This page has information about a talk by me (Craig Rusbult, PhD) at
the annual meeting of the American Scientific Affiliation, in July 2016.

Below is my Detailed Outline for the talk, and (with links added) the Abstract.


A Detailed Outline — with major revisions after the meeting — is available in PDF (recommended) and PowerPoint.
The original version of my PowerPoint had “Too Much Information” for viewers/listeners during the talk, but this detail (also in the current revised version) will make it more useful when you read it now, after the talk.


Abstract:

Education for Critical Thinking - Schrodinger's Cat in a Multiverse?
        A central mission of ASA is helping people, both believers and unbelievers, cope with the complexities of their questions about science and faith.  We want to improve the quality of evaluative Critical Thinking in schools (k-12, college, graduate) and churches, and in society.  To do this, two useful educational strategies are Critical Thinking Activities (like recognizing & minimizing uses of logical fallacies) and problem-solving Design Thinking (as described in a model of Design Process that’s an extension of my PhD work about Scientific Method).
        We’ll look at three science/faith issues:   1) Quantum Physics — in variations of Schrödinger’s Cat Experiment (using cat or typewriter, electron or dice, with time delay) to see why observation by a human does not “collapse the wave function” to “create reality” and determine the cat's fate, and why a Many Worlds Interpretation is not scientifically useful;   2) Multiverse Theology that seems satisfactory for a normal multiverse, but not for quantum-splitting into Many Worlds;   3) Young-Earth Creation.
        These questions are made more complex by interactions between Logical Evaluations (of science-evidence obtained by observing nature, and theology-evidence by observing scripture) and worldview-related Psychology/Sociology Influences.  We’ll examine these factors, along with lessons learned from my high school teacher who helped us improve our understanding (of all perspectives) and respecting (by recognizing that differing views can be defensible, logically and ethically), thus encouraging appropriate humility that is not too little and, avoiding radical postmodern relativism, is not too much.     {more info: educationforproblemsolving.net/asa which is the page you're now reading}


 
a context — I wrote the following section-with-links in March 2023, when I was planning to give a related talk for ASA 2023, with an iou promising a revision.  But I decided to not attend, so it remains a “rough draft” of what it would have become with revisions.
     Evaluative Thinking:  School Activities to help student improve their Productive Thinking (creative-and-critical, using ideas);  creative thinking = evaluative thinking with positives & negatives;  Evaluation is used for Argumentation;  Accurate Understanding and Respectful Attitudes - Evaluations in Science and Life.     {note: links to left-and-right pages will open in a new window, so you can explore the links freely and then return to this page, which remains open in its original window}  {and more}
     Quantum Physics:  Schrodinger's Cat, Observation & Consciousness, Many Worlds Interpretation (MWI) and summaries of why I think MWI is theologically unsatisfactory and scientifically not-needed (and not-useful for me).   {and more}
     Multiverse Theology:  Overviews of Multiverse Principles (to "beat the odds" for intelligent design before history or during history) and Multiverse Theology (why most multiverses, but not an MWI-multiverse, would be theologically satisfactory);  and there is another version of Principles and a longer version of Theology.   {and more}
     Young-Earth Creation:  I've written an overview-faq with 4 sections (3A-3D) about young-earth theology & science, plus long “open letters” to young-earth creationists, about their theology & science.  For these questions, there are very strong interactions between logical evaluations and psychology/sociology influences, and (for young-earth scientists) probably some strong cognitive dissonance.