The Girl is off to have an extended “sleepover” at her grandparent’s house, and I’ve converted a few loonies to bucks for those incidental expenses.

I contemplated Tweeting the experience, but alas, I don’t think my data plan will comply. Instead, I’ll be taking a sheath of notes and hopefully scripting out a few new articles from the ideas picked up there. In the meanwhile, I’m going to set a few harmless posts to auto-publish whilst I’m away.

And while we’re on the topic… anyone else out there Vegas-bound this week?

0372) It seems to me that exercise and fitness are not rational things. By this I mostly mean that they are seemingly rational solutions to completely irrational problems. Why do we create such imbalances between our lives and our bodies that we need to allocate units of time, energy, and resources to try to correct those imbalances?

0002) It seems to me that many the Skeptics and other critical thinkers I’ve met are generally disappointed at the lack of credible evidence for paranormal, magical, alien, or the otherwise inexplicable phenomena of the world. These are not people who turn up their noses at the thought of such things. Instead, many Skeptics — while far too logical to accept what they’ve seen on the evidence they’ve been given — seem anxious to witness something altogether awesome and simultaneously provable.

0811) It seems to me that true democracy, while still one of the best systems we as a society have devised to date, remains something of an exercise in irrational political risk, at least so much as the individual is concerned. True, the alternatives offer little better in that respect. But it is something of a gamble, after all, to suppose that the will of the many will always represent the best interest of the many.

0572) It seems to me that there is a lot of literature, both fiction and fact, devoted to telling the story of otherwise peaceful folks driven to violence through logic and stepwise rational decisions.

Your turn… altercate, argue, bounce off, canvass, compare notes, confabulate, confer, consider, consult with, contend, contest, converse, debate, deliberate, descant, discept, discourse about, discuss, dispute, examine, exchange views on, explain, figure, get together, go into, groupthink, hash over, hold forth, jaw, kick about, knock around, moot, reason about, review, sift, take up, thrash out, toss around and/or otherwise weigh in in the comments below.

A thousand skeptical delegates converging on Vegas this July, surely some skeptical parents will be among them. Do you run a parenting blog and have already posted on this? Are you an avid reader of skeptical parenting or science-based education blogs and are wondering where we can all connect — kid-free — whilst sweltering in the heat of Nevada in July? My wife and I will be there while The Girl camps out with her grandparents back home. And while there’s no hope of anything official — not this year, at least — I’m starting to think an unofficial gathering might be in order.

Anyone in? Thoughts? Comment below!

These questions are far too big to answer in one post, so I’ve decided to break it out into a number of smaller posts (call them chapters or sub-sections, if you will) that will eventually form the basis for (I hope) a small paper on the topic. The concept is explained on my WhitePapers page.

First, what is gaming, exactly?

At what depth of involvement in a community does one need to be entrenched to consider themselves an expert? There was a time not so long ago when three other grown men and I, gathered around a fully expanded game of Settlers of Catan, were distractedly discussing the economic viability (to the point of some degree of formal business planning) of opening a board game store in our city. If seriously considering and planning to become a local vendor does not put one in sight of such expertise, it certainly bends one’s mind to a new level of consideration for what constitutes the same. We have not taken the plan any further (though it is not off the table) but it has left me pondering the culture of gaming to a much more substantial degree than I had ever before considered.

Gaming, if I suppose I needed to loosely define it, is any form of (I’d like to think mature, but not always) rule-based, non-sport play. When I think of gaming — as I’m sure do many others — I think of cracking open a cardboard box and extracting a board, dice, cards, tokens, bits, pieces, and often a crisp sheet of rules. But I don’t want to limit my definition to that. A handful of dice, a deck of cards, or a pencil and paper can be the basis for the simplest game. I sheepishly admit that I possess a small (and expensive) collection of hand-painted die-cast miniature figurines, replete with statistics cards, status tokens, color-coordinated dice, and multi-volume rulebooks, that in themselves define the upper-echelons (and the opposite end of the spectrum) of complexity in gaming.

While I would wager that the average person on the street is not only aware of games, but has played them, I think the Culture of the Gamer is limited to a much narrower band of society.

To examine this, my previous post is a fairly basic survey on gaming and the demographics of gaming. Please take a moment to fill it in. I’m going to make use of the results in a later post, so right now this is one of the best (and easiest) ways you can help me out!

What does gaming have to do with thinking?

Now we begin to get to the heart of this topic. I am inclined to ask some meaningful questions about the relationship between thought (and specifically critical thought) and the act of playing games — and ask I will.

• Who are gamers? What defines a gamer?
• What the key (mental, social, etc) attributes of gamers?
• What skills do gamers acquire because they game?
• What personal attributes makes someone a gamer?
• Do people define gaming, or does gaming define people?
• Why do people game? And how did they start?
• Why don’t people game? And are they avoiding it deliberately?
• Has any research been done on gamers?

I’m sure I (and others) will think of many more avenues of thought on this topic, but this is where I am starting and I hope it leads me to:

Are gamers necessarily critical thinkers?

My gut feeling (*cough*) is yes, and my prediction is the same. That said…

If I do find that there is a relationship, it will be the next step to dissect the argument into a question of correlation versus causation. I’m not sure I’ll be able to answer that — and I’m not even sure there is a way to be sure of that relationship anyhow. In other words, I think gamers are critical thinkers by necessity (and by broad generalization, though as I alluded to earlier I don’t think the opposite, that critical thinkers are necessarily gamers). I will need to research and discuss if gaming hones that skill, or is merely an outlet for it. I am certain that there are elements of evidence and extrapolation that can help my readers and I narrow our conclusions into something useful that contributes to the final question, and the question pertaining directly to the subject of this blog:

How is gaming related to raising critical thinking kids?

My final focused topic will be of particular interest to readers of this blog, and while I can never hope to answer it with a blog discussion and (*cough, cough*) informal meta-analysis, I hope I can shine some light on a few questions:

• Are we as parents contributing positively to our child’s rational development through gaming?
• Is there, in fact, a link between rule-based play and developing integrity in kids?
• Are some games better than others for critical thinking?
• With who should kids be gaming? And how often?
• Are there other skills that come from gaming? Do those skills build or inhibit critical thought?

In the end, I hope I can provide some evidence-based conclusions about the value of gaming and raising critically thinking kids, be that positive, negative, or decidedly neutral. Time and further research will tell — and after all, this is just the “proposal” for my further analysis.

Again, please take a moment to fill in my survey. I’d like to get at least one hundred responses before I do any sort of analysis on the data. And, if you are stumbling here from somewhere else, please check out the status of this whole project from the WhitePapers page which will be the central source for all parts of this skep/dad blog sub-project.

Skeptical Tidbits

New Partners #1: Not a “partner” per se, but one of the new contributors for the skepchick blog is a fellow Canadian — and Albertan! Very cool!

Critical thought and Skepticism go hand-in-hand. And for those unfamiliar with the ideology, the first thing that should be told is that this blog is nothing more than a green and fledgling member of a wide-spread, growing international community of rooted individuals seeking to share the benefits of pausing to think about the things we’ve all been told. I’m still trying to find my voice in that community, albeit from the perspective of passing those critical thinking skills onto kids. Thus, understanding what that community entails, and how skeptical fathers can tap into it to become critical thinking role models is a fundamental aspect of the mission of this blog.

I thought I would take a few minutes and compile a (admittedly very short) list of some of the multitude of definitions of “Skepticism” available on the web. But rather than plug you, dear reader, into a vague dictionary entry or lengthy Wikipedia explanation, I would point you at some of the sites owned and operated by other Skeptics in the wide community. There is no particular order for the pieces listed, nor is there any real basis for inclusion other than the pages cited have readily accessible definitions and explanations for their blogging or writing efforts — and they are pages or resources I have found personally enjoyable and useful.

But again, how does this fit into a skeptical parenting blog? The short answer: skeptical parents need to have skeptical thoughts, so read on. So, what is Skepticism, anyhow?

Brian Dunning at skeptoid.com emphasizes the critical thinking, scientific approach to skepticism. Skeptoid is a weekly critical thinking essay-style podcast that hones in on one particular topic of interest and examines it from a skeptical perspective. Among other things, this definition is a little more permissive than many with respect to belief and religion, inviting more folks into the fold on the condition of critical thought and scientific analysis:

Many skeptics are deeply religious, and are satisfied with the reasoning process that led them there. Skeptics apply critical thinking to different aspects of their lives in their own individual way. Everyone is a skeptic to some degree.^[1]

Karen Stollznow at Bad Langauge starts her analysis of the Skeptic’s dilemma with the common plea that Skepticism does not equate to cynicism, and attempts to debunk the fundamental misconception that Skeptics are curmudgeons who would rather poo-poo the world. In reality, Skepticism is about appreciating what is true and interpreting that based on questioning and evidence:

We all have the ability to question, so we should all be natural skeptics. Kids make great skeptics! They exhibit curiosity and a keenness to understand the world around them. Remember though, that children will believe that they are always being told the truth by the ‘wise’, ‘knowledgeable’ adult. ^[2]

Dr. Robert Carroll at the Skeptic’s Dictionary has written an extensive FAQ (something that I need to do) that answers numerous questions (obviously) that have been posed about his own perspective on skepticism. One of my favorite excerpts from this is his response to “why aren’t you skeptical of skepticism?” question:

Skepticism is an attitude, not a belief or set of beliefs. Skepticism involves a willingness to inquire, to investigate, to think critically about any subject. The alternative to skepticism is to accept things on faith and assert them dogmatically. Skepticism is a virtue; irrational dogmatism is a vice. There is no need to defend skepticism. Irrational dogmatism is indefensible. ^[3]

And to sum things up, the folks over at The Skeptic Society (publishers of Skeptic magazine) ask us to discover Skepticism with a plea for science and reason, and give the nod to Socrates who famously said “All I know is that I know nothing.”

…skepticism is a method, not a position. Ideally, skeptics do not go into an investigation closed to the possibility that a phenomenon might be real or that a claim might be true. When we say we are “skeptical,” we mean that we must see compelling evidence before we believe. ^[4]

If nothing else, reading any of these definitions should teach you one thing: think about everything. Critical thought is at the core of Skepticism, a — if not the — pillar of the community. But don’t take my word for it.

[1] www.skeptoid.com
[2] www.bad-language.com
[3] www.skepdic.com
[4] www.skeptic.com

Skeptical Tidbits

As a side-note, a new little (regular) feature I’m going to try out starting today: Skeptical Tidbits. At the bottom of posts I’ll be adding little random notes of various kinds. For example:

Evidence #1: New research in vaccines and autism debate slams the door on the myth. See the run-down on Science Based Medicine.

Skeptic’s Tip #1: Skepticism can also be correctly spelled with ‘c’ as in scepticism. This will double your opportunity to find great information online.

In the last month traffic to this site has quadrupled. I know people are reading this, so c’mon and comment. I don’t bite. And here’s your chance. Please, introduce yourself and give me a some feedback on some of the suggestions below. After all, I’m a dad and I don’t have “all the time in the world” anymore. As such, I was thinking of a few topics I’d like to pursue.

Encouraging Creativity

Ah the ‘holy grail’ of bohemian child rearing? I wrote this as one of my goals when I built this blog a number of months back, and by the drought in content around it, one might think I’d almost forgot. The truth is, I’m a bit stumped. How does one encourage kids to be creative in creative ways? What is creativity? How does one teach their child to be a creative individual as part of (and in partnership) with a goal of teaching critical thought? I need to write more on this topic, but where to start?

What Should We Be Reading to Kids

I came across an article the other day that explained that reading to kids really had little to do with future reading skill or intelligence. Great! A skeptical article, but I’ll be darned if I could find the link again. If I recall correctly it was emphasizing that reading aloud in the early years seemed to correlate with later interest in reading, but could not be pinned as a cause. Does that mean reading serves no other purpose? What should we be reading when we read to our kids, and if we hand pick and exclude certain texts what are we teaching them about censorship?

Wacky Product Claims

I consider this an entirely new category of entries that could potentially be developed. I look at boxes and labels of the numerous (but relatively few) toys we have acquired since becoming parents, and I wonder at the creative minds who’ve squandered their talents fooling parents into buying things they don’t need that overstate their own abilities. I consider this a bit of a consumer advocacy role, dipping my toe into dissecting the so-called ‘learning objectives’ and ‘educational values’ of infant and toddler toy-dom. Or would I be, to tread cliche, beating a dead horse?

Video Games and Such

In some respects I think this topic has been overplayed. But I have a few ideas of my own up my sleeve that I’d like to write about. I’m not so much worried about violence in video games or that sort of thing, but rather some of the claims made my kid’s games and so-called learning software. Do those little kids computers that you hook up to a television actually teach kids anything? Do daily “brain training” games really train brains, and what effect do they have on kids? What are some good elements of educational software that parents should be looking out for?

Social Gaming (or throwing the dice?)

I’m finding overlap between fellow skeptics and folks who game. That is to say, the people I know in real life and online who I would consider ‘critical thinkers’ and scientists have a notable affinity for playing complex and unique board games, dice games, or card games. (And I’m not talking poker, though I could be totally wrong on that count.) What do games teach us about thought? Are games good models for teaching integrity to kids (one of skep/dad’s core pillars of critical thinking) or is it mere correlation?

And, on a more serious note: Health

I’m not a doctor. I’m trained in biology, true, but that is definitely no substitute. At best, that background allows me to think a little more critically about kids health claims and perhaps direct eager, self-diagnosing web-surfers in a more medical direction by merely pointing out the contradictions and other worrisome claims made by pseudo-health practitioners. I’m thinking here of exploring the claims related to vaccines, infant chiropractics, and other shady areas of child health I’ve stumbled across in my short career as a skeptical father. Or perhaps I should not even go here.

So, dear reader, on a quiet Sunday evening I leave the verdict to you. Please comment, and let me know what you would be interested in discussing. Over the next six months or so I’ll (hopefully) find the time to talk about many (and maybe all) of these. In the meantime, I’ll keep working on some of my other features such as Avoiding Logical Fallacies, the Defining Critical Thought series, and my Science Fair Project ideas and But from comments I will prioritize.

Original Post:

Of course I’ll need to change some of the tag lines, but I am currently contemplating other contributers to this blog. Consider this a solicitation — and here’s why: I started this little project with some lofty goals of writing about “raising kids to become critical thinkers” and while that still applies and remains the core topic for this blog, a few important things have occurred to me…

1. I’m not an authority, but try to do my homework. But like anything, one guy toiling at this alone is hardly a strong voice.
2. This is a much bigger project than I had ever anticipated, and I could use some help to add content. Who couldn’t?
3. A project like this would definitely benefit from multiple authors, guest contributors, and associated content.

So, critical thinking dads, if you’d like to contribute send me an email at “brad” at “this domain name” (no quotes — well, quotes are fine, just leave out the quotation marks in the address) and let me know a few things. How would you like to contribute? This could be as a full time author (one or two posts a month, minimum, with a home on the blog), a guest contributor (one or two posts with no strong commitment, but full attribution for your work), or a cross-poster (post an article from your own blog with full attribution). Also, include some text: Why do you think you’re qualified? Send me a little blurb about yourself to post on the about section (which will be modified to accommodate.) And maybe pass along some links to some other stuff you’ve written. You know… that sort of thing.

What to write? Well, it’s a fairly open field at the moment, but I’m hoping to keep things fairly solid with well-thought-out articles about raising critical thinking kids — and less focus on the short, one-liner posts with lots of links, videos, or that sort of thing. But we can chat.

Since this is a zero-profit blog (at the moment at least) and does not use ads (for now) I can’t pay, but I could offer full- or part-time contributors:

• your very own @skepdad.com email address (Gmail Powered)
• use of a skepdad.com sub-domain (we can talk about appropriate content)
• fair proportional share of any future (iff any) skep/dad blog profits
• opportunity to link to your own sites / blog / et cetera
• opportunity to promote your own local skeptical group
• a warm, fuzzy feeling of contributing to rational thought

If you are a father to kids of any age and have some insight into how to raise them with a bend for critical thought, here’s your chance. I look forward to hearing from you.

In the introduction to this blog I wrote:

I am an educator. Two and a half more years at University earned me a Bachelors of Education degree. I taught briefly in the public school system, but left quickly to pursue work in the field of public awareness and community education with not-for-profit organizations, taking science and making it accessible to the public. After nearly a decade of writing, designing, and communicating scientific ideas to a layman audience, I now want to teach my offspring those skills so that they can build and expand on them and go on to seek their own role in our world.

Much to my enjoyment, I very recently had the pleasure of listening to a (podcast) audio version of Daniel Loxton’s 2007 essay entitled Where do we go from here? Of the numerous things I could have taken from that particular piece, I came away with one notion; This is a call to action:

“We need everybody — young people, fledgling activists, the silently outraged, those who don’t know where to start — to stand up and be counted. There’s burden enough to go around. Even our heroes need students, helpers — even, one day, heirs. Newbie enthusiasm is no kind of substitute for knowledge, experience and expertise, but it’s something of value in its own right. If skepticism is a Sisyphean task, then we will always need more people who are enthusiastic about rolling rocks.”^[1]

But how does one get involved? My first notion, apart from bringing even more focus to a community education project like this blog is to, simply, rally. How does one affect positive change in a community alone, after all? It is possible, but difficult. Starting a group of like-minded individuals who could actively assist in that effort might be a start. In other words, uniting under the banner of a “skeptical society”, even a decidedly informal collective, may be a catalyst for something larger down the road.

After listening to Loxton’s essay I found myself online once again, seeking evidence that I was not alone in this notion. And I don’t think I am. But it may be too early to tell. My first step in the process has been to start a bit of a (local) public plea, making use of my other (older) blog and through Facebook (which, for the benefit of future readers, is the social networking tool d’jour) particularly by starting a public group called the Edmonton Skeptical Society.

This is day one. There have been nibbles of interest. And it is a long road ahead. But it is a first step, and I feel good about taking it.

[1] Loxton, D. Where do we go from here? http://www.skeptic.com/downloads/WhereDoWeGoFromHere.pdf, 2007