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In this interview, along other things, Noam Chomsky explains that a teacher should not try to convince the students that he/she is right but to motivate them to think about the subject in order to find the truth themselves which sometimes is that he/she is wrong. And if a teacher or speaker has this talent of being persuasive by appealing to people's emotions they should avoid using it because it undermines their capacity for independent thinking. --- Later edit: Also, here's a quote from Dead Poets Society movie: "I always thought the idea of education was to learn to think for yourself." Here are others from the same movie.

Psychology researcher Judith Rich Harris formulated the theory that children's personalities are mostly influenced by their genes and their social group. The theory contradicts the myth that the way the parents raise their children has the most important role in the shaping of their character. According to her research the teenagers personality is formed when they are trying to fit in with the group or to compete with their peers. There is an article on edge.org about the work of Judith Rich Harris: link

In an article of Northeastern University News, Lisa Feldman Barrett, University Distinguished Professor of Psychology, is quoted saying that we are at a moment in history when it is very important to have a working knowledge of science. Luckily there a lot of scientists how are trying to communicate in simple terms that are adapted to the general public.

According to journalist David Wallace-Wells, the most important thing that we can do at this point to try to stop climate change is political action. Other measures may not be able to counteract the failure to change state policies so that they will effectively result in reducing the global warming effect. His interview in The Guardian.

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... or why we hold on to our beliefs even if we are presented with strong proofs that they are wrong. Here is the New Yorker article about this. As you may have already noticed we have a tendency to take into account the proofs that are in favor of our current beliefs but to dismiss the ones that disproves them. Another way of putting it is that we like to be right and we hate to be wrong. So we do our best to make ourselves feel good. Even if it is counter intuitive we should try to overcome this fear of being wrong and not hesitate of changing opinion if evidences point in that direction. In an interview Jeff Bezos points that doing this is a valuable trait. Or from a Richard Feynman quote : "We have found it of paramount importance that in order to progress we must recognize our ignorance and leave room for doubt."

... if you put them in practice. In the end, you cannot say that an idea is good only by reasoning about it. You may always miss something when you're simulating the future in your head. You need to actually do it to test if it works or not, usually multiple times so that you know that if you got the expected results this was not by chance. Another way of thinking about it is that let's say you are reading about some rule. You shouldn't think it is true or that it applies in any conditions because you trust who wrote it. You have to think yourself about it maybe more than you usually do by instinct when you are encounter anything new. Which basically means to think critically. So ideas are good if you put them to practice. But if you apply this pattern to the process of reasoning about the patterns themselves it just means to think critically since the patterns are about thinking about how to think.