Name: Asking the right questions
ISBN: 9780205506682

Asking the right questions

This updated text helps bridge the gap between simply memorizing or blindly accepting information, and the greater challenge of critical analysis and synthesis. It teaches how to respond to alternative points of view and develop a solid foundation for making personal choices about what to accept and what to reject. --from publisher descriptioin.

What Hacker News says

antonvsMar 2026

The points you raise are indeed wilful ignorance, easily rebutted.

I gave you a link which summarizes the subject well, with plenty of references. If you're genuinely interested in understanding the world, you would study that. But what you're doing instead is cherry-picking reasons to refuse to accept strong evidence. Al Gore, really? You're really scraping the bottom of the denial barrel.

Ironically, in your attempts to not be conned by grifters, you're falling for one of the biggest cons of all: the ongoing oil company attacks on anything that threatens the oil industry. If you're not getting paid by them, you're being suckered.

Aside from the reference I gave, you would also benefit from reading books like "Asking the Right Questions", by Neil Browne & Stuart Keeley; Carl Sagan's "The Demon Haunted World"; and "Thinking and Deciding" by Jonathan Baron. These will help you distinguish between rational thinking and rationalizations.

> So, spare me your shame game identity politics.

Nothing I've said even remotely approaches anything like that. I'm describing well-documented and well-supported facts, and pointing out that refusing to try to understand or accept those is problematic, and that by doing so along with millions of others, you're perpetuating major problems in the world. But your victimhood mentality fits right in with the conspiratorial mindset.

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ameminatorJul 2021

Generally, there is no "all in one" way of doing it. Generally active reading and checking the facts and primary sources will get you far. I don't think there is any substitute for reading lots and from diverse sources.

Four books that helped me along the way are:

How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler

The Book of Fallacies by Jeremy Bentham (alternatively, I enjoyed Logically Fallacious by Bo Bennet, and it fills the same niche)

Trust Me - I'm Lying by Ryan Holiday

Asking the Right Questions by Browne, Keil

I hope that was helpful! Enjoy

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