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Here is a simple definition of critical thinking: Be critical of what is being said until it can be validated tangibly. It only has two requirements. The courag

by unabst 11y ago

Here is a simple definition of critical thinking: Be critical of what is being said until it can be validated tangibly. It only has two requirements. The courage to question what is in front of you, and the tools to test and validate statements objectively. What people trip on is often the "thinking" part. It plays on the myth that thought and logic is what solves problems, but in reality we need to be able to refer to something tangible -- such as evidence. If you don't have enough information, stop thinking and do your research (or experiments). Most evidence is rather obvious once found. Anecdotally, fear and anti-science are the enemy of critical thought, and those who claim moral authority and depend on spin to achieve their goals have used these weapons time and time again. "They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking."[0] -- George Carlin Amen. [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsL6mKxtOlQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsL6mKxtOlQ

dsfyu404ed 11y ago
A good rule of thumb for evaluating the merit of groups (political factions, interest groups, whatever) is whether or not they encourage critical thinking (education).
- SiVal 11y ago
  By that measure, "education" includes many of the worst offenders. The most intensely political of the departments on campus tend to be the ones who talk most about "critical thinking". The loudest proponents of "critical thinking" tend to be the most ideologically monocultural. They tend to be the most adamant supporters of "speech codes" designed to silence their critics. They tend to be ones who most closely scrutinize others for ever smaller deviations ("micro aggression! he used the wrong word!") from the enforced, orthodox dogma before going back to class to teach their students about "critical thinking". The Marxist "English" professor who tells you that what she wants most from your paper is "evidence of critical thinking" means she will judge your paper on how persuasively it argues in favor of her political agenda. Real-world evidence that casts doubt on Marxist theory will most likely be punished and labeled "lack of critical thinking". The social justice warriors in the ed school go on endlessly about their commitment to "critical thinking" and its supposed superiority to "mere facts", yet nobody in electrical engineering ever uses the term, "mere facts". Nobody in the physics department who is trying to make sense of puzzling data from some space probe ever consults the critical thinkers in the ed school to get the benefit of their better-trained reasoning powers. When Larry Summers, president of Harvard, suggested that a natural, statistical phenomenon (fatter right tail due to greater variance, not higher mean) might be a major reason for more male than female math professors, he lost his job. In attempting to defend himself, he clearly felt that evidence of his political conformity ("I'm a lifelong liberal with a long record of...") mattered more to the decision makers than empirical evidence of the phenomenon. If the top leadership at Harvard, arguably the world's leading educational institution, believes that other top leadership at Harvard is more persuaded by argument from political identity than argument from empirical evidence, what is it they are really promoting when they so vociferously promote "critical thinking"?
  - danharaj 11y ago
    Do you honestly not understand why it is problematic for the president of Harvard to try to explain away a political issue he is in charge of and has no business trying to explain away? I am also amused how salty you are about leftist academics when the very same argument (which isn't very substantial and mostly tiresome) could be rephrased as an assault on economics, which gleefully assume ridiculous things about societies in order to prove liberal or right wing ideas that also happen to be allied to power. But no, economics is completey apolitical right? Larry Summers was being completely apolitical and acting appropriately in his role as president of Harvard in making that remark. The reason why he came under fire is clear to me, but it's not clear to you. I don't think I could explain it to you. Your post drips with contempt for a certain class of people you do not name but characterize in the same way other unsavory ideologues do. > yet nobody in electrical engineering ever uses the term That's probably because electrical engineering is enormously easier to understand than more complicated disciplines. > Nobody in the physics department who is trying to make sense of puzzling data from some space probe ever consults the critical thinkers in the ed school to get the benefit of their better-trained reasoning powers. And yet the theoretical physicists who try to push the boundaries of what we understand to be possible quite often employ thinking that has a deep relationship with the processes that underlie more philosophical disciplines. Not all of life or even science is reading bits streaming in from the outer solar system. And before my ability to perform quantitative or critical reasoning is impugned, I majored in mathematics and ended up in a discipline that hasn't quite been hammered down the way, say EE has been. Somehow I survived such an education without becoming so mean-spirited towards people who study far more difficult ideas than spinors and circuit diagrams. > In attempting to defend himself, he clearly felt that evidence of his political conformity ("I'm a lifelong liberal with a long record of...") mattered more to the decision makers than empirical evidence of the phenomenon. If the top leadership at Harvard, arguably the world's leading educational institution, believes that other top leadership at Harvard is more persuaded by argument from political identity than argument from empirical evidence, what is it they are really promoting when they so vociferously promote "critical thinking"? Maybe he's not so good at thinking his way out of putting his shoe in his mouth. Authority does not make you good at everything. Neither does prestige in one particular field.
matwood 11y ago
> It plays on the myth that thought and logic is what solves problems, but in reality we need to be able to refer to something tangible -- such as evidence. The fool believes what he thinks, the wise man believe what he sees.
- cortesoft 11y ago
  That wise man is going to be fooled a lot; humans are easily tricked about what we think we see, and our memories about what we saw are not very good. Believing what we see might be a bit foolish.
  - matwood 11y ago
    You're sorta missing the point. People are good at believing what they think in the face of overwhelming evidence otherwise - what they see. And you're right, humans are tricked by what they see because their thinking gets in the way. The goal is to simply see things as they are. In programming I see it commonly in the statement 'there is no way this commit broke something completely unrelated', yet the build worked prior to the commit and does not work after. Could there have been a coincidental break? Sure, but not often. It does not matter what I think in this case, only that I can see the build worked and now it doesn't.
andrewflnr 11y ago
The most important part of that process, though, is noticing that you don't have enough information. That's a thought process.
- unabst 11y ago
  The most important process is acquiring evidence. You either have evidence or you don't. It's an observation more than anything. Though if observing what you know counts as thought, then sure (but I'd still rather reserve the term "thought process" for more difficult problems).
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    > The most important process is acquiring evidence. Neither evidence nor thought are useful without the other. But people are more likely to be deficient in a manner correctable by training at processing sense data to produce useful and correct conclusions (thought) than they are to be at merely receiving sense data (acquiring evidence as distinct from the thought process of determining what it is -- and is not -- evidence of.) > Though if observing what you know counts as thought, then sure Determing what you can reasonably conclude (and what you cannot reasonably conclude) from evidence is not "observing" anything, it is reasoning -- thought.
    - unabst 11y ago
      Yes, and Yes (hence the "sure"). But what is misleading is that we're often led to believe that what we think or believe is somehow relevant or even important in light of valid objective statements and observations. It's important but it's separate, and it's truly only important to us (the importance of our own thoughts are personal). Evidence, once internalized, is analyzed through introspection, and hence internally maintaining the subjective-objective distinction requires discipline and practice. Without this distinction, it turns out we can quite effortlessly reason our way to most conclusions given any evidence, and this activity is mainly driven by our intentions and emotions. Herein lies the dangers of putting too much un-founded weight on thought. But when we let evidence determine the weight distribution of thoughts, we avoid this problem. It also turns out that good evidence is obvious, making it easy to remember and requiring little thought. Sherlock Holmes is my favorite example. His breakthroughs come primarily from observations and connecting dots (insight) [0], and not from deep questioning or deductive logic. Though important, those aren't actually that hard or productive or entertaining. Evidence is the originator, and the tangible of the two. Our imagination may take us anywhere (Einstein), but without evidence we'd get nowhere (scientific method). [0] Holmesian deduction consists primarily of observation-based inferences. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_Holmes#Holmesian_deduction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_Holmes#Holmesian_dedu...
dragonwriter 11y ago
> It plays on the myth that thought and logic is what solves problems That's not a myth. Thought and logic is what solves problems. > but in reality we need to be able to refer to something tangible Sure, but we need to apply thought properly to something tangible to solve problems. Without thought, observing something tangible doesn't solve any problem. > If you don't have enough information, stop thinking and do your research Determining what you need to know to address the problem you have, and determining what you can know from the evidence you have is done through thought. That's how you determine if you have enough evidence or need to do more research, and, in the latter case, what additional research you need to do.
- danharaj 11y ago
  Thinking is what brains do. Brains can be arbitrarily wrong. They are often very wrong. They arrive at being wrong by thinking. They can stubbornly remain wrong through thought. Lots and lots of bad thinking happens. Clearly, something else is essential in order to make thought good. You can think and logic any position. People who think otherwise are either explicitly or implicitly rejecting some mode of thought or logic. That's fine, but how do they arrive at this rejection, and how do they know if it's a good or bad rejection? Since they are thinking, and the people who embrace those bad modes of thought and logic are also thinking, clearly it's not just thinking that solves things. If a brain is present then thought is present. That's all that can be said about brains and thought without appealing to more. Does a brain even need to be present in order for a problem to be solved? Maybe thought isn't necessary at all. But we are part brain, so we have to figure out what good and bad thinking is, so that we can be better brains and not worse.
chongli 11y ago
It can't just be information presented to you. You also need to apply critical thinking to your own assumptions and thought processes. There are tons of cognitive biases you can attribute to a lack of critical thinking applied to oneself: The status-quo bias, functional fixedness, anchoring, the endowment effect etc.
codingdave 11y ago
There is a flip side to the coin of critical thinking, which is to build those critical thoughts back up into something positive and productive. It is actually quite easy to teach people to deconstruct the ideas presented to them. But if you are not also taught when it is time to reconstruct a newer, better idea, then you are only half-educated. Without drawing upon critiques to rebuild an improved conclusion, it comes off as simple negativity. From a business perspective, it is the reason behind the cliche of "Don't bring me a problem, bring me a solution."

by unabst 11y ago

dsfyu404ed 11y ago

A good rule of thumb for evaluating the merit of groups (political factions, interest groups, whatever) is whether or not they encourage critical thinking (education).

SiVal 11y ago
By that measure, "education" includes many of the worst offenders. The most intensely political of the departments on campus tend to be the ones who talk most about "critical thinking". The loudest proponents of "critical thinking" tend to be the most ideologically monocultural. They tend to be the most adamant supporters of "speech codes" designed to silence their critics. They tend to be ones who most closely scrutinize others for ever smaller deviations ("micro aggression! he used the wrong word!") from the enforced, orthodox dogma before going back to class to teach their students about "critical thinking". The Marxist "English" professor who tells you that what she wants most from your paper is "evidence of critical thinking" means she will judge your paper on how persuasively it argues in favor of her political agenda. Real-world evidence that casts doubt on Marxist theory will most likely be punished and labeled "lack of critical thinking". The social justice warriors in the ed school go on endlessly about their commitment to "critical thinking" and its supposed superiority to "mere facts", yet nobody in electrical engineering ever uses the term, "mere facts". Nobody in the physics department who is trying to make sense of puzzling data from some space probe ever consults the critical thinkers in the ed school to get the benefit of their better-trained reasoning powers. When Larry Summers, president of Harvard, suggested that a natural, statistical phenomenon (fatter right tail due to greater variance, not higher mean) might be a major reason for more male than female math professors, he lost his job. In attempting to defend himself, he clearly felt that evidence of his political conformity ("I'm a lifelong liberal with a long record of...") mattered more to the decision makers than empirical evidence of the phenomenon. If the top leadership at Harvard, arguably the world's leading educational institution, believes that other top leadership at Harvard is more persuaded by argument from political identity than argument from empirical evidence, what is it they are really promoting when they so vociferously promote "critical thinking"?
- danharaj 11y ago
  Do you honestly not understand why it is problematic for the president of Harvard to try to explain away a political issue he is in charge of and has no business trying to explain away? I am also amused how salty you are about leftist academics when the very same argument (which isn't very substantial and mostly tiresome) could be rephrased as an assault on economics, which gleefully assume ridiculous things about societies in order to prove liberal or right wing ideas that also happen to be allied to power. But no, economics is completey apolitical right? Larry Summers was being completely apolitical and acting appropriately in his role as president of Harvard in making that remark. The reason why he came under fire is clear to me, but it's not clear to you. I don't think I could explain it to you. Your post drips with contempt for a certain class of people you do not name but characterize in the same way other unsavory ideologues do. > yet nobody in electrical engineering ever uses the term That's probably because electrical engineering is enormously easier to understand than more complicated disciplines. > Nobody in the physics department who is trying to make sense of puzzling data from some space probe ever consults the critical thinkers in the ed school to get the benefit of their better-trained reasoning powers. And yet the theoretical physicists who try to push the boundaries of what we understand to be possible quite often employ thinking that has a deep relationship with the processes that underlie more philosophical disciplines. Not all of life or even science is reading bits streaming in from the outer solar system. And before my ability to perform quantitative or critical reasoning is impugned, I majored in mathematics and ended up in a discipline that hasn't quite been hammered down the way, say EE has been. Somehow I survived such an education without becoming so mean-spirited towards people who study far more difficult ideas than spinors and circuit diagrams. > In attempting to defend himself, he clearly felt that evidence of his political conformity ("I'm a lifelong liberal with a long record of...") mattered more to the decision makers than empirical evidence of the phenomenon. If the top leadership at Harvard, arguably the world's leading educational institution, believes that other top leadership at Harvard is more persuaded by argument from political identity than argument from empirical evidence, what is it they are really promoting when they so vociferously promote "critical thinking"? Maybe he's not so good at thinking his way out of putting his shoe in his mouth. Authority does not make you good at everything. Neither does prestige in one particular field.

matwood 11y ago

> It plays on the myth that thought and logic is what solves problems, but in reality we need to be able to refer to something tangible -- such as evidence. The fool believes what he thinks, the wise man believe what he sees.

cortesoft 11y ago
That wise man is going to be fooled a lot; humans are easily tricked about what we think we see, and our memories about what we saw are not very good. Believing what we see might be a bit foolish.
- matwood 11y ago
  You're sorta missing the point. People are good at believing what they think in the face of overwhelming evidence otherwise - what they see. And you're right, humans are tricked by what they see because their thinking gets in the way. The goal is to simply see things as they are. In programming I see it commonly in the statement 'there is no way this commit broke something completely unrelated', yet the build worked prior to the commit and does not work after. Could there have been a coincidental break? Sure, but not often. It does not matter what I think in this case, only that I can see the build worked and now it doesn't.

andrewflnr 11y ago

The most important part of that process, though, is noticing that you don't have enough information. That's a thought process.

unabst 11y ago
The most important process is acquiring evidence. You either have evidence or you don't. It's an observation more than anything. Though if observing what you know counts as thought, then sure (but I'd still rather reserve the term "thought process" for more difficult problems).
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > The most important process is acquiring evidence. Neither evidence nor thought are useful without the other. But people are more likely to be deficient in a manner correctable by training at processing sense data to produce useful and correct conclusions (thought) than they are to be at merely receiving sense data (acquiring evidence as distinct from the thought process of determining what it is -- and is not -- evidence of.) > Though if observing what you know counts as thought, then sure Determing what you can reasonably conclude (and what you cannot reasonably conclude) from evidence is not "observing" anything, it is reasoning -- thought.
  - unabst 11y ago
    Yes, and Yes (hence the "sure"). But what is misleading is that we're often led to believe that what we think or believe is somehow relevant or even important in light of valid objective statements and observations. It's important but it's separate, and it's truly only important to us (the importance of our own thoughts are personal). Evidence, once internalized, is analyzed through introspection, and hence internally maintaining the subjective-objective distinction requires discipline and practice. Without this distinction, it turns out we can quite effortlessly reason our way to most conclusions given any evidence, and this activity is mainly driven by our intentions and emotions. Herein lies the dangers of putting too much un-founded weight on thought. But when we let evidence determine the weight distribution of thoughts, we avoid this problem. It also turns out that good evidence is obvious, making it easy to remember and requiring little thought. Sherlock Holmes is my favorite example. His breakthroughs come primarily from observations and connecting dots (insight) [0], and not from deep questioning or deductive logic. Though important, those aren't actually that hard or productive or entertaining. Evidence is the originator, and the tangible of the two. Our imagination may take us anywhere (Einstein), but without evidence we'd get nowhere (scientific method). [0] Holmesian deduction consists primarily of observation-based inferences. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_Holmes#Holmesian_deduction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_Holmes#Holmesian_dedu...

dragonwriter 11y ago

> It plays on the myth that thought and logic is what solves problems That's not a myth. Thought and logic is what solves problems. > but in reality we need to be able to refer to something tangible Sure, but we need to apply thought properly to something tangible to solve problems. Without thought, observing something tangible doesn't solve any problem. > If you don't have enough information, stop thinking and do your research Determining what you need to know to address the problem you have, and determining what you can know from the evidence you have is done through thought. That's how you determine if you have enough evidence or need to do more research, and, in the latter case, what additional research you need to do.

danharaj 11y ago
Thinking is what brains do. Brains can be arbitrarily wrong. They are often very wrong. They arrive at being wrong by thinking. They can stubbornly remain wrong through thought. Lots and lots of bad thinking happens. Clearly, something else is essential in order to make thought good. You can think and logic any position. People who think otherwise are either explicitly or implicitly rejecting some mode of thought or logic. That's fine, but how do they arrive at this rejection, and how do they know if it's a good or bad rejection? Since they are thinking, and the people who embrace those bad modes of thought and logic are also thinking, clearly it's not just thinking that solves things. If a brain is present then thought is present. That's all that can be said about brains and thought without appealing to more. Does a brain even need to be present in order for a problem to be solved? Maybe thought isn't necessary at all. But we are part brain, so we have to figure out what good and bad thinking is, so that we can be better brains and not worse.

chongli 11y ago

It can't just be information presented to you. You also need to apply critical thinking to your own assumptions and thought processes. There are tons of cognitive biases you can attribute to a lack of critical thinking applied to oneself: The status-quo bias, functional fixedness, anchoring, the endowment effect etc.

codingdave 11y ago

There is a flip side to the coin of critical thinking, which is to build those critical thoughts back up into something positive and productive. It is actually quite easy to teach people to deconstruct the ideas presented to them. But if you are not also taught when it is time to reconstruct a newer, better idea, then you are only half-educated. Without drawing upon critiques to rebuild an improved conclusion, it comes off as simple negativity. From a business perspective, it is the reason behind the cliche of "Don't bring me a problem, bring me a solution."