Writing Assignment 1

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Recommended: Scientific reasonings

The “Tools for Skeptical Thinking” is a list of principles written by American astrophysicist, astronomer and writer Carl Sagan. This list is meant to help people distinguish a well reasoned argument from a poorly reasoned one. In this list there are six tools that stand out as particularly important for discerning good and bad information. These six tools allow people to make more informed decisions about the scientific information that they consume. These tools are Occam’s razor (a rule which states that if there are two hypothesis are equally well argued then it is best to go with the one that is simplest), confirming information from independent sources, encouraging debate from knowledgeable participants, having multiple hypothesizes, not becoming too attached to one’s own hypothesis, and making sure that every part of a chain argument makes sense. These six tools are particularly important because they stress the importance of objectivity and rationality in analyzing an argument.
The first important tool in Carl Sagan’s “Tools for Skeptical Thinking” is Occam’s razor. Occam’s razor is a theory that says if a person is faces with two equally well reasoned hypotheses then they should choose the one that is the simplest. This tool allows people to cut through unnecessary elements of an argument and determine whether or not the hypothesis is true. The mentality behind this is that the simplest answer is usually the best. For example if a person hears a strange coming from their basement every night they can choose to believe either that there is a person that sneaks into their basement to make noises every night or the hot water heater in their basement is broken and is making the noise instead. In this situation the second ans...

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...r because then even though the rest of the argument is well structure the hypothesis must be rejected because an important part is could not be true.
The six most important tools in Carl Sagan’s “Tools for Skeptical Thinking” are Occam’s razor (this rule affirms that if there are two hypothesis are evenly well argued then it is better to go with the simpler one), confirming information using independent sources, encouraging debate from knowledgeable participants, having multiple hypothesizes, not becoming too attached to one’s own hypothesis, and making sure that every part of a chain argument makes sense. These tools are the most important in the “Tools for Skeptical Thinking” because they stress the importance of objectivity, rationality in analyzing an argument. Using these six rules makes it easy for people to analyze an argument and determine if it is logical.

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