There is a body of techniques and practices, a language and culture, that is usually implicitly taught to graduate students and postdocs in the sciences. This is the underpinning of an approach to building a credible sense of the “real world” that is shared by scientists, but not much used (or understood) by the rest of society. Equipping future generations with this scientific-style critical thinking could be one of our most reasonable defenses against confused thinking and misinformation, both major challenges to our democratic societies’ ability to make deliberative decisions. What can we learn from the sciences when we develop strategies to tell facts from values? How can we teach critical thinking in a better way?

This talk is to be held jointly with the Physics Department Colloquium.