The mind is a terrible thing to waste. Some people don’t like to put it to much use because it’s just too hard. A critical thinker is very disciplined and honest in attempting to evaluate and arrive at a valid and intelligent conclusion on any and every matter. He/she is not afraid of a change of mind if the contrary reasoning is logical and persuasive.
On their web site, The Critical Thinking Community states:
“The world is swiftly changing
and with each day the pace quickens. The pressure to respond intensifies. New
global realities are rapidly working their way into the deepest structures of
our lives: economic, social, cultural, political, and environmental realities —
realities with profound implications for thinking and learning, business and
politics, human rights and human conflicts. These realities are becoming
increasingly complex; many represent significant dangers and threats. And they
all turn on the powerful dynamic of accelerating change.
“We cannot deal with
incessant and accelerating change and complexity without revolutionizing our
thinking. Traditionally our thinking has been designed for routine, for habit,
for automation and fixed procedure. We learned how to do our job once, and then
we used what we learned over and over. But the problems we now face, and will
increasingly face, require a radically different form of thinking, thinking
that is more complex, more adaptable, more sensitive to divergent points of
view. The world in which we now live requires that we continually
relearn, that we routinely rethink our decisions, that we regularly re-evaluate
the way we work and live. In short, there is a new world facing us, one
in which the power of the mind to command itself, to regularly engage in
self-analysis, will increasingly determine the quality of our work, the quality
of our lives, and perhaps even, our very survival.”
The American and
Canadian educational systems are failing miserably in preparing youth for the
challenges ahead. They consider it more important for kids and teens to know
how a volcano works than personal finance and critical thinking. Writing on
this topic for The Huffington Post, retired
high school teacher and critical thinker Frank Breslin asserts:
“It is a rare high-school
graduate who can pinpoint 20 different kinds of fallacies in a line of
argumentation while reading or listening; who knows how to distinguish between
fact and opinion, objective account and specious polemic; who can tell the
difference between value judgments, explanatory theories, and metaphysical
claims, and knows how these three kinds of statement can or cannot be proven or
disproven; who can argue both sides of a question, anticipate objections, and
rebut them; and who can undermine arguments in various ways ……
“The school owes its students to
teach them how to think, not what to think; to question whatever
they read, and never to accept any claim blindly; to suspend judgment until
they’ve heard all sides of a question, and interrogate whatever claims to be
true, since the truth can withstand any scrutiny. Critical thinking is life’s
indispensable survival skill, compared to which everything else is an
educational frill!”
Here are 30 challenging questions to help bolster critical thinking:
1) Could you elaborate further? Could you give me an example?
2) How could we verify or test that?
3) How does that relate to the problem? How does that help us with the
issue?
4) What are some of the complexities of this question?
5) Do we need to consider another point of view?
6) Does what you say follow from the evidence?
7) Is this the central idea to focus on? Which of these facts are most
important?
8) Do I have any vested interest in this issue?
9) Is my ego preventing me from accepting information that disproves my
views? Is it possible for me to be wrong?
10) Am I taking a position on a controversial issue because all my family
/ friends believe a certain way and I don’t want to fall out of favor with
them?
11) Do I fall for a common fallacy like the Straw Man Fallacy: Inability
to counter a point and in desperation, attack and argue against a straw man – a
position or point that my opponent never stated?
12) Do I fall for a widespread fallacy like the Confirmation Bias
Fallacy – only spending time with people and sources that confirm my already
held beliefs? In other words, if I were to sit down for an hour with an expert
for the other position, would I be surprised and shocked as to the strength of
the arguments?
13) Do I fall for certain pundit’s position because of their good looks,
celebrity, and winsome smile, or do I honestly grapple with the issues in spite
of their charm, appearance and coolness?
14) When I hear or read
unsubstantiated hysteria and paranoia – like anti-vaccine or anti-GMO spin – do
I suddenly run around like a chicken with its head cut off, or do I calmly,
honestly, and intelligently gather all the facts to form a valid and informed
opinion? Do I think on issues with my emotions or with my brain?
15) Do I elevate mere mortals to the point of near infallibility because
they offer me exactly what I want or need?
16) If a situation seems dire and hopeless, am I so desperate to believe
in something – like snake-oil cancer cures – that I set aside my mind and all
the contrary evidence?
17) Am I so outraged by a real or perceived injustice that I absolutely
will not entertain even the slightest counter-argument?
18) Is my self-esteem so weak that admitting to being wrong about
something would be emotionally and existentially devastating?
19) In any discussion or debate, when I encounter a point I can’t
answer, do I panic and reply with the first useless thought that comes to mind?
Or do I logically and intelligently answer – “Good point. Let me get back to
you on that one”?
20) When coming to a conclusion, have I spent 2 hours learning and
evaluating the points for one side, and 2 minutes the other side?
21) Are my perceptions based on a bird’s-eye view of the circumstances
or do I superficially and hastily only focus on what is directly in front of
me?
22) Do I lift up the rock to observe the crawling vermin beneath or am I
mesmerized and bedazzled by the color and smoothness of its surface?
23) If I’m sitting patiently in a waiting room, pick up a random
magazine, randomly read an entire article espousing a particular viewpoint I
previously knew nothing about, do I suddenly adopt that point of view as my
own?
24) No medical professional is infallible, but are my medical opinions
often the equivalent of barging into the surgery room of my local hospital,
pushing the busy surgeon out of the way, and saying: “Beat it! I’m taking
over!”
25) Do I believe in and espouse an opinion on a relatively insignificant
issue because it gives meaning and purpose to my spiritually and emotionally
bankrupt life?
26) Have I circumvented my intellect and adopted a position on any
important issue based primarily on the near-orgasmic feeling of righteous
indignation?
27) Do I easily fall for conspiracy theories in spite of overwhelming
contrary evidence? Do I like to take the easy way out and believe “It’s a
conspiracy!” instead of taking the time and work to rationally evaluate the info?
28) Do I choose anxiety and hysteria when watching the latest
sensational, tragic and disturbing story leading the 24 hour news cycle? Or am
I prudent enough to realize that every day in the US there are 43
murders, 117 suicides, 129 deaths from drug overdoses, 96 car accident deaths,
1,315 deaths due to smoking, 890 deaths related to obesity, etc, etc, etc?
29) Do I check myself when I realize that a certain position or opinion
I’ve adopted has led me to hate certain individuals themselves, rather than
only their views?
30) Following the above question, have I segregated myself in my own
group-think world to the degree that should I accidently meet and discuss
issues with someone from the other side, that I suddenly have the epiphany:
“Wow! These people are not evil saliva-drippers after all! They’re strangely
human!”?
Bonus thorny question: Do I believe and obey some magic law that tells me I have to form an opinion on something, even though I honestly know I don’t have or properly evaluated all the pertinent information?
Bonus thorny question: Do I believe and obey some magic law that tells me I have to form an opinion on something, even though I honestly know I don’t have or properly evaluated all the pertinent information?
The Critical Thinking Community http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/our-mission/405
Frank Breslin, Why
Public Schools Don’t Teach Critical Thinking – Part 1 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-breslin/why-public-schools-dont-t_b_7956518.html
Primer on
Critical Thinking (First 8
questions taken from this site, the rest are original.) http://www.bellarmine.edu/docs/default-source/faculty-development-docs/TLC_19_A_Primer_on_Critical_Thinking.pdf?sfvrsn=0
Liars! How
Snake-Oil Doctors Use 5 Logical Fallacies http://www.mybestbuddymedia.com/2015/11/liars-how-snake-oil-doctors-shrewdly.html
Pseudo-Health
& Snake-Oil: 14 Examples of Faulty Thinking …… http://www.mybestbuddymedia.com/2016/06/pseudo-health-snake-oil-14-concise_22.html
Jerry De Luca is a Christian freelance writer who loves perusing dozens of interesting and informative publications. When he finds any useful info he summarizes it, taking the main points, and creates a (hopefully) helpful blog post.
.jpg)
0 comments :
Post a Comment
Feel free to leave any comments...