Sorry science teachers, history is a better subject for teaching critical thinking

The world as a whole has become increasingly reliant on science to provide its technology and inform its policy. But rampant conspiracy theories, fake news, and pseudoscience like homeopathy show that the world could use a bit more of the organized skepticism that provides the foundation of science. For that reason, it has often been suggested that an expanded science education program would help cut down on the acceptance of nonsense.

But a study done with undergrads at North Carolina State University suggests that a class on scientific research methods doesn’t do much good. Instead, a class dedicated to critical analysis of nonsense in archeology was far more effective at getting students to reject a variety of pseudoscience and conspiracy theories. And it worked even better when the students got their own debunking project.

Source: Critical thinking is one for the history books | Ars Technica

The research project had college students critically analyze certain legends, like bigfoot and the Bermuda Triangle as a college course. By the end of the course, those students were shown to be able to apply the learned critical thinking skills to other ideas better than the control group who studied research methods in psychology.