critical thinking unit 1 question a4 christians slide share
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Part of a set of free teaching resources called "Encouraging Critical Thinking Online" by Meriel Patrick of Oxford University, written for the Intute Virtual Training SuiteTRANSCRIPT
Encouraging Critical Thinking Online
Unit 1
Checking Facts and
Gathering Opinions
How many Christians are there in the world today?
• Find three websites that provide an answer
• Fill in the boxes on the worksheet for each of them
• Comment on any notable features of the sites or answers you discover
How many Christians are there in the world today?
• It’s virtually impossible to arrive at an exact figure, so any answer will be an estimate– Though some sources may not
explicitly acknowledge this
• Estimates will differ for a variety of reasons
How many Christians are there in the world today?
• Estimates may vary in precision– The first hit for a Google search for “
How many Christians?” gives an answer of ‘more than one billion’
– This isn’t wrong, but it’s easy to find estimates for more than twice this number
Results of Google search for ‘how many Christians’
Retrieved 6 June 2008
Results of Google search for ‘how many Christians’
Retrieved 6 June 2008
How many Christians are there in the world today?
• Other first page hits give higher figures– Wikipedia says there are ‘between 1.5
billion and 2.1 billion’
– Adherents.com suggests 2.1 billion, or about 33% of the world’s population
Extract from Wikipedia article on Christianity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity Retrieved 5 June 2009
Extract from Wikipedia article on Christianity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity Retrieved 5 June 2009
Adherents.com’s figures
http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html Retrieved 6 June 2008
Adherents.com’s figures
http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html Retrieved 6 June 2008
How many Christians are there in the world today?
• The Wikipedia article has notes which show where the figures were taken from– A key source is Adherents.com– So these two sites shouldn’t be cited
as independent sources of the same figure
How many Christians are there in the world today?
• Figures may vary because of different methods of calculation – but websites rarely give full information about this
• Some figures may be more up to date than others
• Another Adherents.com page gives a wide range of possible figures
How many Christians are there in the world today?
• The answer will also vary depending on the definition of ‘Christian’ used– ReligiousTolerance.org lists a number of
possible criteria– An article from the Christian Century notes a
wide disparity between those self-identifying as Christian and those who go to church
Extract from ReligiousTolerance.org
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_defn.htm Retrieved 8 August 2008
Extract from a Christian Century article on FindArticles.com
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1058/is_5_120/ai_98754720 Retrieved 8 August 2008
Extract from a Christian Century article on FindArticles.com
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1058/is_5_120/ai_98754720 Retrieved 8 August 2008
Summary - key things to note
• Answers may vary because of– Variations in precision– Different calculation methods
– Variations in how recently the information was gathered
• Important terms need to be defined
Why might we find conflicting answers to a question?
• There may be real uncertainty about the answer
• Authorities may disagree
• There may be multiple ways of interpreting a question
Why might we find conflicting answers to a question?
• Some sources may be more up to date than others
• Answers may vary in precision
• Some sources may simply be wrong
Questions to ask when assessing sources
• Who is the author?– An individual or an institution?– What are the author’s credentials?
• Is this a scholarly resource, or a more informal one?
• How up to date is this source?
Questions to ask when assessing sources
• Are there reasons to doubt the reliability of this source?– Does it include information I know to
be false?– Does it contradict itself or use poor
reasoning?– Is it biased towards a particular view?
Questions to ask when assessing sources
• Is the information provided confirmed by other sources?– Are references provided?– Do other websites agree? (A major
advantage of the Web is that many sources can be compared quickly and easily.)
Remember the three Ws
• WHO wrote this site? – Is the author a trustworthy source?
• WHEN was it written? – Is it up to date?
• WHY was it written?– Does the author have an axe to grind?
This slideshow is part of
Encouraging Critical Thinking Online,a set of free teaching resources
designed to develop students’ analytic abilities,
using the Web as source material.
For the full set, please visit Intute Training:
http://www.intute.ac.uk/training/