Things are not always what they seem

• From the beginning, AIDS has been exaggerated as a significant threat to heterosexuals in the U.S.
• It is far from clear that Abraham Lincoln cared deeply about social equality between whites and blacks.
• Martin Luther King Jr. cheated on his doctoral dissertation and on his wife.
• We fall out of love with our children less often than with our lovers/spouses because our children carry our genes.
• Despite what is widely assumed by professionals in the counseling and education industries, self-esteem has not been shown to be causally related to academic and behavioral outcomes.
• Whatever intelligence tests measure is related to many academic, occupational, economic, and behavioral outcomes-and it is substantially heritable.
• It is far from clear that many returning Vietnam vets were spat upon.
• It is far from clear that child sexual abuse produces devastating and long-lasting effects in nearly all of its victims.
• Studies have found that many gender stereotypes contain an element of truth.
• There may be credible UFO sightings that science is currently unable to explain.

Or so says Howard Gabennesch.

I misread the one about falling out of love with one's children. I thought it said "because our children carry our guns". (Fall out of love with THIS. [Blam blam!])

He also says critical thinking requires such traits as these:

• Being unwilling to subordinate one's thinking to orthodoxies that demand to be swallowed whole-at the risk of being charged with heresy
• Refusing to dismiss possible merits in ideas that otherwise may be deeply repugnant-at the risk of appearing immoral
• Being capable of saying, "I don't know"-at the risk of appearing unintelligent
• Being willing to judge the truth value of ideas sponsored by demographic and cultural groups to which one does not belong-at the risk of being accused of prejudice
• Being willing to change one's mind-at the risk of appearing capricious
• Being open to the arguments of adversaries-at the risk of appearing disloyal
• Having an acute awareness of the limits and fallibility of one's knowledge-at the risk of seeming to suffer from that dreaded malady, low self-esteem

The word "swallow" popped out at me, and having just finished Terry Pratchett's The Truth, I couldn't help but think of "Spit or swallow, the eternal conundrum."

William took a deep draught of the tea. It was thick and stewed, but it was also sweet and hot. And slightly lemony. All in all, he considered, it could have been much worse.

"Yes, we're very fortunate when it comes to slices of lemon," said the Duck Man, busily fussing over the tea things. "Why, it is indeed a bad day when we can't find two or three slices floating down the river."

William stared fixedly at the river wall.

Spit or swallow, he thought, the eternal conundrum.