*OlioNote Vol 3 Party* The Urgent Need for Critical Thinking & Anecdotes Are Better Than Evidence

Olio Double Features include two professors giving 30-minute, interdisciplinary talks on tangentially related topics.

On the Urgent Need of Thinking for Oneself

Taught by Jeanne Proust

It often seems that the practice of critical thinking is easily discarded in favor of the adoption and use of fully formed opinions, discourses or theories. Avoiding thinking for oneself has two major dangers: we may fall into a perpetually skeptical attitude, or we may become victim to a widespread indifference, hidden behind what we call “relativism.” In this Olio we will consider what psychological and social mechanisms are best suited to fight the tendency to give up on critical thinking and will assess how these mechanisms should be encouraged through our educational systems.

Anecdotes Are Better Than Evidence (or at least they were this one time you guys)

Taught by Geoff Klock

In the clamor of defending science from people who would deny vaccines and climate change – and in the need to cling to the reliable and verifiable – we lose track of something: the value of stories to help us navigate life. Join me for a look at the lost art of the parable, which is really just literature in microcosm, as we discuss gloves, horseshoes, wheelbarrows, spoons, toilet paper, cookies, floods, juggling, Jesus and Moses playing golf, fish, wolves, monkeys, frogs, rabbits, foxes, cabbage, Zen masters, Game of Thrones, Thoreau, Kafka and Borges.

Brooklyn Art Library

28 Frost Street, Brooklyn, NY, 11211