Nativist Conservative MPs for Fossil Fuels versus Science, Education, Research, Analysis & Society

Interesting article from a science journalist at The Guardian on comments made about ‘woke’ science by the Tories in the UK at the Conservative Conference in  ‘Science hasn’t gone ‘woke’ – the only people meddling with it are the Tories’ by Philip Ball.

However, this is neither unique to the UK Conservatives nor dissimilar elsewhere, but it is a long game strategy against grounded science, research and analysis, like Trojan horses to disrupt curricula and universities, why? 

It’s both protection for fossil fuels and avoiding climate science (Covid too) while denigrating centre right through left moderate attitudes and policies as e.g. ‘woke’, to energise older right (and too many left) voters including Brexit, Trump and now in Australia ‘The Voice’ Referendum on Aboriginal recognition.

The fulcrum globally is Koch Network think tanks found at Tufton St. London, of course the US, Australia and other parts including links via Atlas Network and in Hungary, Heritage Foundation partnered with Danubius Institute, sharing anti-EU and pro fossil fuels sentiments, shared with Putin’s Russia and fossil fuels oligarchs, also includes the EU’s regulation for environment and financial transparency.

Overall, like Covid and climate science denial, denigration of experts, analysis and universities, with the nativist Tanton Network that shares donors with Koch in the US, is used to deflect from climate science by highlighting immigrants and population growth as environmental hygiene issues.

The end game is more alarming with their and e.g. Murdoch media support for corrupt nativist authoritarian leaders and governments who deny climate science and humanity?

‘Science hasn’t gone ‘woke’ – the only people meddling with it are the Tories

Michelle Donelan’s plan to “depoliticise” science with new guidelines on sex and gender research is a chilling move

The science secretary, Michelle Donelan, told the Conservative party conference this week that the Tories are “depoliticising science”. Or as a Conservative party announcement later put it, in case you didn’t get the culture-war reference, they are “kicking woke ideology out of science”, thereby “safeguarding scientific research from the denial of biology and the steady creep of political correctness”.

Scientists do not seem too delighted to be defended in this manner. “As a scientist, I really don’t know what this means,” tweeted Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, professor of psychology and cognitive neuroscience at the University of Cambridge. “This is totally shocking and is something I never thought I would see in the UK,” said Buzz Baum, a molecular cell biologist for the Medical Research Council.

What exactly does Donelan think science needs protecting from? What is this woke threat? At the conference, she expanded on that. “Scientists are told by university bureaucrats that they cannot ask legitimate research questions about biological sex,” she claimed, adding that Keir Starmer thinks the “legitimate concerns of the scientific community” on these issues of sex and gender “don’t matter”. She said she will launch a review of the use of gender and sex questions in scientific research, apparently to be led by Alice Sullivan, a professor of sociology at University College London, which will be used to formulate guidance.

You would need to have been hiding under a rock not to appreciate that questions of sex and gender have become controversial, bordering on incendiary, in some areas of academia. As a recent exchange by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins and professor of humanities Jacqueline Rose in the New Statesman revealed, academics are often talking at cross-purposes: Dawkins defended the binary nature of human sexes from an evolutionary angle, Rose the socially constructed aspects of gender identity. On top of that, there are the complications of developmental and cognitive biology, which, among other things, can produce intersex individuals and conditions where, say, people with a Y chromosome can be anatomically female.

But one doesn’t need to take a strong stand about rights or wrongs in these debates to recognise that they are difficult and subtle – and to acknowledge it is proper that they be rigorously discussed. Arguably, this is an area where science can’t supply definitive answers to all the germane societal questions.

This is not a case of academic research being trammelled by an imposed ideology, but rather, of a range of differing views among academics themselves. Besides, rather than await clarification, Donelan has evidently formed her opinion already: she called guidance that data on sex should only be collected in exceptional circumstances “utter nonsense” and a “denial of biology”. What is the point of a review if you have decided already what it must say?

More to the point, why is the government getting involved in the first place? What chills Baum is the idea of “politicians telling scientists about the nature of biology”. Some scientists can’t help thinking of previous instances where governments imposed their views on the subject: the spurious “race science” of the Nazis and the anti-Darwinian denialism of Stalin’s regime. While that might sound a slightly hyperbolic response to a transparently desperate ploy to stoke culture-wars division, the principle is the same: a government deciding an approved position on science and demanding that academics toe the line.

Much as Donelan tries to position herself as a champion of the objectivity and freedom of science, this intervention supplies more evidence of the government’s distrust of academics in general and scientists in particular – it’s of a piece with Rishi Sunak’s assertion that scientists were given too much power during the pandemic. Witness the disturbing way this policy direction is framed. However contested and emotive this particular issue, it is hardly relevant to the large-scale practice of science – yet Donelan is seeking to leverage it to imply that all of science somehow stands at risk from “woke ideology”, as if the integrity of truth itself were at stake.

That is perhaps the most ominous aspect of this announcement. The creation of a fictitious, ubiquitous enemy to scare the population is indeed straight out of the fascist playbook. It was thoughtful of the Conservatives to drive this point home with the spectacle of party member Andrew Boff, chair of the London Assembly, being escorted from the conference hall by police on Tuesday when he voiced protest at Suella Braverman’s criticism of the term “gender ideology”.

The notion that science can be “depoliticised” at all, let alone by an agenda-driven political party, is understood to be nonsensical by those who study the interactions of science and society. Of course political agendas should never dictate research results. But the questions asked, priorities decided and societal implications of advances made absolutely make science inextricably tangled with the political landscape – not least in a controversial area like sex and gender. That entanglement can get messy, but no true democracy tries to control the narrative.’

• Philip Ball is a science writer and the author of the forthcoming book, How Life Works: A User’s Guide to the New Biology

For more related blogs and articles on Climate Change, Conservatives, Environment, EU European Union, Fossil Fuels, Koch Network, Media, Science Literacy, Tanton Network and University Teaching Skills click through

Conspiracy of Denial – COVID-19 and Climate Science

Anglosphere Oligarchs – Koch Atlas Network Think Tanks

Radical Libertarian Disinformation Machine – Koch Network by Nancy MacLean

BBC: 55 Tufton Street London – Libertarian Think Tanks – Koch Network

Rishi Sunak and US Radical Right Libertarians in UK – Koch Atlas Network Think Tanks

55 Tufton Street London: US Koch & Tanton Networks’ Think Tanks – Radical Right Libertarians and Nativists

Koch Industries: How to Influence Politics, Avoid Fossil Fuel Emission Control and Environmental Protections

Climate Change Science Attitudes Australia and Koch in USA

Trojan Horses – Ultra Conservatives Disrupting Education Curricula to Influence Youth

Critical Thinking or Analysis: Importance for Education, Media and Empowered Citizens

AC Grayling on the Need for more Educated and Informed Citizens

When people question seemingly uninformed voter choices, they are averting their gaze from politicians of the right, right wing media and related who are desperate to keep or put right wing parties in power, by attacking the centre and sensible legislation, why or how?

Not understood that across the Anglosphere and Europe mostly ageing voters dominating, with politicians, media and influencers, who are less educated and less diverse than younger generations, backed up by ‘collective narcissism’ and ‘pensioner populism’; see Brexit, Trump, Meloni, Orban et al.

However, in the ByLine Times article excerpts below from AC Grayling, his explanation of how we arrived here cites education as the issue; though this ignores amongst older dominant voters who are informed by activist right wing legacy media, influencers and including US fossil fueled think tanks versus younger who are outnumbered; not education now but the past?

Further, there are attempts through influence and lobbying to dilute education standards from the same fossil fueled Koch Network think tanks, in support of far right policies now adopted by ‘conservatives’ including more Christianity or religion in schools vs. attacks on supposed ‘woke’ or LGBT friendly policies.

However, this masks concerted efforts in the Anglosphere replicating education curricula from less developed authoritarian states including teaching, curriculum syllabi and content e.g. more religion &/or nationalism, less analysis, less maths/science and basically avoiding the hidden curriculum i.e. developing essential soft skills a la Bloom’s Taxonomy and well rounded citizens.

There is a collective need to avoid attempts getting at young people in preparation for when demographics balance out, neutering the dominance of less educated but more active above median age voters, especially in regions.

From ByLine Times:

‘Who or What to Blame? Education, Education, Education’

Too many voters are insufficiently informed and reflective to vote other than tribally or self-interestedly in exploitable ways due to failings in how we conceive of ‘education’, writes 

AC Grayling  2 August 2023

Let us ask why so much influence has been exerted by a dishonest and ultra-partisan media owned by non-dom billionaires with a vested interest in destabilising the country so that their preferred version of anarcho-capitalism can flourish. And let us ask why social media has found the British population such a plastic, malleable, easy playground for its bubble-creating, conspiracy-promoting, false-fact-spreading downside.

And then let us reflect on the answer: because well-informed and reflective people would not be so easily duped by either a dishonest press or unreliable and distorting social media, it must be that enough of the British population is insufficiently well-informed and insufficiently reflective – more bluntly: ignorant enough and unthinking enough – to be ripe for serving as their dupes.

How has this happened?

The Need for Active Enquirers

The fact remains that, in 2019, 43% of those who voted chose Conservatives, and enough Uxbridge voters – blaming a Labour London Mayor for Tory policies on the environment – voted Tory in a seat formerly held by Johnson. What explains them? Indeed, even supposing half of these were principled, loyal, Conservatives who had thought hard about the Government of the past 13 years and somehow liked what it saw – what explains how they could?

From among a plethora of answers let us focus on one very central one: the failure of our education system to achieve a good standard of active intelligence in enough of the population.

By ‘active intelligence’, I mean the useful general knowledge and the constructive scepticism that prompts people to test claims and promises made by those who want their money or their votes.

The price we pay is careless voters exploitable by a system and its career politician operatives into putting someone as grossly unfit as a Boris Johnson into Downing Street – to say nothing of the inadequacy of the compeers such an individual surrounds himself with.

To educate – not merely to train in enough basics of literacy and numeracy to qualify as a squaddy in the economic infantry – classes need to consist of fewer than 10 pupils, so that teachers have time to work with the individual grain of each pupil’s mind and personality.

Pupils should be active enquirers, not just passive learners sitting behind desks in a classroom: that means getting out and about, doing, travelling, finding out, making.

The value of musical education and art on general cognitive development, enhancing its capacities for success in maths and applied sciences, has been all but lost in the English education system.

Historical and geographical ignorance, and wholly inadequate levels of competence in a second and third language – plus frequent and active travelling in the countries where they are spoken – make for narrow, parochial, limited mindsets. 

I defy anyone to claim that the level of achievement represented by GCSE today is comparable to that of the ‘O’ levels of yore – and even the ‘O’ levels of yore did not pass the test of what is necessary for the informed and thoughtful populace that is the minimum requirement for any version of democracy.

Democracies are being made to fail all round the world today because increasingly larger portions of already significant percentages of populations are too easily taken for a ride by the political and politically-motivated agencies which benefit from their incapacity.

This problem with education means that efforts to explain why some claim or promise does not stack up simply go over the heads of enough people to make it possible for those who claim or promise to get away with it. This happens all the time.

As we know too well, serious newspapers and current affairs programmes get little traction because they speak to tiny minorities only, while tabloid media cleave to the parochial interests and prejudices of their consumers because that is what makes money – with little if any concern to inform or engage beyond the usual sodden fare of celebrity gossip and whatever is the hysteria of the moment.

The landscape of our democracy is accordingly a dismal one indeed. Its poverty and barrenness have been cruelly exposed by Brexit – arguably inconceivable in a better-educated nation (look at Scotland) – and its emblems will forever be Johnson and the gang of coarsely unsuitable appointments he has made over the past three years. 

Too many voters are insufficiently informed and reflective to vote other than tribally or self-interestedly in exploitable ways, and a large part of the reason for this is that our education system is too poorly funded to achieve in enough cases the kind of intellects that would be more resistant to such exploitation.

I argue that the systemic failure of our political order, for which this insufficiency of education is responsible, led to Brexit: and that Brexit is the ultimate condemnation of both.’

AC Grayling is a philosopher, Master of the New College of the Humanities, and Supernumerary Fellow of St Anne’s College at Oxford University

For more related blogs and articles on Adult learning, Ageing democracy, Conservative, Critical thinking, Demography, Koch Network, Media, Populist politics, Science literacy and Younger generations, click through:

Trojan Horses – Ultra Conservatives Disrupting Education Curricula to Influence Youth

Libertarian Curricula – Science and Culture Wars vs. University Maths Teacher Training

Critical Thinking or Analysis: Importance for Education, Media and Empowered Citizens

Dumbing Down and Gaming of Anglosphere Media, Science, Society and Democracy

Skills of Critical Thinking

Collective Narcissism, Ageing Electorates, Pensioner Populism, White Nativism and Autocracy

Narcissistic Political Leaders – NPD Narcissistic Personality Disorder – Collective Narcissism – Cognitive Dissonance – Conspiracy Theories – Populism

Ageing Democracy, Nativism and Populism

Fake News, Politics and Society

A prescient article from Ines Eisele at Deutsche Welle (DW) which is very relevant to the Anglosphere and elsewhere as people struggle to understand the world around them whether politics, science, economics or otherwise, with suboptimal or even ‘gamed’ media.

Especially important currently with climate & Covid science denial, Putin’s Russian invasion of Ukraine and right wing political parties, which all share similar strategy and tactics, i.e. astroturfing media and politics, to then gaslight society, that may not produce beneficial outcomes e.g. Brexit and Trump.

The article touches on cognitive distortions, negative content triggers (pollster Lynton Crosby has said negativity moves voters, positives do not), personal benefits of beliefs versus facts, desire for attention and approval, finally solutions for resilience.

School curricula need to include both embedded and overt ways of avoiding fake news, junk or pseudo science etc. for empowered citizens, but adults in general also need the same training; age, experience or education are not sufficient.

‘From DW:

‘Fact check: Why do we believe fake news?

July 8, 2023

Fake news have become a real threat to society. How do psychological and social factors influence whether we fall for them or not? And what can we do against it?

Whether it’s the war in Ukraine, the coronavirus pandemic or gender issues, more and more fake news have been circulating on the internet in recent years, especially on emotional and controversial topics. Sometimes it can be difficult to distinguish fact from fiction. Other times, they are easier to recognize.

But not for everyone: Some internet users are more likely to accept misinformation and fake news as true information than others. In this DW fact check, we look at why that is.

Cognitive distortions fool us

A term that comes up again and again in this context is “cognitive bias.” It describes faulty tendencies in human thinking from which we find it difficult to free ourselves.

Among other things, our views, and our preconceived worldview, also called “partisanship” or “confirmation bias” in some specialist articles, play a major role in why we fall for fake news. 

Cognitive psychologist Stephan Lewandowsky from Bristol University explains the phenomenon: “If I hear something I want to hear because it is in line with my political opinions, yes, then I’ll believe it even more.”

So we are always biased. For example, those who are convinced that Germany is taking in too many refugees are more inclined to believe news stories that report on local authorities being overburdened or generally say negative things about this group.

Another important “cognitive bias” is that we often simply trust our intuition. It seems unnecessary to us — and is probably too much of a nuisance — to check something again before we internalize it, comment on it, and forward it. Thus, many users only read the headline of articles, but not the actual text.

The Science Post and NPR, for example, tested this by posting misleading headlines. Readers only learned that the whole thing was an experiment if they clicked on the links — which most of them did not do.

Negative content triggers us the most

The “bandwagon effect”also misleads us: According to this phenomenon, people have a tendency to follow the opinions or behaviors of others rather than forming their own opinion. In relation to fake news, this means that we are more likely to believe information if others do so as well.

When we see a social media post with lots of shares and likes, we tend to trust swarm intelligence just like everyone else. As already mentioned most of them share and like without taking a closer look at the content.

Our memory is also not very helpful when it comes to correctly storing what we have seen or read, also described as “persistence of inaccuracy.” We often do not recall whether something was true or false. It is not uncommon for people to claim that a false piece of information was true, even if it was later corrected, for example in the form of a fact check.

Apart from these biases, fake news works so well because we are guided more by emotions than we realize. The fact that false news spreads six times faster than true information is due precisely to this emotionality, Lewandowsky says. “Fake news tends to create outrage in the receiver, the recipient of the message. And we know that people, whether you like it or not, are engaging with outrage, provoking information… That makes it more likely for them to go viral.”

The question of personal benefit

A study conducted by the University of Würzburg last year, in which 600 participants were asked to assess the truth of various statements, also revealed that dark personality traits and so-called post-factual epistemic beliefs make us more susceptible to fake news.

“To find out about respondents’ beliefs about knowledge and facts, we asked them: ‘Do you trust your intuition when you encounter information? How much value do you place on evidence? Do you believe there is such a thing as independent facts at all?,'” the study’s lead author, psychologist Jan Philipp Rudloff, told DW.

The evaluation revealed that the participants found it more difficult to distinguish true statements from false ones the more they relied on their gut feeling and the less they believed in the existence of facts.

“And then we also looked at the ‘dark factor of personality,’ sort of the core of all dark personality traits, such as narcissism or psychopathy,” Rudloff said. “They’re called dark because those are related to behaviors that we don’t socially approve of.”

For people with a strong dark personality factor, he said, their own advantage is the most important thing. Everything else — and that could be the truth in some circumstances — becomes subordinate to that.

“The question then is not whether a piece of information is true or not, but whether it benefits them, plays into their cards, serves as justification.” Dark personality traits and a problematic understanding of knowledge and facts often go hand in hand, according to Rudloff, and usually manifest themselves at a young age.

The desire for attention and approval

Joe Walther, director of the Center for Information Technology and Society at the University of California, points to another important aspect that promotes the spread of fake news. He sees liking, commenting and spreading information on the internet primarily as a social interaction: “I think people often engage in social media (behavior) in order to feel like they’re participating and to be recognized for it.”

“So if I send you a crazy story that research has found that short people are more susceptible to fake news than tall people. I doubt such a thing is true, but I think you would appreciate that I sent you that crazy, funny thing and I think people use social media in order to be liked by others, in order to get attention, to be recognized, validated,” he said.

At the same time, this example helps to illustrate that users don’t share fake news necessarily because they fall for it. Rather, they simply want to entertain and amuse themselves and others. Or they share content precisely because they do NOT believe it to be true.

What can we do to become more resilient?

The reasons why we believe fake news are complex. Among other things, they have to do with our personality and our attitude toward knowledge and facts. Fake news is also an appealing vehicle for networking with others and enjoying attention and approval. There are also various cognitive mechanisms that distort our perception.

The question is: How do we become more resilient? The first step is to become aware of how susceptible we are to manipulation and to be aware that we can never be entirely objective. Jan Rudloff advocates providing students with more meta-level knowledge regarding facts and science.

“Ultimately, in science, it is always the case that you can only find a consensus, a kind of agreement among as many experts as possible. But as new information comes in, what was previously considered fact or consensus can shift.”

This is very complex, he said, and it gives some people the impression that facts are arbitrarily determined by politicians and scientists. An example of that is the claim made during the corona pandemic that children would not spread COVID-19 as much — and then it turned out they did.

An approach that goes in a similar direction is the so-called prebunking. With information about fake news and disinformation at their disposal, users can be sensitized even before they encounter it. One idea of that would be to provide an information campaign ahead of an election where a lot of fake news is expected to manipulate voters.’

For related articles and blogs on Adult Learning, Critical Thinking, Curriculum, Digital Literacy, Learning Theory, Media, Science Literacy, Soft Skills and Statistical Analysis click through:

Critical Thinking or Analysis: Importance for Education, Media and Empowered Citizens

Covid Misinformation – Gut Instinct & Beliefs vs. Science & Critical Thinking

Skills of Critical Thinking

Anglosphere Nativism and Eugenics in Political  Media – Language and Social Discourse

Radical Libertarian Disinformation Machine – Koch Network by Nancy MacLean

Covid-19 Coronovirus Data and Statistical Literacy

Conspiracy of Denial – COVID-19 and Climate Science

Covid-19 Conspiracy Theories and Radical Right Libertarians

Covid-19 Climate Science Vaccination Misinformation PR and Astro Turfing

Anglosphere News Media – Objectivity – Political Interference – Fair & Balanced

Following are excerpts from an interesting article written by Stephen Cushion in The Conversation ‘How UK broadcasting’s key principle of impartiality has been eroded over the years’ with focus and excerpts including BBC, Fox News, US fairness principle, Ofcom, GB News, personalities and public confidence.

It is not just the U.K. or the Anglosphere, one would add further issues which include lack of journalistic standards, journalists being replaced by politicians, think tank ‘experts’, influencers and grifters presenting nativist right wing agitprop masquerading as informed analysis; especially talking points and messaging in a negative and repetitive manner to dominate media spaces and preclude advancing positive issues or policies.

Round the Lineker issue, there has been confected outrage from the above cohort on his comments regarding migration policy, Nazi Germany and eugenics based rhetoric of the 1930s, which were misrepresented as a factual allegation. However, many claim it was true anyway i.e. direct links between UK’s (US, Australia, Hungarian & Italian) migration restriction policies, and can be proven.

According to New Yorker’s Jane Mayer, a media assembly line audit by ‘Freedom Works’ of KochNetwork, looked at how their research created an ‘influence’ assembly line including media & lobbying MPs or committees, run campaigns to discredit disappear e.g. climate science or intimidate dissent e.g. refugee advocates. 

The research, PR and talking points often come from the same networks and now transnational using similar content, talking points and methods via Koch, Tanton, Murdoch et al and even Russia and Turkey use similar?

How UK broadcasting’s key principle of impartiality has been eroded over the years

March 29, 2023 12.47pm CEST

A word that was bandied about freely in the wake of the Gary Lineker-BBC affair was “impartiality”. Apparently the gold standard of UK broadcasting, it was something that certain critics judged the BBC sports presenter to have breached in his personal social media posts.

Following Lineker’s suspension and subsequent reinstatement, a review of the BBC’s guidelines over its staff members’ use of social media is underway – not for the first time in the broadcaster’s recent history.

The UK has historically required broadcasters to abide by a set of “due impartiality” guidelines set out and policed by the UK’s broadcasting watchdog, Ofcom. These are designed to prevent the kind of partisanship that has long characterised American media.

Yet there is growing evidence UK broadcasters are effectively free to pursue a style of opinionated and partisan journalism familiar to viewers of US broadcast news and current affairs.

The public deserve more serious debate and scrutiny about the impartiality of broadcasters and how they are regulated.

The Foxification of news

In the US, between 1949 and 1987, broadcasters were required to adhere to the fairness doctrine. This helped to ensure reporting of politics and public affairs was broadly balanced.

As I explored in my book, Television Journalism, more opinionated formats in radio and then television news began to slowly emerge after the fairness doctrine was abolished. This was because broadcasters were no longer obliged to reflect different political perspectives.

In 1996, Fox News was launched by media tycoon Rupert Murdoch. It pursued a highly partisan brand of journalism that favoured conservative and Republican perspectives.

Over successive decades, this “Fox effect” paved the way for more partisanship in the US, with channels such as Newsmax and One American News adopting even more right-wing perspectives and sometimes even propagating conspiracy theories. For example, while Fox News initially questioned Donald Trump’s claims the 2020 presidential election had been rigged, the new hyper-partisan channels tended to legitimise his assertions of electoral fraud.

Foxification of UK broadcast news?

At the turn of the century, concerns about a so-called “Foxification of news” spread across the Atlantic. But a systematic analysis of Sky News and BBC News between 2004 and 2007 showed broadcasters were broadly conforming to rules about “due impartiality”.

Just a decade later, however, new broadcasters such as GB News, UK News, LBC and Times Radio, have pushed the boundaries of the UK’s rules on impartiality.

The new channels tend to deliver more opinionated and partisan journalism. Critics, for example, have highlighted GB News’s late-night opinion-based programming, and drawn attention to the channel’s dubious claims and conspiracy theories.

Enhancing public confidence

Ofcom recently issued a clarification that politicians can present in “non-news” programming outside of election periods. This was defined as programming with “extensive discussion, analysis or interviews with guests – often live – and long-form video reports”.

In the case of GB News, this represents a significant part of its routine output – meaning much of the channel’s airtime is free to adopt a partisan perspective.

If the public is to remain confident in broadcast journalism, it is essential Ofcom is transparent about how it applies editorial standards of impartiality. Public support for impartiality remains high, and research also shows people expect broadcasters to be fair and balanced rather than opinionated and partisan.

Ahead of the next general election, voters need to have confidence not just in the broadcasters that inform them, but in the regulator that polices them.’

For more blogs and article about Conservatives, Koch Network, Media, Political Strategy, Populist Politics, Tanton Network and White Nationalism.

Anglosphere Nativism and Eugenics in Political  Media – Language and Social Discourse

Critical Thinking or Analysis: Importance for Education, Media and Empowered Citizens

Mainstreaming Extremism – How Public Figures and Media Incite Nativist Beliefs Leading to Violence

SLAPP Cases – Constraining Media Freedom and Freedom of Speech in Balkans, EU, UK, Australia

Anglosphere Legacy Media: White Nativist and Libertarian Propaganda for Ageing Conservative Voters – Australia, Brexit & Trump

Dumbing Down and Gaming of Anglosphere Media, Science, Society and Democracy

Research of Social Media – Fake News – Conspiracy Theories – Junk Science

Critical Thinking or Analysis: Importance for Education, Media and Empowered Citizens

Throughout the world, especially now with social media, the digital volume of information and velocity, all citizens need skills of critical analysis, especially through the education system, community and media.

While newsrooms cut costs, headcounts and resources, many journalists or reporters now have less time and fewer resources to produce more news content.  However, this comes with the commensurate risk of media being gamed by corporate and political forces of the right, due to media using heuristic shortcuts on any issue and inherently biassed towards parties of the right.

Gaming media is done in various ways including using think tanks masquerading as academic or research institutes. In fact too often they are PR or lobbying groups, staffed by pseudo intellectuals producing ‘research’ reports which are promoted in media, for adoption or approval by both voters and the politicians or government; avoiding commentary or analysis that actually conducts analysis and may preclude policy initiatives?

However, they are never publicly subjected or exposed to expert analysis, including claims of non-scientists linked to fossil fuels who dismiss climate science, with neither informed challenge nor expert input.

What can journalists or media and citizens do? 

Acquire skills or understanding of critical thinking and related through informed analysis e.g. science or research process, statistics 101, demography, history, language and geography. 

Following on, allowing media and society to function versus receiving content including science, data or opinions that too often go unchallenged, while media not on the right is subject to constant challenges, intimidation and constraints?

Two articles first from the University of Tennessee and the second from Rasmussen University:

Basic Elements of Critical Thinking

A set of information and beliefs, generating and processing skills, and the habit of using those skills to guide behaviour.

Critical thinkers:

• Ask questions
• Gather relevant information
• Think through solutions and conclusions 
• Consider alternative systems of thought
• Communicate effectively

They’re willing to admit when they’re wrong or when they don’t know the answer, rather than digging into a gut reaction or emotional point of view.

Truth-Seeking – Ask questions and follow the evidence

Judicious – Able to make judgements amid uncertainty

Inquisitive – Strive to be well-informed on a wide range of topics

Confident in Reasoning – Trustful of own skills to make good judgements

Systematic – Organized and thoughtful problem solving

Analytical – Identify potential consequences of decisions

Open-Minded – Tolerant of different views and sensitive to own biases

6 Critical Thinking Skills You Need to Master Now

No matter what walk of life you come from, what industry you’re interested in pursuing or how much experience you’ve already garnered, we’ve all seen firsthand the importance of critical thinking skills. In fact, lacking such skills can truly make or break a person’s career, as the consequences of one’s inability to process and analyze information effectively can be massive.

What is critical thinking?

Even if you want to be a better critical thinker, it’s hard to improve upon something you can’t define. Critical thinking is the analysis of an issue or situation and the facts, data or evidence related to it. Ideally, critical thinking is to be done objectively—meaning without influence from personal feelings, opinions or biases—and it focuses solely on factual information.

Critical thinking is a skill that allows you to make logical and informed decisions to the best of your ability. For example, a child who has not yet developed such skills might believe the Tooth Fairy left money under their pillow based on stories their parents told them. A critical thinker, however, can quickly conclude that the existence of such a thing is probably unlikely—even if there are a few bucks under their pillow.

6 Crucial critical thinking skills (and how you can improve them)

While there’s no universal standard for what skills are included in the critical thinking process, we’ve boiled it down to the following six. Focusing on these can put you on the path to becoming an exceptional critical thinker.

1. Identification

The first step in the critical thinking process is to identify the situation or problem as well as the factors that may influence it. Once you have a clear picture of the situation and the people, groups or factors that may be influenced, you can then begin to dive deeper into an issue and its potential solutions.

How to improve: When facing any new situation, question or scenario, stop to take a mental inventory of the state of affairs and ask the following questions:

• Who is doing what?
• What seems to be the reason for this happening?
• What are the end results, and how could they change?

2. Research

When comparing arguments about an issue, independent research ability is key. Arguments are meant to be persuasive—that means the facts and figures presented in their favor might be lacking in context or come from questionable sources. The best way to combat this is independent verification; find the source of the information and evaluate.

How to improve: It can be helpful to develop an eye for unsourced claims. Does the person posing the argument offer where they got this information from? If you ask or try to find it yourself and there’s no clear answer, that should be considered a red flag. It’s also important to know that not all sources are equally valid—take the time to learn the difference between popular and scholarly articles.

3. Identifying biases

This skill can be exceedingly difficult, as even the smartest among us can fail to recognize biases. Strong critical thinkers do their best to evaluate information objectively. Think of yourself as a judge in that you want to evaluate the claims of both sides of an argument, but you’ll also need to keep in mind the biases each side may possess.

First and foremost, you must be aware that bias exists. When evaluating information or an argument, ask yourself the following:

• Who does this benefit?
• Does the source of this information appear to have an agenda?
• Is the source overlooking, ignoring or leaving out information that doesn’t support its beliefs or claims?
• Is this source using unnecessary language to sway an audience’s perception of a fact?

4. Inference

The ability to infer and draw conclusions based on the information presented to you is another important skill for mastering critical thinking. Information doesn’t always come with a summary that spells out what it means. You’ll often need to assess the information given and draw conclusions based upon raw data.

The ability to infer allows you to extrapolate and discover potential outcomes when assessing a scenario. It is also important to note that not all inferences will be correct. For example, if you read that someone weighs 260 pounds, you might infer they are overweight or unhealthy. Other data points like height and body composition, however, may alter that conclusion.

How to improve: An inference is an educated guess, and your ability to infer correctly can be polished by making a conscious effort to gather as much information as possible before jumping to conclusions. When faced with a new scenario or situation to evaluate, first try skimming for clues—things like headlines, images and prominently featured statistics—and then make a point to ask yourself what you think is going on.

5. Determining relevance

One of the most challenging parts of thinking critically during a challenging scenario is figuring out what information is the most important for your consideration. In many scenarios, you’ll be presented with information that may seem important, but it may pan out to be only a minor data point to consider.

How to improve: The best way to get better at determining relevance is by establishing a clear direction in what you’re trying to figure out. Are you tasked with finding a solution? Should you be identifying a trend? If you figure out your end goal, you can use this to inform your judgement of what is relevant.

6. Curiosity

It’s incredibly easy to sit back and take everything presented to you at face value, but that can also be a recipe for disaster when faced with a scenario that requires critical thinking. It’s true that we’re all naturally curious—just ask any parent who has faced an onslaught of “Why?” questions from their child. As we get older, it can be easier to get in the habit of keeping that impulse to ask questions at bay. But that’s not a winning approach for critical thinking.

How to improve: While it might seem like a curious mind is just something you’re born with, you can still train yourself to foster that curiosity productively. All it takes is a conscious effort to ask open-ended questions about the things you see in your everyday life, and you can then invest the time to follow up on these questions.

“Being able to ask open-ended questions is an important skill to develop—and bonus points for being able to probe,” Potrafka says.

Become a better critical thinker

Thinking critically is vital for anyone looking to have a successful college career and a fruitful professional life upon graduation. Your ability to objectively analyse and evaluate complex subjects and situations will always be useful. Unlock your potential by practising and refining the six critical thinking skills above.

Most professionals credit their time in college as having been crucial in the development of their critical thinking abilities. If you’re looking to improve your skills in a way that can impact your life and career moving forward, higher education is a fantastic venue through which to achieve that.

Other Blog, Articles and Links on Adult Learning, Business Communication, CPD Continuing Professional Development, Critical Thinking, Digital Literacy, Media, Science Literacy, Soft Skills and Statistical Analysis click through below:

Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center and the Carnegie-Knight Initiative, The Journalist’s Resource

Gapminder Foundation Resources

Covid Misinformation – Gut Instinct & Beliefs vs. Science & Critical Thinking

Skills of Critical Thinking

Radical Libertarian Disinformation Machine – Koch Network by Nancy MacLean

Libertarian Curricula – Science and Culture Wars vs. University Maths Teacher Training

Media on China and Wuhan Virus – Critical Analysis or Political PR?

Covid-19 Climate Science Vaccination Misinformation PR and Astro Turfing

Language, Discourse Analysis, PR and Communication in Politics