Thanks for the comments posted so far. I was reminded to post this in-depth article today after seeing a comment by btilly about how difficult it is to develop

Thanks for the comments posted so far. I was reminded to post this in-depth article today after seeing a comment by btilly about how difficult it is to develop critical thinking skills without specific domain knowledge. That is, in fact, just about impossible. People who have strong analytical ability in one domain often totally muff up in thinking about domains with which they are less familiar. (This is why I dare not give advice about the details of programming here on Hacker News, whatever I think about my ability to analyze other kinds of problems.) I think this is important for all of us to keep in mind as we discuss big, important issues here on Hacker News--sometimes the programmers and entrepreneurs who appear to make up the majority of participants here may have wicked good critical thinking about the problems in their domains, but still have more to learn about law, linguistics, medicine, etc. to correctly analyze problems in those other disciplines. One of the strengths of the submitted article is that it reminds readers who read it from beginning to end to engage in critical thinking about how often they actually think critically.