This issue is super important to me as someone who teaches critical thinking at the college level and regularly encounters people who lack CT skills on my program. I'm actually planning a 12-15 part miniseries on critical thinking which will be out in early 2018. Thoughts?
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This is a good point.
I have to say this is valuable.
Make sure you explain us why to HODL steem.
Just kidding you are a true example.
Keep on informing !
Extremely important, i experience that base population doesnt have that critical thinking. It starts with reflecting oneself
Wow!¡!
A nice article
I am interested in your ideas and your insights, your post is very good and interesting, I had time to think like you in making post, your post is clearly accurate and clear meaningful..
Happy new year to you..
i agree and i am also getting excited because i am hearing more and more like minded people come from this place. i am indeed one of them.
Truly? You teach Critical Thinking? Then why do I see you using some of the common Appeal to X fallacies in your videos? Are you using them because you know they work and your viewers are not trained to recognize them? (It's been awhile since I paid attention to point out where I first noticed it, I remember being annoyed by it. So I do have some BIAS in this response to you. Though I am often wrong, and I am willing to change my mind.)
I agree 100% that critical thinking is perhaps the most important thing we need to teach. I don't think any plans for the future are very realistic without a population well versed in critical thinking.
I also recognize that someone disagreeing with me doesn't mean they lack critical thinking. Yet I do see Appeal to Authority, Appeal to Emotion, Appeal to Tradition, and Appeal to the Stone fallacies being used VERY frequently in our society. I have seen them in your videos.
Critical Thinking is NOT a sometimes thing. It is an always thing. It is not something we should turn off when it is convenient to our agenda. It is something we should always do.
So IF you teach Critical Thinking then I do challenge you on when you use fallacious techniques to push the message in your videos. You are human, you do have the right to your opinion.
Overall your videos are pretty good. That's why I often put links to them in an @newsagg headlines news aggregation posts.
Also, not all college critical thinking professors are actually good at it. My favorite class in college was a class that was good at it taken from an instructor that most students tried to avoid and take the class from someone else because he was so strict and harsh. I can say I hadn't TRULY encountered Critical Thinking until that point.
Am I a critical thinking master? NO. I don't believe such people exist. It is something we can practice, and quiz ourselves on and GET better at, but never truly master.
I will say this... IF you truly believe in its importance though I disagree with you on a lot of your political ideology you will find in me an ally when it comes to critical thinking.
Thanks for challenging david and sharing your questions. I would love for you to criticise my work. I never learned critical thinking myself formally and only read a few things about the fallacies. I welcome intelligent criticism of my videos as I am sure I unconsciously use fallacies in what I do and would like for them To be exposed so that I can use them less and less and develop my thinking.
I am often skeptical of detractors of President Trump, simply because he has done an excellent job and the majority of criticisms of him are either using a double standard, fake news, or are incredibly minor and not noteworthy. That's not to say there are no detractors of Trump who are intellectually honest and ideologically consistent. Alan Dershowitz, for example, is very consistent with his positions and is a real critical thinker. I disagree with him but I can't dislike him.
I haven't liked some things Trump has done. Such as shooting missiles at Syria over "sarin" gas at a time things were going well for Assad and doing a gas attack would make it bad. That was haste.
That is an example...
but overall I've been VERY impressed with how much he is getting done considering the constant onslaught of petty attacks and hypocrisy he is being hit with... Very impressive.
I often have started to think a lot of the things he does, he does so those people will have fuel to keep them busy focusing on stupid things while he works on actually doing things.
I had the same opinion on the Syria missile situation, but then I realised it was an excellent power play and that only 4 or so people died. Low casualties, strong message to China.
I'm not a fan of some of Trump's dealmaking, especially when it comes to policies he promised to repeal, but I can live content with this because he has turned the economy around and gives the American people faith in their country.
We desperately need to improve the quality of life in many countries
Thank you for useful info!
Is critical thinking something that can be taught? If so, how?
Absolutely can be taught, many many colleges and universities do.
That doesn't mean they are actually improving critical thinking. I know that there are exercises that will force you to engage in critical thinking. But if you're doing this for the first time as a 20 year old college student, you're already not thinking at a college level.
I work in an high school and critical thinking is one, if not, the defining element between the students who succeed (at school and beyond) and those who don't. Being good academically also doesn't always translate to good critical thinking skills...
What's the best way to develop critical thinking at an early age?
Reading a lot. Kids that start out reading at a young age develop a greater understanding of language and can tackle the harder questions earlier than the general populace. Other than this, ask your kids their opinion on something then tell them to argue the other side. Make sure they know that if they can't argue the other side they don't deserve to have an opinion.
This is indeed a good approach as well. Putting yourself in other people's "shoes" so to speak is a good tool.
Teach people it is okay to ask questions. Teach people to be tolerant of those with differing opinions.
I believe teach them the fallacies EARLY and use flash cards to see if they can identify them. Many people that have taken critical thinking, or claim to teach it often resort to a lot of the logical fallacies when pushing their own ideas. So teach kids to identify such things.
Appeal to Authority / AKA Argument from Authority
Appeal to Emotion / AKA Argument from Emotion
Appeal to Popularity / AKA Bandwagon
Appeal to Tradition
Appeal to the Stone (this one is important and many people have no clue about it)
Then you can play mental games of tag using things like Red herring, Ad hominem, Slippery Slope, etc.
Appeal to Authority is a VERY important one.
People often use AUTHORITY to shut down discussion even if that "authority" is wrong, or partially wrong.
Also one VERY important thing. Teach kids that it is okay and even a good thing to be wrong. People who are rarely wrong in reality are just people who are not learning much.
I did want to add that critical thinking clashes with many of the other politically correct agendas they are pushing in schools and universities.
Pushing for example gender fluidity based upon an appeal to authority from some psychologists beginning in 1948. Prior to that Gender and Sex were the same thing for thousands of years. They don't have to remain that way or I'd be giving you an Appeal to Tradition. Yet, it is also rather less than honest to hijack that word and redefine it so its context for thousands of years of documentation was no longer valid. The correct thing would to have created a NEW label for their "ideas". I do not acknowledge their authority.
Also pushing of the ideas of "consensus" as though that matters is anathema to critical thinking. It is an Appeal to Popularity fallacy. Truth and facts are not dictated by a quantity of people.
So it'd be difficult to TEACH critical thinking in school these days when so many of the things seem aimed at destroying critical thinking.
Ive thought that Thinking needs to be taught at an early stage at school, as does Creative Writing. These two will allow people to understand the wirld better and to express themselves more fully, leading to less bad choices and
Critical thinking is good but critical lifestyle will make all mad.
Common sense isn't so common! Bring it!