Teacher Workshop – “Skepticism in the Classroom” – at The Amazing Meeting 8

**Update: If you’re interested in getting hold of some of the useful materials presented at the “Skepticism in the Classroom” workshop, then check out this link to the Critical Thinking Education Group.

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In my last blog post concerning my time at The Amazing Meeting 8 in Las Vegas, I wanted to take some time to outline the workshop called “Skepticism in the Classroom” which I helped to organize and run.  Led by Michael Blanford, the JREF’s new point-man on education, the presenters in the workshop consisted of myself, Daniel Loxton, Barbara Drescher, with a brief bit of material presented on behalf of Kylie Sturgess. I was pleased to see that our workshop was very well attended, with about 150-200 people present (most of whom were teachers!)  We started off with some comments by Michael, where he introduced all of us…

The “Invisible Gorilla” and How Seeing is NOT Always Believing

We’ve all heard the oft-repeated phrase: “Seeing is believing” – as if our human senses (specifically that of sight) are somehow, magically infallible.  Of course, most people don’t want to admit just how fallible our senses can be – or, more to the point, most people aren’t willing to admit just how fallible their own senses can be (they’re more likely to admit that other people’s senses aren’t up to snuff).

As anyone who has experience with court cases & law enforcement can tell you, the least reliable kind of evidence is typically that of eyewitness testimony, because we tend to place an over-reliance upon our senses in place of other, more rational & consistent forms of evidence.  Not only that, but our tendency to over-emphasize the trustworthiness of our senses can lead us into fooling ourselves that we’re seeing ghosts, alien spacecraft, the Virgin Mary in a grill cheese sandwich, and similar deceptions.

The fallibility of the human sense of sight and the associated phenomenon of inattentional blindness is beautifully outlined in this recent Livescience.com article…

‘Invisible Gorilla’ Test Shows How Little We Notice

Charles Q. Choi
LiveScience Contributor
livescience.com – Tue Jul 13, 10:00 am ET

A dumbfounding study roughly a decade ago that many now find hard to believe revealed that if people are asked to focus on a video of other people passing basketballs, about half of watchers missed a person in a gorilla suit walking in and out of the scene thumping its chest.

Now research delving further into this effect shows that people who know that such a surprising event is likely to occur are no better at noticing other unforeseen events – and may even be worse at noticing them – than others who aren’t expecting the unexpected.