Critical thinking is not a single activity. It is a complicated, complex, and imperfect approach to information processing and decision-making. Even really good critical thinkers make errors in thinking. Since practice makes permanent, to be good critical thinkers we must first ensure that our processes are correct, and then practice these skills regularly. We can do this by:
- Separating our thoughts from our feelings by identifying the biases and values we use to interpret information, bearing in mind that all of us (even experts) make conclusions and decisions influenced by biases and personal values.
- Relying on experts for information that we cannot hope to access on our own, and by evaluating the source of their expertise before we put our trust in them.
- Recognizing when we are acting in a superstitious way and attempting to overcome unfounded superstitious beliefs.
- Understanding the limitations and misuse, malicious or not, of statistics before relying on them as evidence (of anything).
- Avoiding forcing our thoughts and ideas into arbitrary groupings. For example, we chose not to have a seven-day critical thinking week, because a) we had more than seven things to say, and b) we don’t know of any reason why a week should have seven days.
- Being open to changing our mind. Critical thinking, like science, should be self-correcting. New information should change how we think about an old subject. Changing our mind might be the most difficult, and smartest thing we do.
We hope you have enjoyed our week(ish) of critical thinking and perhaps learned something new. Please apply our critical thinking framework to your decision making. It really is the “one-size fits all” solution to many of the world’s problems. And please, keep the discussion going. CFIC welcomes your suggestions for tools that help with critical thinking. We are happy to accept contributions to our (virtual) Critical Thinking Library (coming soon) and Critical Links newsletter (see our submission guidelines), or you can join in the conversation on social media.
For more information about critical thinking, please listen to Podcast for Inquiry’s David Robert Grimes on his book, Good Thinking.
Image by geralt via Pixabay, used under the Pixabay License
Discussion:
What are other topics we should have included in our Critical Thinking week(ish)? What was one thing you learned or were reminded of during the week? What are some ideas for more broadly sharing Critical Thinking information?
I agree wholeheartedly with the advice here of making critical thinking the driving force behind our decision making (and strategic life planning). This has been an educational 10 days of intense intellectual involvement for me, and I thank all the authors who generously donated their talents and efforts in writing these articles. A final question: Whereas we can learn to think critically, might it also be possible that this mode of reasoning is physiological, that is, being born with your brain “pre-wired” to think critically?
It’s been pointed out that by and large, those who identify as Freethinkers all think the same way, and l have found this to be true, especially among the joiners…