I am not really objecting to the overall point of your blogpost, which seems reasonable to me. I am specifically objecting to calling the tree octopus experiment an experiment in “gullibility.” To me, “gullible” is not a neutral word; it *always* has negative connotations, and saying that kids who fall for the tree octopus hoax are “gullible” is unnecessarily disparaging.

Better to say, as you do, that we would all be better off with explicit training in critical thinking.

Obviously, gullibility can be detrimental, particularly on an individual level and at the level of society. In order for democracies to work well (for those of us who claim to live in one), the people have to be both knowledgeable and skeptical. Unfortunately we have too little of either in the U.S. at this time. Gullibility is directly contributing to this, and it is manifesting itself within ideologies, through people who realize how gullible their followers are.

“I’m not sure that this default mode [believe new information] is really that detrimental upon close inspection. (apparently it was not that detrimental for the species – we have flourished)”

Yes, well, we are no longer fighting tooth and claw in the jungle.

“There is a certain efficiency to this way of thinking, and for many things it really doesn’t matter all that much.”

In the distant past, it was decisions on the run when split seconds were the difference between life and death. And the information to be believed came from parents who had their progeny’s best interest at heart. Today we have breathing room. Time to think. And idiots and hucksters providing all sorts of false information for their, rather than our, gain.

“I have to go out of my way not to be skeptical of new information”

This from someone who has sucked in by quantum consciousness and teleological evolution!

“Hyperskepticism is not particularly great either. I have noticed some people who do lean towards the other end of the spectrum, but it is not clear to me why that is.”

Being a little bit sceptical is a bit like being a little bit pregnant.

A poster whose name rhymes with ‘wrong’ needs a lesson in a particular type of cognitive error. Of course, if evidence of past behaviour is anything to go by, he will disingenuously claim that he did this deliberately.