They don’t realize they are. From many peoples perception of their own thinking (meta cognition) whatever’s they do to cognitively engage with an input is criti

They don’t realize they are. From many peoples perception of their own thinking (meta cognition) whatever’s they do to cognitively engage with an input is critical thinking. If you give them information they construct meaning from it. If that information is facts, it’s facts. If it’s someone else’s conclusion or interpretation, it still gets treated as information received.