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Critical thinking isn't some kind of academic jargon. It literally means applying criticism to the subject of thought.

nitwit005 9y ago
And? It's normal for words to drift in meaning over time. You have to deal with the reality of language, not "how it's supposed to be".
- lr4444lr 9y ago
  I agree with you in the general sense, but the employers (whoever they are) are simply wrong by any reasonable standard of language to equate critical thinking with original thinking. For example, the skill of top lawyers is inseparably wed to critical thinking. They need to parse arguments and pore over monotonous tomes of legislation, regulatory paperwork, contracts, and case law to find areas of weakness or inconsistency to exploit/tighten up. They do this through slow, methodical analysis, consultation with other experts, and then have to distill and apply the essence of these points into language defendable against industry peers who are working for the other side. This work requires deeply critical thinking, but has nothing to do with "new, original thought".
  - nitwit005 9y ago
    I can agree with you all I want, but it doesn't change anything. They will still believe it means whatever they think it means. Awful used to mean awe inspiring, which is clearly what it says, but now means terrible. I'm sure people pointed out that meaning was wrong at the time.
- dvtv75 9y ago
  Yet communicating in a clear, consistent, and accurate fashion is crucial. Many years ago, I worked in a photographic store. We developed film and printed photos, primarily. One of the women took in a film for development, wrote the customer's surname in the name box, then wrote "Matt" over the name. It's fortunate that we would hand out the top slip so we would match the packet numbers, because when the customer came back into the shop we couldn't find her package. We did find one for a Matt Sullivan (or whatever the surname was). It turned out she was quite annoyed with us for not printing it in matte as they asked, so we reprinted it at no charge and she got to keep both sets. The staff member argued that she had written matte ("See? It says Matt right there." "That's the name, not the paper type. The paper type has an -e at the end.") on it, it's just that language changes and we had to accept and adapt to it. Didn't matter what her argument was, though, because she screwed up and it cost the business money.
- Kluny 9y ago
  Yeah, but that's still not what critical thinking means.

And? It's normal for words to drift in meaning over time. You have to deal with the reality of language, not "how it's supposed to be".

lr4444lr 9y ago
I agree with you in the general sense, but the employers (whoever they are) are simply wrong by any reasonable standard of language to equate critical thinking with original thinking. For example, the skill of top lawyers is inseparably wed to critical thinking. They need to parse arguments and pore over monotonous tomes of legislation, regulatory paperwork, contracts, and case law to find areas of weakness or inconsistency to exploit/tighten up. They do this through slow, methodical analysis, consultation with other experts, and then have to distill and apply the essence of these points into language defendable against industry peers who are working for the other side. This work requires deeply critical thinking, but has nothing to do with "new, original thought".
- nitwit005 9y ago
  I can agree with you all I want, but it doesn't change anything. They will still believe it means whatever they think it means. Awful used to mean awe inspiring, which is clearly what it says, but now means terrible. I'm sure people pointed out that meaning was wrong at the time.
dvtv75 9y ago
Yet communicating in a clear, consistent, and accurate fashion is crucial. Many years ago, I worked in a photographic store. We developed film and printed photos, primarily. One of the women took in a film for development, wrote the customer's surname in the name box, then wrote "Matt" over the name. It's fortunate that we would hand out the top slip so we would match the packet numbers, because when the customer came back into the shop we couldn't find her package. We did find one for a Matt Sullivan (or whatever the surname was). It turned out she was quite annoyed with us for not printing it in matte as they asked, so we reprinted it at no charge and she got to keep both sets. The staff member argued that she had written matte ("See? It says Matt right there." "That's the name, not the paper type. The paper type has an -e at the end.") on it, it's just that language changes and we had to accept and adapt to it. Didn't matter what her argument was, though, because she screwed up and it cost the business money.
Kluny 9y ago
Yeah, but that's still not what critical thinking means.