User:A989g194/sandbox

User:A989g194/sandbox

There are many things in today’s society that we as readers/viewers look to figure out about our ancient past. Our past has had many significant things happen that we as the next generation must evaluate and critically look at to see what really happened and how our past generations of people used to live day by day. Over time, archeologist find new creations and relics dating way back to almost the beginning of time. Most of the objects that they find they could tell the time period that it was made and even how it was made, but what many people don’t know is that not everything that archeologist find may be real. For example, the Cardiff giant story is one of the most well known hoaxes in history. It was said that this giant was “found” after digging for a well, but in reality a man had it purposely placed there and then years later “found” it. How it was found out to be hoaxed, was many archeologists had to critically think about the time frame for it and noticed that it was placed there rather then it actually being found. After reading Carl Sagan’s “Demon haunted world” we as the readers can start to depict what evidence being presented is actually reliable or faked based on common fallacies and skeptical thinking. Over the last hundred or so years the general population of people always had a tendency to believe what they were being told from previous generations, i.e confirmation bias. This is a common fallacy that many people follow because when presented information from someone, most people don’t know the knowledge making the presenters word very believable, if given a good speech. In the book “The lost worlds of Ancient America” by Frank Joesph, there was a chapter labeled, as “Did pre-Columbian Americans master electricity?” As a reader the first thing that comes to mind after having seen this title, many would say “well that’s not true because Thomas Edison was the first person.” This is called “False dichotomy” where people claim that it is false or hoaxed. The reason many people would say this is because it is what was taught in history books, but also it goes right back to the common fallacy of confirmation bias and believing what is being told. Now, after having read this book and this chapter the way Larry Radka (author) wrote this and critically thinking about it, the first thing is to fact check, Burden of proof. As stated by the National Park service “In 1882 Edison helped form the Edison Electric Illuminating Company of New York, which brought electric light to parts of Manhattan. But progress was slow. Most Americans still lit their homes with gas light and candles for another fifty years. Only in 1925 did half of all homes in the U.S. have electric power.”(NPS). This is the first article that pops up when looking for when electricity was first created. As a critical reader doing some fact checking, why is this the first article that pops up and the first date of electricity recorded in 1882 vs 1492? Loaded questions like this will start to blast as a reader from this because now the evidence that is presented makes you as the reader skeptical. In our society everything has a meaning and almost always it is supported by evidence weather that be actually seeing the object or having many sources and other evidence to support that claim. What is ironic about this chapter is that Radka talks about this ancient spotlight that they had created. When looking for more information about this “Ancient spotlight” there was one article that I found called https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/ciencia_hitech05.htm. As a critical thinker, we had to evaluate more about the information presented and this article happened to be by the author. Also, the information on his site was very vague not going into a lot of detail making us as the reader seems very doubtful of the information. The reason this chapter caught my eye is because all through elementary and middle school, the knowledge from our past was always taught from our history books and after learning more as we grow up, many people have a clue of how electricity works and the only thing told and shown back in ancient times only had candles and torches, no spotlights. So, as a reader and after having read this chapter I firmly believe that Pre-columbian people did not master electricity because if they had, our technology today would be way more advanced and even in that grey area of 1492-1882 someone would have made it better or stronger than what it was. Now, I am no expert in this field and yes there could well be a spotlight that existed that people used but for an author to only have a few images, only being of hieroglyphics of these spotlights existence and no actual evidence like a picture or more authors input on his website just doesn’t convince me or other scholars. After learning so much about how fallacies play an important role in figuring out the real truth about our ancient past, one could say that in our society people need to actually look at the information being presented and critically look at everything very carefully. Lawyers in our society have to do this almost everyday because people could be saying something that never actually happened or that only some of the story was true. By reviewing the evidence over and over, fact checking and making your own decision on the information being presented is something that our society doesn’t do very well. We see one person doing something and immediately think; well if they do it/ did it so can I or well if Johnny jumps of a bridge I can too. No, this is not what you do. We have to be our own individual and go back to the raw information and see what we think. I did not know much about critical thinking before this semester but know knowing what to look for is something that everyone needs to learn in order to get true knowledge vs. fake or hoaxed.

Works cited https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/ciencia_hitech05.htm https://www.nps.gov/edis/learn/kidsyouth/the-electric-light-system-phonograph-motion-pictures.htm .(2/26/2015). "Deamon Haunted world" by Carl Sagan (1995). "The lost worlds of Ancient America" by Frank Joesph (4/1/2012).