In Star Trek, the logical mind of Mr. Spock contrasts with the emotional minds of everyone else. But this is fiction. In reality, each of us needs to be both logical and emotional.
Logical thinking may not come naturally. Nevertheless, it’s a skill we each need to develop, just to identify logic traps.
Here’s what you can do about it: teach logic to your child. Why?
1. Learning about cause and effect, your child will be able to make better choices. For example, “friends” who urge him to misuse his money and his time may find he understands what the logical consequences of such behavior are.
2. Problem-solving will be something your child can do as he grows older. Faced with any problem, such as dealing with a plugged-up sink or a broken-down car, your child will be able to list options and pick one.
3. In a media culture, your child will be better equipped to evaluate advertising. He will be able to identify circular reasoning fallacies, for example. Such a fallacy would be in the advertising slogan “Happy people buy Sloan’s coffee.” What the advertiser is actually saying is, “Buy Sloan’s coffee, and you’ll be happy.” Can your child identify circular logic like this?
4. Your child will be able to evaluate generalizations made in the media. Perhaps he sees a reporter interviewing five people about illegal immigration. All five think illegal immigrants should be given amnesty. Then the reporter announces that everyone thinks illegal immigrants should get amnesty. But that’s another logic error–generalizing from too small a sample group. Does your child see this error?
5. Your child will be able to evaluate what someone says by looking at who said it. For instance, if your dentist tells you how to take care of your teeth, you should follow his advice-he’s an expert. But if he tells you how to fix your car, you might not consider him an expert on that!
6. Your child will be able to understand how computers think. Computers think in nitty-gritty ways: if statement A is true, then do action B. Otherwise, do action C. Our brains tend to skip around in comparison. But learning to program a computer to follow a logical sequence helps the child learn to think logically, too. In the Information Age, this is a very useful skill to develop, now or later. The more your child knows about computers, the more he will be master of that device that is mastering our lives.
