Scientific Reasoning

Unlike most living things, human beings are able to reason. We all intuitively understand how to reason and do it every day. Science is a highly refined and rigorous form of everyday reasoning. We can become better scientists and improve our day-to-day lives by learning to describe, analyze, and evaluate reasoning. This cluster leads learners on a guided tour through the essential ingredients of reasoning---claims, evidence, and arguments---and takes a deep dive into common cognitive biases and rational fallacies that impede our ability to reason as well as we can.

Topics

  • absence of evidence
  • abusive ad hominem
  • accuracy rate
  • ad hominem fallacy
  • adding probabilities
  • affirming a disjunct
  • affirming the consequent
  • anchoring bias
  • anchoring heuristic
  • application
  • applying general principles
  • argument
  • argument form
  • argument structure
  • argumentation
  • assurance
  • audience
  • availability bias
  • availability heuristic
  • bad argument
  • bandwagon effect
  • base rate
  • base rate neglect
  • behavior
  • belief
  • bias
  • bias mitigation
  • bias mitigation strategies
  • bias trigger
  • calculating probabilities
  • calculation
  • causal factor
  • causal reasoning
  • causal relationship
  • causation
  • cause-effect relationship
  • chance
  • chance of illness
  • character
  • cherry-picking
  • chess tournament
  • circumstances
  • circumstantial ad hominem
  • claims
  • coercion
  • cognitive bias
  • coin flips
  • combination of probabilities
  • combining conditionals
  • combining rules
  • compulsion
  • complex argument
  • components of an argument
  • Complement Rule
  • conditional probability
  • conditions
  • confidence
  • confidence level
  • confirmation bias
  • confirming
  • conflicts of interest
  • conjunction
  • conjunction fallacy
  • Conjunction Rule
  • conjuncts
  • constructing proofs
  • controversial ideas
  • co-occurring events
  • correlation
  • credibility
  • critical thinking
  • decoding
  • decision-making
  • decrease probability
  • debiasing
  • debiasing technique
  • deduction
  • deductive argument
  • deductive reasoning
  • deductive validity
  • denying the antecedent
  • dependent events
  • dependent probabilities
  • deriving logical consequences
  • deriving predictions
  • detecting bias
  • detecting plagiarism
  • detection
  • detection system
  • determining the cause
  • diagrams
  • direct perception
  • disbelief
  • disconfirming
  • disconfirming evidence
  • diverse perspectives
  • diverse sample
  • disjunctive syllogism
  • dogma
  • emotions
  • emotional appeal
  • essential content
  • essential premise
  • evaluating arguments
  • events
  • evidence
  • evidence against a claim
  • evidence for a claim
  • experience
  • expert
  • expertise
  • expertise creep
  • explicit conclusion
  • explicit premise
  • eyewitness identification
  • fair coin
  • fallacies
  • fallacies of irrelevant evidence
  • fallacies of weak evidence
  • fallacious argument
  • fallacy
  • false belief
  • false cause fallacy
  • false conclusion
  • false negative rate
  • false positive rate
  • falsifying hypotheses
  • fear
  • force
  • formal fallacy
  • frequency of an event
  • fundamental attribution error
  • Galileo
  • gambler's fallacy
  • generalizing
  • geocentrism
  • good argument
  • good evidence
  • good reasoning
  • groupthink
  • hasty generalization fallacy
  • heliocentrism
  • heuristic thinking
  • heuristics
  • high school
  • homogenous sample
  • hypothesis
  • hypothesis testing
  • hypothetical syllogism
  • illusions
  • implicit conclusion
  • implicit premises
  • impossible outcomes
  • improbable streaks
  • increase probability
  • independence
  • independent events
  • independent probabilities
  • indirect perception
  • intersection
  • interpretation
  • invalid
  • invalid arguments
  • invalidity
  • irrelevant evidence
  • isolating causal factors
  • kinds of argument
  • kinds of reasoning
  • likelihood
  • limits of deduction
  • logic
  • logical form
  • logical symbol
  • marble draws
  • marbles
  • manipulation
  • mathematics of probability
  • medical testing
  • mental map
  • mental shortcuts
  • modeling
  • modus ponens
  • modus tollens
  • motivated reasoning
  • motivations
  • multiple events
  • mutually exclusive events
  • necessity
  • non-belief
  • non-deductive argument
  • non-deductive reasoning
  • non-essential content
  • non-experts
  • observation
  • odds
  • optimism bias
  • ordinary language argument
  • outcomes
  • overlapping possibilities
  • overlapping probabilities