Episode 95: Critical thinking

About this episode

This episode explores the concept of critical thinking, its measurement, and its role in education against misinformation.

This episode is dedicated to Justin Eldridge . We like to think that, in often hamfisted ways, we’re applying critical thinking on this show. But what even is “critical thinking”? Can you measure it? Can you teach it to kids—or for that matter, to anyone? Can teaching critical thinking help people defend themselves against misinformation and disinformation? It would be very ironic if “critical thinking” had become a buzzword in the world of education—a buzzword that people used, er, uncritically… The Science Fictions podcast is brought to you by the marvellous Works in Progress magazine. The article on Swiss vs. Japanese watches that we mention in the episode can be found at this link , and all the other Works in Progress articles can be found at worksinprogress.co . Show notes * NY Times article on schools teaching critical thinking * UK Government Curriculum Review from 2025 * Daisy Christodoulou on teaching students to spot misinformation * Daniel Willingham’s 2007 article on critical thinking * His book Why Don’t Students Like School? * The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus study * The tree octopus website * 2017 Dutch replication study * Two bigger studies in 2016 and 2019 *…

People in this episode

Hosts: Tom Chivers, Stuart Ritchie

Guest: Daisy Christodoulou

Topics covered

• critical thinking
• education
• misinformation
• disinformation
• teaching methods

Keywords

• critical thinking
• education
• misinformation
• disinformation
• teaching
• Daisy Christodoulou
• Works in Progress

Sponsors

Works in Progress

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Why Don’t Students Like School?, Stanford Civic Online Reasoning programme, NY Times article on schools teaching critical thinking, UK Government Curriculum Review from 2025, 2017 Dutch replication study, 2015 meta-analysis in Review of Educational Research, Woodworth and Thorndike (1901), Herbert Simon on “problem isomorphs”

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