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Home/Magazine Archive/July 2009 (Vol. 52, No. 7)/Are We Losing Our Ability to Think Critically?/Full Text News Are We Losing Our Ability to Think Critically? By Samuel Greengard Communications of the ACM, Vol. 52 No. 7, Pages 18-19 10.1145/1538788.1538796 Comments (3) View as: Print ACM Digital Library Full Text (PDF) In the Digital Edition Share: Send by email Share on reddit Share on StumbleUpon Share on Tweeter Share on Facebook More Sharing ServicesShare Society has long cherished the ability to think beyond the ordinary. In a world where knowledge is revered and innovation equals progress, those able to bring forth greater insight and understanding are destined to make their mark and blaze a trail to greater enlightenment. "Critical thinking as an attitude is embedded in Western culture. There is a belief that argument is the way to finding truth," observes Adrian West, research director at the Edward de Bono Foundation U.K., and a former computer science lecturer at the University of Manchester. "Developing our abilities to think more clearly, richly, fully—individually and collectively—is absolutely crucial [to solving world problems]." To be sure, history is filled with tales of remarkable thinkers who have defined and redefined our world views: Sir Isaac Newton discovering gravity; Voltaire altering perceptions about society and religious dogma; and Albert Einstein redefining the view of the universe. But in an age of computers, video games, and the Internet, there's a growing question about how technology is changing critical thinking and whether society benefits from it. Although there's little debate that computer technology complements—and often enhances—the human mind in the quest to store information and process an ever-growing tangle of bits and bytes, there's increasing concern that the same technology is changing the way we approach complex problems and conundrums, and making it more difficult to really think. "We're exposed to [greater amounts of] poor yet charismatic thinking, the fads of intellectual fashion, opinion, and mere assertion," says West. "The wealth of communications and information can easily overwhelm our reasoning abilities." What's more, it's ironic that ever-growing piles of data and information do not equate to greater knowledge and better decision-making. What's remarkable, West says, is just "how little this has affected the quality of our thinking." According to the National Endowment for the Arts, literary reading declined 10 percentage points from 1982 to 2002 and the rate of decline is accelerating. Many, including Patricia Greenfield, a UCLA distinguished professor of psychology and director of the Children's Digital Media Center, Los Angeles, believe that a greater focus on visual media exacts a toll. "A drop-off in reading has possibly contributed to a decline in critical thinking," she says. "There is a greater emphasis on real-time media and multitasking rather than focusing on a single thing." Nevertheless, the verdict isn't in and a definitive answer about how technology affects critical thinking is not yet available. Instead, critical thinking lands in a mushy swamp somewhere between perception and reality; measurable and incomprehensible. It's largely a product of our own invention—and a subjective one at that. And although technology alters the way we see, hear, and assimilate our world—the act of thinking remains decidedly human. Back to Top Rethinking Thinking Arriving at a clear definition for critical thinking is a bit tricky. Wikipedia describes it as "purposeful and reflective judgment about what to believe or what to do in response to observations, experience, verbal or written expressions, or arguments." Overlay technology and that's where things get complex. "We can do the same critical-reasoning operations without technology as we can with it—just at different speeds and with different ease," West says. What's more, while it's tempting to view computers, video games, and the Internet in a monolithic good or bad way, the reality is that they may be both good and bad, and different technologies, systems, and uses yield entirely different results. For example, a computer game may promote critical thinking or diminish it. Reading on the Internet may ratchet up one's ability to analyze while chasing an endless array of hyperlinks may undercut deeper thought.

Reading on the Internet may ratchet up one's ability to analyze while chasing an endless array of hyperlinks may undercut deeper thought.

Non-alignment, as practised by Ghana and many other countries, is based on co-operation with all States whether they be capitalist, socialist or have a mixed economy. Such a policy, therefore, involves foreign investment from capitalist countries, but it must be invested in accordance with a national plan drawn up by the government of the non-aligned State with its own interests in mind.

relationships between cultural spaces, the image-making practices of smartphone users and social media platforms.

In addition to targeted advertising, value is created by leveraging a continuous circulation of meaning and attention

Pythagorean proof

he Pythagorean Theorem was known long before Pythagoras, but he may well have been the first to prove it.[6] In any event, the proof attributed to him is very simple, and is called a proof by rearrangement. The two large squares shown in the figure each contain four identical triangles, and the only difference between the two large squares is that the triangles are arranged differently. Therefore, the white space within each of the two large squares must have equal area. Equating the area of the white space yields the Pythagorean Theorem, Q.E.D.[7] That Pythagoras originated this very simple proof is sometimes inferred from the writings of the later Greek philosopher and mathematician Proclus.[8] Several other proofs of this theorem are described below, but this is known as the Pythagorean one.

Pythagorean triples Main article: Pythagorean triple A Pythagorean triple has three positive integers a, b, and c, such that a2 + b2 = c2. In other words, a Pythagorean triple represents the lengths of the sides of a right triangle where all three sides have integer lengths.[1] Evidence from megalithic monuments in Northern Europe shows that such triples were known before the discovery of writing. Such a triple is commonly written (a, b, c). Some well-known examples are (3, 4, 5) and (5, 12, 13). A primitive Pythagorean triple is one in which a, b and c are coprime (the greatest common divisor of a, b and c is 1). The following is a list of primitive Pythagorean triples with values less than 100: (3, 4, 5), (5, 12, 13), (7, 24, 25), (8, 15, 17), (9, 40, 41), (11, 60, 61), (12, 35, 37), (13, 84, 85), (16, 63, 65), (20, 21, 29), (28, 45, 53), (33, 56, 65), (36, 77, 85), (39, 80, 89), (48, 55, 73), (65, 72, 97)

Use the “Save” option to bookmark a page. Bookmarking saves a link to the page in your online Diigo library, allowing you to easily access it later.

Highlighting can also be accomplished from the context pop-up. After the Chrome extension is installed, whenever you select text on a webpage, the context pop-up will appear, allowing you to accomplish text-related annotation. Highlight Pop-up Menu – After you highlight some text, position your mouse cursor over it and the highlight pop-up menu will appear. The highlight pop-up menu allows you to add notes to, share, or delete the highlight.

Sticky Note Click the middle icon on the annotation toolbar to add a sticky note to the page. With a sticky note, you can write your thoughts anywhere on a web page.

une 23, 2008 -- A symptoms checklist, combined with a blood test, can catch 80% of ovarian cancer in its earliest, most curable stages, a new study suggests.

"The symptom index and the CA125 test each finds 50% to 60% of women with early disease," Andersen tells WebMD. "But when they're combined, if either one is positive, we might be able to identify 80.6% of women with early stage ovarian cancer. Women with early stage disease have good chance of a cure -- it's just that right now, we don't find many of them in time.

The symptoms that warn of ovarian cancer aren't, in themselves, very specific. They may seem to be gastrointestinal or psychological rather than gynecological in nature.

The same can't be said for the female NPCs that fill Dragon's Crown's dungeons and other environments. Most of the women in the game are barely clothed, with heaving chests, backs twisted into suggestive positions, some with their legs spread almost as wide as the screen. They're presented as helpless objects, usually in need of rescue. It's obvious, one-sided and gross.

Two player characters — the Amazon and the Sorceress — are explicitly sexualized, with breasts literally bigger than their heads with rear ends to match

Dragon's Crown was reviewed using code provided by Atlus. You can read more about Polygon's ethics policy here.

nnocence didn’t last.

“Evolutionary robotic systems implicitly encompass many behavioral components … thus allowing for an unbiased investigation of the factors driving signal evolution,” the researchers wrote Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “The great degree of realism provided by evolutionary robotic systems thus provides a powerful tool for studies that cannot readily be performed with real organisms.”

All diseases have proteins, or concentrations of proteins, specifically linked to them called biomarkers, and identifying these can prove a powerful diagnostic tool. Antibodies can be used to test for specific biomarkers because they only bind to specific molecules or groups of molecules. Problems can arise when they bind to groups of similar molecules, leading to false positives and unreliable information.

A thoroughknowledge of the community is required to be able to understand the group, as well asunderstand the individual’s place in the whole. This knowledge allows a group to build asocially imagined concept of communal belief. It creates a method for demarcating who is and isnot an insider, and allows the group to come to terms with their shared ‘canonical’ text(s).

Schraube’s materialized action approach combines Actor Network Theory with Critical Psychology. From the latter, Schraube uses the idea of objectification which argues that technology is always imbued with human intention. From the former, he takes the idea that technologies always act back upon humans. In short, the materialized action approach says that technologies and humans have a mutually constitutive relationship, but this relationship is lopsided. Although both humans and technologies each act upon the other, humans take the primary position. Humans construct technologies in response to human problems. They build into these technologies cultural values and intentions. Technology is the material form of human action, but one without definitive consequences.

The PR firm, which surveyed 3,000 consumers in the UK, US and China through its Edelman Berland research arm, found that the percentage of US consumers who binge-watch has “increased significantly” in the past year – rising from 86% in 2013 to 94% this year. In China the figure was found to be an “almost universal” 99%.

72% of respondents watching so they ‘know what happens next’ and 57% noting that they do so to ‘feel caught up

Half of respondents said they were likely to use an app or website to interact with the content if it was designed by the creator (US 56%; UK 46%; China 81%) or not designed by the creator (US 52%; UK 44%; China 71%).

evoke in the viewer a certain feeling, atmosphere or mood

Not just on Pinterest, but also in the form of dopamine-boosting street-fashion blogs and cryptically named Tumblr blogs devoted to the wordless and explanation-free juxtaposition of, say, cupcakes and teapots and shoes with shots of starched shirts and J.F.K.