Ever since a critical thinking class, I have been fascinated with the numerous fallacies and inconsistent ways in which we think, depending on our situations. After this class of psychology I feel even more equipped with the tools I need to take a step back from conversation, relationships, media and life in general, and take a good scientific and skeptical look. Evaluating my own behavior and thoughts is something that always deeply interests me.
I think I will always have the six fallacies of our textbook ingrained on my brain, or should I say wired into? More sppropriate, considering the extensive long term potentiation of those new neural networks. :)
Using these fallacies I feel that I can now also help others in pointing out all of the pseudoscientific nonesense out there. Every time I come across a situation now, I think of alternate reasons/explanations (ruling out rival hypotheses) instead of resting on my first conclusion. Most especially, while shopping for various products do I keep these fallacies in mind.
This way of thinking has changed the way I make decisions and evaluate everything around me, and they will be with me for the rest of my life.
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