Should we teach our kids how to find the truth?

If so, what should we teach them?

Thoughts on a rainy day.

I vote for Occam's Razor and the scientific method.

Your thoughts?

Thanks.

That method could quite easily get you being called a conspiracy theorist.

The reality is that most folks have very little understanding of the physical laws that the Universe 'sometimes' operates under (sometimes as in to keep the quantum physicists happy )

Then there is what the Government wants you to conveniently believe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6MOnehCOUw

Then there is 'faith' which is sold quite heavily throughout the world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xfqht0LEOWQ

More importantly, teach them to question everything and everybody, to rely on facts and their own ability to think and analyze and not simply rely on what someone tells them. The ability to think and analyze for themselves is something that I hope is being taught to them.

Doing this may not lead you to the truth, but it will get you closer than just going along with the crowd and accepting everything you are told.

Grandpa used to tell us: "Don't believe anything you hear and only half of what your read!"

When I was young, I thought he was a cynic.

Now, many years later, I think he was too trusting.

I would teach them to think beyond the usual knee-jerk reaction.

Get them thinking of what the likely results would be of each possible course of action, the longer-term results, not just the immediate results.

Sue

I would teach them to not rely on Wikipedia.

Of course I think we should teach our children critical thinking. "Truth" is elusive! The scientific method doesn't proport to discern "truth" really, it sets hypotheses and methods to test those hypotheses. The results are expressed in probabilistic terms, not absolutes.

To me that's as close as the pursuit of truth gets. Different hypotheses are (by convention) tested to different criteria. For instance, expert testimony in courts is typically expressed as "to a reasonable certainty" which means "more likely than not" (51%). The published scientific research with which I am familiar is typically expressed to a probability level of 95-99%. That means that 95 out of 100 times those results were not "attributed to chance." I have also (haven't we all) experienced certain groups (often religious) which represent certain positions as absolute and infallible truths.

So, I think "truth" is an ever-moving target.

With respect for everyones opinions, I have to weigh in on this.

Of course 'truth' is a shifting target when attached to nothing, defined by nothing, and subject to nothing other than the whims of the day. How would you know if you found it? What is 'it' anyway; a collection of current opinions? Of what value is 'truth' like that when life's crisis strike?

For me and many like me, your question has already been answered and the answer has withstood fire, sword, and the test of time:

"Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His rightousness..."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fH8bV7rUVaU&feature=related

Flaws and all and regardless of the tradition chosen, these truths provide the bedrock for everything else. There is no substitute in what is offered by secular humanists.

Truth is relative.

Teach your children how to reason; how to take a complex problem and break it down into solvable parts; to never take anything for granted as being "true"; and to never stop learning.

Many things I thought were true, weren't. Some things I thought impossible, aren't. Life is learning.

The Truth is"Life is Everything we know,But it isn't Alway's Fair"!

Truths are always limited and provisional. They are trapped in time, place, and world-view. They can be misapplied if the context is not understood.

Many religious texts get misused when people read a verse that says to go forth and do XYZ if you fail to look into the historical context and understand that XYZ is not a universally valid response but was, rather, applicable only to that specific time, place, situation, often only the personalities involved.

Good advice, received truth, can be very specific. A friend of mine has a snippet he picked up: 'Have a plan to kill everyone you meet'. It is fine advice if your locked up on Devil's Island with mass murderers where life is a 24/7 death match. He has largely outgrown it as the consequences of that mindset, alienation and isolation, manifested itself.

It also has to be noted that there are no entirely reliable outlets for truth. People often tell lies when they think they are telling the truth. People want, often need, to believe. They can also expose truths when they lie. A used car salesman that jokes that he is going to take advantage of you is telling you something. Answers suggest questions. Anyone who tells you: You can trust me', is bringing their own honesty into question. A lot of conspiracy theories fail, in part, because they assume a source, or set of sources, always lie. Funny thing is that over MSM is right far more than not. What gets lost is context.

The one thing that identifies greater from less truths is that greater truths form a coherent and functional world-view that allows you to predict, and deal with, the future in practical ways. A world-view that more closely matches the preponderance of the credible evidence, provides testable conclusions, and promotes both function and further useful insights.

The biggest error I see in gathering truth/s have to do with the failure of people to discriminate between what is demonstrably true, often painfully true about themselves and their situation, and what feels right and sits comfortable with their existing world-view.