The Myth of Critical Thinking

[Magical Realist]

Make up your mind

No method

OR

They use their reason and logic and empirical data to arrive at their own conclusions

which would happen to be a method

There is no objective method for using reason and logic. You just do it. Or you don't. Noone can dictate what line of thinking to take to arrive at the truth.

 

[arfa brane]

There is no objective method for using reason and logic.

Unless you happen to be writing a program in some computer language.

I'm wingin' it here, but I'll guess you haven't tried to . . .?

 

[Michael 345]

There is no objective method for using reason and logic. You just do it. Or you don't. Noone can dictate what line of thinking to take to arrive at the truth.

So just do it think subjectively is the method used by real Scientist

Do you happen to know what ensemble brand these real Scientist wear?

 

[Michael 345]

Unless you happen to be writing a program in some computer language.

I'm wingin' it here, but I'll guess you haven't tried to . . .?

I never thought of that

Must remember in case comes in handy

I know not directed to me but I did write a computer program

Visual Basic 5

Tiny program to teach names of the bones of the skeleton

Had diagrams of the sections of the skeleton and you could test your knowledge of the names by typing into the label section next to the bone

Press CHECK and label turned Green correct Red wrong

Anyway yes OBJECTIVE was the only way to go

I'm just thinking of all those poor FAKE Scientist working on the Manhattan Project

If they had only just sat down like REAL Scientist and just thought about it subjectively they could have wrapped it up in a week



Perhaps I should contact Bas Lansdorp about this breakthrough way to get to Mars

Or perhaps not

 

[DaveC426913]

I have no idea whether 3 and a number aren't the same thing. You are claiming it, but I don't accept it.

OK, that's a problem.

Perhaps it might be time to acknowledge that people know a little bit about what they're talking about, and asking questions when you don't know stuff might be more appropriate than name-calling and hostility. Something to consider.

 

[DaveC426913]

Arrrh no

A pixie is a pixie

If it's flying it's a identified pixie flying object

This was posted (though not by me) as a recording of alleged pixies.
Would you be comfortable calling these "identified"?

 

[Magical Realist]

Unless you happen to be writing a program in some computer language.

I'm wingin' it here, but I'll guess you haven't tried to . . .?

Writing a computer program = using logic and reason? I don't think so.

 

[Magical Realist]

OK, that's a problem.

Perhaps it might be time to acknowledge that people know a little bit about what they're talking about, and asking questions when you don't know stuff might be more appropriate than name-calling and hostility. Something to consider.

You haven't given any sign you know what you're talking about and have so far dodged my question "how do you define critical thinking." What's so hard about this? You're the one always touting it. Tell us what it is.

 

[Magical Realist]

The Scientific Method is a bit more defined. Critical thinking isn't necessarily a scientific process, just a version of intellectual rigor and honesty.

How does one standardize rigor and honesty?

 

[Michael 345]

This was posted (though not by me) as a recording of alleged pixies.
Would you be comfortable calling these "identified"?

Would you be comfortable calling these "identified"?

No

But in your post you did identify them as pixies not alleged pixies

The videos I, without knowing the specific background of the clips, would class all as UFO stuff

That's only from previous exposure to similar material

Though the video makes reference to infrared light as being the only light by which they can be seen most did not look like infrared film

The claim they are alive would require a detailed book of proof not out of focus shaky video

 

[arfa brane]

Writing a computer program = using logic and reason? I don't think so.

Oh really? Do you believe humans can write programs without using reason and logic? They just type whatever comes into their head and, as if by magic, it works first time? I don't think so.

Moreover, since you have to use a computer language, even assembly language, it's objective. You don't get to subjectively decide what correct programming logic is.

 

[Magical Realist]

Do you believe humans can write programs without using reason and logic?

Do you believe humans can use reason and logic without writing programs? They do all the time. Therefore writing a program does not equal using reason and logic.

 

[dumbest man on earth]

Thanks. That clears everything up! lol!

...or...maybe not...

 

[arfa brane]

Do you believe humans can use reason and logic without writing programs? They do all the time. Therefore writing a program does not equal using reason and logic.

You're using an argument based on a fallacy. If a implies b, logically b doesn't necessarily imply a.

I said you use reason and logic when you write programs (because you just do), in answer to your claim (post #41) about not using them objectively. Generally writing or designing software involves critical thinking, I believe (I think I'm not the only one who believes that).

How about designing an electronic circuit? Would you use reason and logic if you were doing that? Or just connect a bunch of components together as the mood takes you? Or perhaps you're saying that using reason and logic together somehow precludes actually doing anything?

 

[exchemist]

You're using an argument based on a fallacy. If a implies b, logically b doesn't necessarily imply a.

I said you use reason and logic when you write programs (because you just do), in answer to your claim (post #41) about not using them objectively. Generally writing or designing software involves critical thinking, I believe (I think I'm not the only one who believes that).

How about designing an electronic circuit? Would you use reason and logic if you were doing that? Or just connect a bunch of components together as the mood takes you? Or perhaps you're saying that using reason and logic together somehow precludes actually doing anything?

Ah but, you see, you are falling into the trap of critical thinking here.

If you are prepared to embrace true freedom by throwing off the hidebound, conformist, "mainstream" yoke of critical thinking, you can argue any old shit. Imagine the possibilities! Ghosts? UFOs? Pixies? No problem!

Far superior, I'm sure you will agree.

Unless, perhaps, you design airliners for a living.............

 

[spidergoat]

How does one standardize rigor and honesty?

Why would you? It takes some personal judgement, since we can always be wrong. It's more of an iterative thing. The important thing is that you seek evidence that is reliable as possible.

 

[DaveC426913]

You're using an argument based on a fallacy. If a implies b, logically b doesn't necessarily imply a.

This the exactly the problem I'm having with the OP.

If red is a colour
then 'colours' and 'red' are synonymous.
No.

 

[DaveC426913]

You haven't given any sign you know what you're talking about and have so far dodged my question "how do you define critical thinking." What's so hard about this? You're the one always touting it. Tell us what it is.

You treat this like you have the right to demand answers to your questions, and that it is somehow our responsibility to educate you in something you admittedly don't know about.

And when you don't like what you hear, you will haul out your epithets troll and liar.

Why would anyone choose to help you?

Sure, we can discuss things as much as we want, but let's make no mistake, the prosecution reserves the right to treat the witness as hostile.

 

[Yazata]

For some time now I have suspected that the much lauded skill called "critical thinking" that is promoted by the online skeptic community is something of a myth

I don't think that it's a myth. Of course, I don't think that the self-styled 'skeptics' (are they a 'community'?) always represent the best examples of it.

The way I see it, critical thinking means avoiding informal fallacies, being aware of the unstated factual assumptions and implicit value judgments implicit in our own and other people's arguments, and stuff like that.

Even the most determined efforts to nail down what this term "critical thinking" actually means usually turn up with such generic vagaries and empty generalizations that one is left wondering why it was even invented in the first place. Wasn't just "thinking" good enough?

How about 'thinking well'?

It all seems to me a futile effort to moralize thinking into some objective procedure that only skeptics know how to perform.

Which presumes that the so-called 'skeptics' are better thinkers than their opponents. That shouldn't just be assumed as a given. It needs to received... critically.

"Pundits, skeptics, and the educators of America are largely convinced that belief in strange phenomena, illogical political choices, and all manner of social ills are the result of a generalized poverty in an elusive and ambiguously defined faculty called “critical thinking”, a phrase which has come to mean pretty much whatever we want it to mean, as long as you agree with me.

I agree that's oftentimes the case. It's a very tendentious rhetorical use of the phrase 'critical thinking' to suggest that 'I'm the brilliant one' while 'Anyone who disagrees with me isn't thinking properly'. Those are awfully strong (and self-serving) assumptions and they will need to be defended. Critical thought works both ways.

 

[Magical Realist]

You're using an argument based on a fallacy. If a implies b, logically b doesn't necessarily imply a.

No more a fallacy than you saying writing programs = using reason and logic because writing programs is an instance of using reason and logic.

You're using an argument based on a fallacy. If a implies b, logically b doesn't necessarily imply a.

I said you use reason and logic when you write programs (because you just do), in answer to your claim (post #41) about not using them objectively. Generally writing or designing software involves critical thinking, I believe (I think I'm not the only one who believes that).

How about designing an electronic circuit? Would you use reason and logic if you were doing that? Or just connect a bunch of components together as the mood takes you? Or perhaps you're saying that using reason and logic together somehow precludes actually doing anything?

'

I don't think following any procedure of memorized steps is actually using reasoning. And it's certainly not critical thinking as I see it defined. I think it is repeating actions you have learned and matching what you do to the dictates of the problem you are trying to solve. What is being reasoned about there? What judgments or factual data are being used? You might as well be a monkey solving a block puzzle.