Is Tom Brady the GOAT? Try Arguing That | Joel Backon | 3 Min Read

Is Tom Brady the GOAT? Try Arguing That | Joel Backon | 3 Min Read

Is Tom Brady the Greatest Of All Time (GOAT)? The recent Super Bowl has reignited the question, and there is more than enough disagreement to go around. For our purposes, let’s dismiss the detailed arguments that football coaches and some Monday morning quarterbacks might offer, and focus on premises that are accessible to the casual sports fan. Critical thinking skills can be employed to construct a sound argument that helps us understand and respond to the question. There may be more than one answer, but the process of what ThinkerAnalytix calls argument mapping will visually help us construct sound arguments.

If you ask teachers whether they teach critical thinking to their students, most will say they do. If you then ask them how they define critical thinking, you’re likely to get the same response as we heard from Justice Potter Stewart in a 1964 Supreme Court case: “I know it when I see it.” It turns out that we could teach critical thinking in the context of contemporary events and questions by looking closely at the components of those arguments. Our friends at ThinkerAnalytix help us learn those components in order to navigate controversial political and social issues. They want us to use a visual technique called argument mapping to help people engage in constructive disagreements, rather than talking past each other. In short, they want us to pursue the source of the disagreement.

Regarding the question of whether Tom Brady is the GOAT, let’s suppose we have two football fans, one from Boston and one from Denver. The Boston fan argues that Brady is the greatest of all time because he has won seven Super Bowls (the image above predated the most recent game), more than any other player or team. Our Denver fan is not so sure. The fan remembers John Elway and Peyton Manning as amazing Denver Bronco quarterbacks and also recalls “Deflategate” in the papers a few years back (Patriots were accused of letting air out of the footballs to make them easier to throw when it was cold). Our Denver fan argues vigorously that there are other quarterbacks who might fit the bill and that part of Brady’s success may have been associated with cheating. Unfortunately, their disagreement is not resolvable because the premises of the original argument are not being addressed; in fact, they are being bypassed by each party because…

THIS IS PREMIUM CONTENT FOR REGISTERED USERS
Register Now
OR
You may use your member school or partner discount code !!!

Pop-Up

This is an example pop-up that you can make using jQuery.

Joel Backon

Joel Backon has been the Editor of Intrepid Ed News since its inception in January 2021, responsible for all educator content on the website. He joined the OESIS Network, owner of Intrepid, in 2019 as Vice President. Joel spent much of his career at Choate Rosemary Hall (CT) where for 27 years he held founding roles in Information and Academic Technology, as well as being a classroom teacher, curriculum designer, coach, dorm head, and student adviser. Prior to Choate, Joel spent 15 years in the printing and publishing industry educating printers on how to maximize their strengths and minimize weaknesses. He has crusaded to achieve consensus on the question of why we educate kids in an effort to meet the learning needs of every student.