Be a Skeptic

    The groups that I chose to evaluate, who I think is trying to promote critical thinking, are the people on the television show Myth Busters.  I love the show Myth Busters, I have been watching it for a long time and I think it is really cool to see them trying to find the truth behind the myth.

            According to their website their mission on the show is  “The MYTHBUSTERS mix scientific method with gleeful curiosity and plain old-fashioned ingenuity to create their own signature style of explosive experimentation.” I think that this is a great description of some of what they do, but in my opinion the most important thing that they do is promote critical thinking, and they make it fun at the same time.

            Myth Busters investigates many clams and ideas, they go from urban legends to just plain science experiments. Here is an example of one of the episodes I’ve seen. The episode that I thought was really interesting was where they were trying to prove whether or not static electricity can cause a fire, or explosion at the gas station, on the same episode they also tried to see if cell phone use at the pump could cause a fire or explosion as well. This is a great example of some of the things they try to figure out on the show.  

            Myth Busters does not necessarily have a standardized approach to their investigations, like they state on their website they do use the Scientific Method, but they make there experiments their own by adding humor and excitement. Myth Busters also tackles each one of their problems differently, that’s what makes the show so exciting. Also each character on the show specializes in a different area, so they all are able to use their different fields of expertise to create these scientific experiments.

            Myth Busters promotes critical thinking because they force people not to take everything at face value. They disprove some general assumptions that people have. For example cell phone use at the gas pump. For a while it was a concern that if you used your cell phone while pumping gas that an electrical current could ignite a fire or some kind of explosion. This was such a concern that it was even posted on some gas pumps as a warning. Myth Busters attempted many times to make a gas pump blow up or burn by using a cell phone, and they were not able to. However when they also tried to make the gas pump ignite in fire using static electricity they did, proving that static electricity at the gas pump is an actual concern. This is a perfect example of how they promote critical thinking it was a common belief that it was unsafe to use your cell phone while pumping gas, and Myth Busters proved it to be a Myth. After I watched this episode I started considering how many things could be myths that people actually believe.

            I don’t think that the fact that Myth Busters is being presented through television, and as an element of pop culture effects credibility of the show. Yes Myth Busters has the excitement, and comedy factor but that doesn’t change the fact that they are conducting scientific experiments with experts, they just have personality as well. Yes it is possible that rigorous critical thinking is being compromised because people watch television to relax, and since they do attempt to appeal to large audiences this does effect how the level on which the show makes people think, but in my opinion any show that forces people to critically think, no matter how deep they are thinking deserves credit.

            I think it is really awesome that Discovery channel has the ability to make topics that normally may be considered boring fun to watch. I think that shows like Myth Busters are really cool because they do help people to look at things from a different perspective without having to feel like they are being forced to learn something.  I think the fact that Myth Busters and other shows use the pop culture element to promote their shows is crucial, how else would they be able to have such a large fan base. I think that the fact that popular culture has the ability to make people critically think is a useful and powerful tool for everyday people to learn new and exciting facts. 

Become a Wikipedian

Asthma 

For this assignment I chose to analyze the Wikipedia article on Asthma. The reason I chose Asthma was because I have had Asthma since I was a young child, so I would like to think that I am fairly knowledgeable on the topic.  While looking through web page I found that most of the facts about Asthma were legitimate facts. I only found a few facts that were slightly off while the rest that I compared matched up, and seemed to be correct.

The first sight I used to compare resources was http://my.clevelandclinic.org the reason I chose this website was because after a little research about Cleveland Clinic it seemed to be a legitimate source. Cleveland Clinic is a non-profit organization dedicated to combining hospital care with education and research. Now according to Wikipedia Gastro esophageal Reflux disease or GERD is common in 80% of people who have Asthma. According to Wikipedia the reason for this is because of Asthmatic Medication, bronchoconstriction, and irritation. But according to Cleveland Clinic “studies have shown a relationship between asthma and GERD, the exact relationship is uncertain. GERD may worsen asthma symptoms, however asthma and some asthma medications may worsen GERD symptoms. On the other hand, treating GERD often helps to also relieve asthma symptoms, further suggesting a relationship between the two conditions.” So there is no actual known relationship between the two. I also used this website to compare to many facts on the Wikipedia page and most of them matched up.

            The second web site I used to check facts mayoclinic.com. I used this web site to check the Asthma medications that were listed on Wikipedia and again, the facts matched up with the medications listed on Mayo Clinic. I was a little confused on how Wikipedia referred to the most common medication for immediate relief as Salbutamol. In my personal experience with Asthma I have only herd the same medication being referred to as Albuterol. After a little research I realized that they are basically the same thing, just a different name. The more common name is Albuterol so I think it is a little confusing that Wikipedia refers to if as Salbutamol.

The final website I used to check facts was Medical News Today. Com, they had an article on the different types of Asthma. What I noticed while reading this article was that on the Wikipedia site they have different names for the same types referred to in the Medical News Today article, and Medical News Today mentions other types of Asthma that Wikipedia doesn’t mention at all.  

            All together I found the Wikipedia site to be mainly a good source and only one fact was partially incorrect the rest could have used a little more detail. I didn’t feel it was necessary for me to edit these facts myself, I don’t think it was serious information that was left out considering that Wikipedia try’s to show only the main points of a topic, rather than extensive detail. All and all I think this site gave good basic Asthma information

While doing this assignment I realized that Wikipedia is a valid source. I had an extremely hard time trying to find facts that didn’t match up on other websites. When I was working on this assignment it was extremely hard for me to find a topic. At first I thought that this assignment would be really easy, the reason I had this opinion was because of what I had learned from school. Wikipeada was not and expectable resources, because of this I simply ruled out the option of Wikipedia even in my own non- school related researches. The first time I actually used Wikipedia was when I was working on my Book V.S Movie assignment for this class, and it was only because the professor said it was acceptable so I wanted to try it out. I found that Wikipedia had a valid movie summery so I used it. 

While doing this assignment I researched many different topics. The first topic I chose was Asthma, and when I realized that all of the facts I checked on the topic were correct I decided to choose a different topic. I assumed that the reason that it was hard for me to find facts that did not add up was because Asthma is a medical condition and there aren’t many conflicting facts about it. After thinking about this I decided to research more controversial facts hoping I would find a bias. The next topic I chose was same-sex marriage, I thought for sure that researching this topic I would find incorrect or biased facts, though at first the article did seem biased after reading into it more I realized that it was simply just presenting the facts, and it represented both sides well. The next topic I chose was Capital Punishment; this again was a controversial topic. I spent hours researching this page and trying to find conflicting facts on multiple websites, but everything added up. Finally out of frustration of searching different topics I researched Extra Terrestrials for fun because I thought for sure there would be some crazy facts on there, but again I got the same unbiased factual view, After all of this stress  I settled on the topic I knew best which was Asthma, andI reached a conclusion that Wikipedia is mainly a valid source.

Now I am sure that there are Wikipedia articles that do not have all of the facts straight and I can hardly reach a broad assumption over researching four articles, but I did reach the conclusion that well searched and common topics probably are mostly legitimate. I can say that I am now a Wikipedian and that I think that Wikipedia should get more credit than it does. I wonder if other students had similar frustrations while working on this assignment.