Counter Point

This show is a counter point to: hpr3414 :: Critical Thinking may make You Critical of the Covid Crisis

A response to Critical Thinking may make You Critical of the Covid Crisis

(HPR episode 3414, produced by CoGo and released on 2021-09-02)

Defining terms

What is Critical Thinking?

The Wikipedia definition begins: "Critical thinking is the analysis of facts to form a judgment."

It goes on to say: "The subject is complex, and several different definitions exist, which generally include the rational, skeptical, unbiased analysis, or evaluation of factual evidence."

See the references below.

Note the use of the terms fact, factual evidence and unbiased analysis. It is my contention that HPR episode 3414 fails in these regards in several places.

What is an "experiment"?

Wikipedia’s definition begins: "An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when a particular factor is manipulated."

The term experiment is often used incorrectly in episode 3414. A better term would be observation or anecdote

The virus:

The virus is a coronavirus. There are many viruses classified in this way.

The name of the virus is SARS-CoV-2. The SARS part stands for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, the type of disease caused by the virus. CoV signifies that it is a coronavirus and the 2 means it’s the second SARS-type corona virus to have caused problems in the recent past. The other one, just called SARS occurred in 2003.

The name of the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2 is COVID-19. The letters COVID define it as a coronavirus disease. The 19 part is because it was first discovered in 2019.

References:

Wikipedia article on Critical Thinking

University of Greenwich: What is critical thinking?

Wikipedia article on Experiments

Long notes

Follow this link to read the detailed notes associated with this episode.

Collected references:

Wikipedia article: Critical thinking:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_thinking

University of Greenwich article. What is critical thinking?:

https://www.gre.ac.uk/articles/ils/critical-thinking

Wikipedia article: Experiment:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experiment

Where does the six-foot guideline for social distancing come from?: