Not a fan of this article. I agree with the premise, but I don't think the conclusions are sound. We live in a society of imperfect information, and logic can give rise to conspiracies just as easily as dispel them. "Jet fuel can't melt steel beams," for example. I think it's a fallacy to assume the root of our political divide is a lack of logic.
> For example, many naysayers to global warming present the evidence of cold weather on a particular day as a proof that global warming is a conspiracy. A logical thinker is quick to spot that weather is what happens on any given day, while climate is what is happening across the globe over decades.
I concur. Logic is rarely the problem. The problem is nearly always what you're applying the logic to.
The article, and the HN discussion, conflates "logic" with "critical thinking". They are in fact quite different. Logic is a mechanical process, which can be done by computers. "Critical thinking" is how we come up with the premises to which we apply the logic.
Garbage in produces garbage out. It would be nice to teach kids to recognize garbage, but you're going to have a hard time getting adults to agree on what "garbage" is. It would be nice to be able to make statements like "If effectively every single relevant scientist agrees on something, it's far more likely to be true." But even if you did get schools to teach that, many parents will loudly contradict it.
> For example, many naysayers to global warming present the evidence of cold weather on a particular day as a proof that global warming is a conspiracy. A logical thinker is quick to spot that weather is what happens on any given day, while climate is what is happening across the globe over decades.
This is semantics, not logic.