the public's anxiety.
The post Age of Anxiety appeared first on Critical Voter.
Can we do some hypothesis testing regarding why our current election season is turning out as it is?
The post Hypothesis Testing appeared first on Critical Voter.
So what's the sequence of choices you need to make to meet your self publishing goals?
The post Decision Time appeared first on Critical Voter.
When it comes to debates, voters across the political spectrum are generally united in their disapproval of what goes on when candidates gather together in front of a live audience and TV cameras to confront each other and the issues of the day. “Why don’t they actually engage with each other,” is a distillation of […]
The post Engaging Your Opponent appeared first on Critical Voter.
Amazon offers a carrot that confounds the choice for wider e-book distribution: their KDP Select program.
The post KDP Select or Not? appeared first on Critical Voter.
Ethos is tricky with regard to partisan politics since most of us tend to reward it automatically to the person we were planning on voting for anyway.
The post Ethos appeared first on Critical Voter.
One of the most important rhetorical strategies for controlling debate is to manage expectations in a way that maximizes your chances of success and maximizes an opponent’s chances of failure.
The post Managing Expectations appeared first on Critical Voter.
Criticism of pathos (emotional argument) being destructive assumes that all emotions are equal, which is clearly not the case.
The post Pathos appeared first on Critical Voter.
Most of us have the capability to spot manipulation, at least by people we never could stand in the first place.
The post Out of Control appeared first on Critical Voter.
For self publishers, Amazon owns print and dominates e-books with somewhere between 65 and 75 percent of all e-book sales being for the Kindle.
The post Amazon vs. Everyone appeared first on Critical Voter.
All arguments – even complex political ones – can be translated into smaller units, each of which can be tested for their logical strength or logos.
The post Logos appeared first on Critical Voter.
From today until Friday, the Kindle version of Critical Voter is available for free at Amazon?.
The post Critical Voter – Free This Week appeared first on Critical Voter.
While an argument that a Sanders victory will incorporate Democrats taking over Congress might be valid, it fails due to lack of soundness.
The post Arguing with Bernie appeared first on Critical Voter.
A couple of quick announcements: First, you can read an interview with yours truly here. Second, an additional lesson plan and check-for-understanding quiz was just added to the Critical Voter curriculum page (the rest will be available soon). And, finally, next week – from April 4-8 – the Kindle version of Critical Voter will be […]
The post Announcements appeared first on Critical Voter.
I realized that the last few weeks have been spent more on commentary than instruction. So today, let’s take a look at a campaign artifact (in this case, the statement of someone arguing in favor of one of the Presidential candidates) to see how one of the most important critical-thinking tools – logic – can […]
The post Contradicting Bernie appeared first on Critical Voter.
The ebook introduced to the book market (1) zero cost of production and (2) zero costs related to getting a physical product into the consumer’s hands.
The post Self-Publishing – Ebooks appeared first on Critical Voter.
This commentary from the last Presidential race still seems relevant in an era when dialog seems to be stuck at wondering why people we never met can be so dumb. There’s been a bit of hubbub about this piece that tries to make a distinction between different types of ignoramuses that make up the American […]
The post Ignorance appeared first on Critical Voter.
The most profound change computers and the Internet might be driving this election is a transformation of those of us pretending to be in control.
The post Elec-Tech – Who Controls Who? appeared first on Critical Voter.
Taking a break from the usual Thursday series on self-publishing for a quick announcement that on from April 4th through the 8th, the Kindle version of Critical Voter will be available for free from Amazon as part of a promotion available via their KDP Direct service that I’ll be writing about next Thursday. Also, by […]
The post All Politics is Local appeared first on Critical Voter.
One of mankind’s great passions (and fantasies) is the hope that we can both predict and control the future. And never does this belief become more fashionable — and expensive — than during a Presidential election. Turning to this year’s contest, the rules of the game seemed pretty certain less than a year ago as […]
The post Predictability appeared first on Critical Voter.
A coworker recently forwarded me this article regarding a study that seemed to indicate teaching grade-schooler’s some philosophy is the best way to raise their writing and math scores. Given that I’m working with some of the world’s most prominent educational researchers, I’ve been taught to take news stories covering academic studies with a grain […]
The post The Consolation of Philosophy appeared first on Critical Voter.
If the goals of your publishing project can be met entirely through printed books, the economics of decision-making are fairly straightforward.
The post Self-Publishing – Print appeared first on Critical Voter.
Given that most of us want our president to be a man or woman of reason, why do we punish them for demonstrating such reasoning ability during the campaign?
The post Vote Reason appeared first on Critical Voter.
In today's age of micro-journalism, making an image eye-catching is more important than that picture's relevance or truth value.
The post Pictures appeared first on Critical Voter.
With goals and plans for a good book in hand, your next decision is where to place yourself in the current self-publishing ecosystem.
The post Self-Publishing Ecosystem appeared first on Critical Voter.
Let's take time from the silly season to celebrate The Foundation for Critical Thinking which has been pushing critical thinking education for over 30 years.
The post The Foundation for Critical Thinking appeared first on Critical Voter.
It’s Super Tuesday so, as promised, the Critical Voter curriculum is now available for teachers to use to integrate critical thinking lessons based on material from Critical Voter and this Critical Voter web site into their lessons. Speaking of lessons, I also started to put together lesson plans that include goals, vocabulary, resources and suggested […]
The post Critical Voter Curriculum – Available Now! appeared first on Critical Voter.
It is hard to underestimate how much human behavior is driven by our passion for consistency (and subsequent aversion to inconsistency).
The post Consistency appeared first on Critical Voter.
Why would anyone go through all the effort of self-publishing a book and making it available to the entire world if it stinks?
The post Write a Good Book appeared first on Critical Voter.
Time to kick off a semi-regular series highlighting web sites, books and other resource that might be of interest to readers of this blog, starting with the Amazon-owned property Goodreads.
The post Goodreads appeared first on Critical Voter.
The passing of an historic figure like Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia can trigger a series of events of interest to those who are trying to improve their critical-thinking skills.
The post The Death of Scalia appeared first on Critical Voter.
Serious self publishers have a clear goal in mind before they start down the route of producing a book.
The post Serious Self Publishing – Goals appeared first on Critical Voter.
Before embracing pollsters as seers or dismissing them as charlatans, it might be good to explore the value of polling through a quasi-statistical technique that predates modern polling by over two-thousand years: Aristotle's Golden Mean.
The post Polling the Golden Mean appeared first on Critical Voter.
What is it about the human faith in numbers that gets us outraged about the Iowa Caucuses being decided by a set of coin flips?
The post Coin Toss Caucus (from Huffington Post) appeared first on Critical Voter.
The start of a series that provides insight from my recent foray into self-publishing.
The post Insights for the Serious Self Publisher appeared first on Critical Voter.
That promised Part II to yesterday’s piece (also from Huffington Post) which tries to explain how Aristotle, 25 centuries ago, might have predicted Donald Trump’s recent loss in Iowa. As the Interwebs fill with theories regarding why Donald Trump did not pull off a predicted win in Iowa (from his vulgar blustering finally catching up with […]
The post Who Predicted Iowa Results 2500 Years Ago? appeared first on Critical Voter.
When I told friends, colleagues and family members that I was publishing Critical Voter, most of the questions I received had to do with what I thought about phenomenon that is Donald Trump.
The post Donald Trump and His Critics (from Huffington Post) appeared first on Critical Voter.
Today is the official release day for Critical Voter, which means the book is now available in both print and ebook editions from Amazon?.
The post What a Week appeared first on Critical Voter.
I hope this week's postings gave you a small taste of the power to be gained by applying some critical thinking juice to both the election and everyday life.
The post What Next with Critical Voter? appeared first on Critical Voter.
Before deciding every presidential candidate is nuts, keep in mind that televised debates are actually forms of argumentation taking place before a mostly unseen audience.
The post Argumentation and Audience appeared first on Critical Voter.
A visit to the New Hampshire Primary run up offers a small taste of how to use an election to practice useful critical thinking skills.
The post Making Sense of the New Hampshire Primary appeared first on Critical Voter.
Well two boxes of pre-release print copies of Critical Voter arrived on my doorstep yesterday, so those of you who asked for an advanced review copy should have one in your hands within the next few days. Reviewers can still request a copy here, and the ebook is now available for pre-order at Amazon for […]
The post The Critical Voter Heads North appeared first on Critical Voter.
It’s been close to three years since I last posted here at Critical Voter, during which time I’ve been involved with a number of other educational projects, including my One Year MOOC BA adventure some of you followed over at Degree of Freedom. But with the 2016 election looming, it seemed time to revisit the […]
The post Critical Voter Returns appeared first on Critical Voter.
One of the few election artifacts we’ve not yet taken a look at are actual campaign issues, partly because we have been analyzing rhetoric the candidates use to avoid direct discussion of those issues, partly because Critical Voter is about using the 2012 election to learn about critical thinking (vs. using critical thinking skills to […]
The post Critical Voter – Podcast 14 – Critical Thinking About Political Issues appeared first on Critical Voter.
As anticipated, now that Election 2012 has kicked off in earnest, the campaign itself should provide us all the material we need to put into practice the various critical thinking skills we’ve been discussing over the summer. Today, we need to thank Mother Jones Magazine for dishing up the best example we’ve seen all year […]
The post Romney Video – Part 1 appeared first on Critical Voter.