Yeah, it sucks that our brains work like that. With some effort and time we can train our brains to operate better. Just like talking, reading, mathematics... etc. we should be teaching children (probably after 12 years old), how to apply logic and how to recognize fallacies. I think it's weird that logic is such a small part of school.
I think they should start earlier than 12 years old. I think we should start teaching children how to apply logic and how to recognize fallacies the minute they are born.

They're already teaching my kindergartner stuff like that. Every day he brings home a book and he has to circle whether the book he just read is fiction or non-fiction.
The other day he brought home a book about shapes and what we can do with them. One can stalk up squares, round things roll, triangles have angles, etc. He said it's a fiction book because shapes don't have faces, arms, or legs. I told him that they added those things just for fun, but he insisted that it was fiction--he's right, in reality, these things don't have faces, arms or legs.

We went through the whole book again but I covered the faces and I asked him, if, in reality, round things rolled, if squares could be stalked up etc. In the end, he agreed that it was non-fiction. When he finds out that animals speak in a story, he automatically says it's fiction because an animal doesn't speak.

(Try convincing him that a snake spoke to Adam and Eve.)
He seems to want to believe in a magical being who's flying reindeer pull the sleigh and help him deliver Christmas gifts...so he "fixed" the story. He said Santa drives around, he doesn't fly around. He enters homes through the front door, not the chimney. --I think I can live with that.

I don't know...it must be difficult for religious parents. You know...to have their kids learn the difference between fiction and nonfiction when they're trying to convince their kids, that they have to believe, that one day one man walked on water.
