Hi, it's time for a walk time around. I thought I'd do one on debunking and critical thinking because what brought this up is a recent video that involves our old friend, Solar Roadways. There was a video released back in September so it's not new, but I only just found out about it and it's a New Zealand contest kind of thing. It's like a national science slash public speaking contest for high school students or first year university students or whatever it is, Then it has to be something that's like a new innovation that can help New Zealand with.

Its like New Zealand economy and Life style and all that sort of stuff. It's got to involve science and innovation, and it's judged on three different merits. One is its scientific validity or whatever, the next is its impact on a potential impact on the New Zealand economy, and third on the public speaking. And it's kind of primarily like a public speaking contest, but there's like scholarships involved and things like that.

Anyway, I'm I Don't want this video to be about that particular talk from this high school student, but she talked about solar roadways and not just solar freakin' roadways, but all the different solar roadways and basically the whole video I won't link to it, but if you do find the video, they are deleting comments because they're potentially harmful and all that sort of stuff and well, that's a whole nother argument. But the point is is that she just went through all the regular talking points of Solar Robo's or the marketing BS that goes along with that and all the numbers of how it's gonna pay for itself and how it's gonna save the planet and all this sort of stuff and well, let's go for a walk, shall we? I'll show you where I am now I I Definitely don't want this to be about her cuz I think she actually did quite a good job in terms of like public speaking and everything like that. he did a really good job. She put a lot of effort into this presentation about how solar roadways and I believe she like one one of the minor scholarship awards so that's you know, a fantastic I Don't want to discourage that, but it raises the question about solar roadways and the value of debunking and critical thinking.

Now the first question is, how did this pass vetting? Like there's supposed to be some sort of scientific vetting for this thing. And of course I don't need to debunk solar Roadways again. But the thing is, if you just go on Google and type in solar roadways, go on good. YouTube You type in solar roadways, there's just countless debunking videos.

mind Thunderfoot other blog articles and other videos just thoroughly debunking this and it's not new. It's like four and a half I think it's approaching almost five years old now. This solar roadways thing has been debunked. thoroughly debunked us, and one of the most impractical ideas in history.

It's almost like a poster child for impractical ideas. and It's just a joke. So anyone are either doing a talk on this or researching this should have realized that this thing was just a completely impractical idea. So I'll show you where I am.

Yeah, we are. we're at the beach. Fantastic. Or there's a lot of people out already.

It's fairly early in the morning, but which way will I go? Let's go this way. Shall we? please forgive any wind noise here? I do have a sock over my a little shotgun mic on my Sony NEX camera. Anyway, so the first question is like, how did it pass that there's obviously no critical thinking that went into this rather I believe like a prestigious national, you know, scholarship science Innovation Award kind of thing. So that's the first question.

There's just just in the judges for these things are there's no critical thinking skills at all. The next question is is that the girl that did this like she's obviously passionate about this and I don't want to take this away I Think it's great that we should encourage people do these sorts of things, but when she went to car the solar always it sounds fantastic. I Can understand why people think it sounds fantastic, right? There's a you know, a lot of merit to it. If it did well, it works, but if it was actually practical it would be.

you know, pretty good. So she started researching this. You know, thinking it's a great idea. She's gonna give a talk on it.

passionate about the environment or whatever, or you know, innovation. She might want to be an engineer or a scientist or an innovator or whatever, which is absolutely fantastic. but but she should have looked at this and gone. There's no way you couldn't.

Aha, you don't believe there's any way you could have researched this is thoroughly. As she did, she put a lot of effort into the presentation and not have found all the debunking stuff about this so ever. She was so caught up in the concept as a lot of people are, that they just ignore. they just want to believe so badly that this idea is so fantastic and innovative.

and they just didn't throw aside any or all critical thinking that they have and it opens up the question over what critical thinking skills not only in the general public, but in our students in general. Like that they learn all sorts of like a religious BS and stuff like that at at schools and either speak to, paid over that and they learn. You know this. Ethics classes which are great, but where are the critical thinking classes? Are there any? if you know, please leave it in the comments down below.

Not only for high school students who are you know, fairly capable and should understand, should have skills in this sort of stuff. But what about engineering students like or just any university students for that matter? It doesn't matter what the degree is, where are the critical thinking classes? Once again, if you've done these, or you know that there's critical thinking type classes in the universities, let us know because well, they really needs to because I think it's so valuable. There's a lot of people who make the argument that, well, all these debunking videos and stuff like that are just an ABS waste of time. But I don't think so because there's very few people doing them for starters and if more people did them, then more people will help.

It'll help build their critical thinking skills and next time they see a claim for something that's huge, you know, and groundbreaking and all. Doesn't make that you better. Why didn't I Think of this and they might be able to like, actually do their own research and actually just run some numbers. or at least try and think critically about it before.

In this particular case, doing a whole 12-minute presentation with absolutely no critical, you know aspect to it. There's there's no question the claims as gospel. they're just, you know, spewing out the numbers that it's going to pay for itself and it's going to be this and that and it's gonna hit that it just works. They just take it for granted.

Absolutely zero critical thinking on the part of not only the judges, but also on the girl that did this and look. jellyfish. go check it. Anyway, Yeah, there's blue bottles and jellyfish along here occasionally.

if you don't believe in global warming, which is another critical thinking thing. Well, the oceans get warmer. What more blue bottles come through every year? unfortunately? Anyway, if you're wondering about this, Beach it's about six kilometres long and I know a lot of people are gonna ask well, what's the harm in stuff like this? What's the harm in having these big dreams And that's how innovation happens. Yeah, I'm gonna have to quote well, it wasn't Carl Sagan he said this, but he also said it is that don't be so open-minded that your brains fall out and in this case, don't be so blinded by the belief in this You know, a grandiose idea that you just ignore all practicality.

So what could she have done in this particular case? When she's researching this thing, it's a bit of a shame. Start researching it, obviously, find all the debunking articles, and then maybe start to run the numbers yourself. It's not that hard. I Mean they're pretty basic stuff.

This is somebody is going into university. Anyone has the skills to run the numbers on something like this. Or at least think critically. This was great, but how can we still use the idea and make it better? She could have come up with some innovation in mountain solar panels over over roads or over sidewalks or over car parks or some other.

You know it can. These big ideas are great and can lead to other innovation and engineers do this all the time as well. We come up with these grandiose ideas and then we do back of the envelope calculations. That's why we do them and we go like, well, are we an order of magnitude out, If we're an order of magnitude or several orders of magnitude out, we'll generally just drop the idea or need to modify it almost completely or fairly dramatically.

But if we're you know, maybe half an order out, or you know, 100 percent, 50 percent something like that, Then we can refine the idea and we might be able to make something out of it. But sometimes you know you have to understand futility. There's a time that you have to give up or change your idea or concept radically because it's just not practical. My fault.

the whole point was to find a way to practice nuclear war without destroying ourselves to get the computers to learn from mistakes we couldn't afford to make. Except that I never could get Joshua to learn the most important lesson. What's that futility? That there's a time when you should just give up. And this is why I Think that all these debunking videos are incredibly valuable, because it teaches, hopefully teaches people to at least think it critically and don't just take claims on face value or what not.

And this is why I always say my videos like don't trust me I'm just another person to believe in on the Internet run your own numbers, the data is down below. Do it. It's not that hard. just use.

you know, basic engineering principles that you can teach anyone. It's easy with Google these days. trivial To sort of do your own research on stuff anyone can do, it just need to be sort of taught and put in that mindset and let me know what you think about my debunking videos. I'd love to do more, but there's so many things out there and but they actually take a lot of effort I Think fun Thunderfoot Did a recent survey of his audience and I found that yeah, the debunking ones were the most valued videos.

And as for Soul are freaking roadways. Yes, it's still going. it's it's won't die I Don't know why they haven't run out of funding done now if they got new funding, haven't bothered to look, but they just posted on Instagram recently a photo of Solar freakin' Cruise ships to put to put their silly panels on are not on the top decks of cruise ships and the instant I saw that it reminded me of Leisure Suit Larry It's like Oh Hilarious. Solar always just gets ridiculous.

Ridiculous as time goes on I wonder whatever happened to that military deployment unit that they're going to parachute in behind enemy lines. Solar Roadways. It's just such a parody these days. So I Think this.

New Zealand video is just a real good case example where critical thinking skills on the part of both the person doing the presentation and the people evaluating it just don't be blinded by the idea. So let me know down below what you're thinking. well I don't know. That's enough of that.

Hopefully no more videos on solar roadways, but it is the Lowell that keeps on giving and as always you can discuss on the EUV blog forum. Catch you next time! I'm off for a swim. You.