We met Sunday May 2 at 5pm at the Blue Moose.
Our Topic of the Evening is Reason:
~Update: It was an interesting evening. I tried my Quirkology experiments, which didn’t go over so well since I didn’t have enough of the methodology and results of the studies they came from (yay for being skeptical, everyone!), Gerald brought in a great textbook and we did a few questions from that, Butch talked about the things that aren’t reasonable that people still believe in – superstitions – and we had a good discussion from that, and David brought in a quote from his favorite book – the Celtic Twilight by Yates, if I recall – which also sparked an interesting discussion.
Then we went to The Lavender Cafe for more great conversation and delicious food.
~
4. sound judgment; good sense.
8. to think or argue in a logical manner.
9. to form conclusions, judgments, or inferences from facts or premises.
11. to think through logically, as a problem.
Let’s celebrate reason, common sense and critical thinking by real life experiments or logical puzzles. Everyone bring in a couple real life experiments we can do without disturbing anyone, or a reasoning puzzle we can figure out together. (we might only have time for one, but it would be better to have extras to choose from)
If you bring in an experiment, it might be nice to explain how the scientific method works. Or if you bring in a reasoning puzzle, explain how critical thinking and reasoning works.
For some ideas, you could try these sources:
- Professor Richard Wiseman has a Friday Puzzle and also does quirky science experiments
- I’m combing through his book Quirkology for some experiments we can try together
- Try Googling brain puzzle, reason puzzle, logical thinking puzzle, etc.
- Try Googling science party experiment, although most of these involve explosions. Not a good idea at the Blue Moose!
If you have good ideas to spare, leave comments to share with the rest of us!
