Has critical thinking improved over decades?

This episode is dedicated to Justin Eldridge.

We like to think that, in often hamfisted ways, we’re applying critical thinking on this show. But what even is “critical thinking”? Can you measure it? Can you teach it to kids—or for that matter, to anyone? Can teaching critical thinking help people defend themselves against misinformation and disinformation? It would be very ironic if “critical thinking” had become a buzzword in the world of education—a buzzword that people used, er, uncritically…

The Science Fictions podcast is brought to you by the marvellous Works in Progress magazine. The article on Swiss vs. Japanese watches that we mention in the episode can be found at this link, and all the other Works in Progress articles can be found at worksinprogress.co.

Show notes

* NY Times article on schools teaching critical thinking

* UK Government Curriculum Review from 2025

* Daisy Christodoulou on teaching students to spot misinformation

* Daniel Willingham’s 2007 article on critical thinking

* His book Why Don’t Students Like School?

* The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus study

* The tree octopus website

* 2017 Dutch replication study

* Two bigger studies in 2016 and 2019

* 2015 meta-analysis in Review of Educational Research

* Woodworth and Thorndike (1901) - a psychological classic

* Herbert Simon on “problem isomorphs”

* The Stanford Civic Online Reasoning programme

Credits

We’re very grateful to Daisy Christodoulou for talking to us for this episode. Any mistakes are, of course, our own. The Science Fictions podcast is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada Productions.

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