Fun with Critical Thinking

I am enjoying Pearson's Critical Thinking Blog, a light-hearted look at how people use critical thinking (or not) in everyday life, politics, business, education, and other environments. 

Here is just one example of the critical thinking process that should have taken place when a prohibition on wearing pajama bottoms in public places took effect in Caddo Parrish, Louisiana.  This is one of many examples that Pearson uses to illustrate the irrationality behind many decisions.

Feel free to add Pearson's Critical Thinking Blog to your blog list...there will be at least one post guaranteed to make you think and give you a chuckle.

Wikipedia Offline TOMORROW!

Wikipedia, Reddit and BoingBoing will be going offline for 24 hours on Wednesday to protest SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act) because information should be free! 

What would a day without Wikipedia be like?  Do we remember it?

Martin Luther King Digital Archive Opens Today

Martin Luther King digital archive opens to the public today in Washington D.C..

You can search the digital archive here!  Indexed in the archive are nearly one million documents associated with the life of Martin Luther King, Jr..  200,000 of those documents are personal ones, including a handwritten draft of King's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech. 

What Do You Assume to Be True About ________________?

I asked my students to do a difficult thing.  I asked them to write a blog post about their assumption(s) about a particular human population, how they acquired that assumption, and what they think will be the most difficult challenge that they will have in doing research on the population that they have selected.  I asked them to be as truthful as possible, and assured them that I was not going to tell them that they were wrong in voicing their assumptions. 

To be fair, since I asked my students to put themselves out there, I will put myself out there, too.  As this post will be somewhat public, I will apologize in advance for whatever I express here; it is not intended to offend anyone.  If anyone has any resources that could educate me better on the topic I am about to address, that would be great.

While it is possible for anyone of any race, any religion, any nationality, etc., to be gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender (LGBT), I have this assumption that someone has to have a certain level of intelligence (as would be defined on a standard IQ assessment) to be LGBT.  This is because, of all of the LGBT people I have met in my life, I have yet to meet an LGBT person with Down's syndrome or developmental disabilities.  I have met LGBT people with physical disabilities, hearing impairments, visual impairments, autism, Asperger's syndrome, chronic depression, schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, addiction problems...but no LGBT people living in group homes due to Down's syndrome or developmental disabilities.

Prior to writing this blog post, I had casually looked for books or journal articles that would prove the existence (or not) of LGBT people with Down's syndrome or developmental disabilities, and found none.  Even in books that address how to teach people with Down's syndrome and developmental disabilities about sexuality (as many people with Down's syndrome and developmental disabilities do form intimate relationships, and some marry), none of the books address how to discuss what it means to be gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender with a developmentally disabled person.

The more I think about this, the more I wonder if LGBT people with Down's syndrome or developmental disabilities exist at all.  I also wonder whether or not there truly is a relationship between "intelligence" (which I do not have a good definition for at the moment...I will have to work on that) and LGBT identity.  If I cannot find evidence in books, journals, or websites, the greatest challenge to doing research on this topic will be locating people with Down's syndrome and developmental disabilities who would be willing and/or able to talk about this issue. It is difficult to know even what their attitudes on this topic would be; if they live in group homes or other supervised care settings, it is possible that I would be denied permission to talk with them about it.  I will have to find out more.

Is It a Sin to Use Wikipedia?

The Vatican used Wikipedia for new cardinals' biographies

It would have been one thing if the Vatican wrote and published those biographies on Wikipedia.  Those would have been authoritative entries.  Instead, the Vatican used--and copied verbatim--Wikipedia entries that who knows who wrote for press releases.  One journalist knew something was amiss when he read the biographies and immediately noted that they were not written in the formal Vatican language.  He was even more surprised when he discovered that some were plagiarized from Wikipedia.

Apparently, Vatican City does not consider plagiarism a sin...but they felt pretty silly when the journalist leaked the story.

Beware of the The Research Works Act!

If the Research Works Act gets passed, the public will have to pay for government funded research reports.

You can read the full text of the Research Works Act (Bill H.R. 3699) here, and contemplate what this would mean for students, academics, doctors, nurses, engineers, and others who depend on published government sponsored research studies to do their daily jobs.  It would mean that a lot fewer studies would be Google searchable, and people would need to depend more on expensive subscription based services to access this information.

In the 1990s, educators and librarians were concerned about "The Digital Divide", and how poor people would be able to survive in the modern world without computers or Internet access.  Today, it seems that most people have access to a device and an Internet connection or WiFi hotspot, even if they personally do not own the device or pay for Internet access.  In the 21st century, "The Digital Divide" may come to mean the gap between what types of information rich and poor people will be able to access online.  The 21st century Digital Divide will mirror the state of information access in the Middle Ages, and will create distinct cultures and ideologies among the poor based on corporate or political interests.  In other words, the 99% will be kept ignorant and manipulated by those who want their money and allegiance. 

While it can be argued that the amount people are reading in the United States is declining, those studies only take book reading into account.  They do not measure the amount of reading that people do when surfing the Internet.  People are gathering more information than ever before due to Internet access on mobile devices; whether or not they can locate accurate, complete information is another story. 

Be Careful Who Publishes Your Research

Too many complaints about the "religious right" distorting research related to LGBT issues.

I have yet to read these distorted studies for myself; research studies conducted and published by the religious right are rarely indexed in library databases or published in scholarly journals recommended by experts in the field.