Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
So did I. Just answer my question.
The Myth of Critical Thinking
- Thread starter Magical Realist
- Start date
So did I. Just answer my question.
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
You are not communicating in good faith.
I ask again - not because it will change what you do, but because it will be apparent to all reading this that, when actually presented with that which you claim to seek, you actually don't want it.
Do you see the logic in the following sentence:
A campfire means there will probably be heat; heat does not necessarily mean there is a campfire.
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
So far you have failed to answer two of my questions, which I have repeated many times in this thread. Don't preach to me about good faith communication..
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
The student telling his teachers what questions he wants answers to is not how learning works. That would fail miserably, since the student doesn't know what questions to ask.
The teachers will not spoonfeed. The teachers pose the questions to the student so that the student can use their own brain to solve the questions. That's how the student learns.
And yes, you have adopted the role of student:
and put the other participants in the role of teacher, by asking for clarification on what critical thinking is. It is up to us how best to answer that rather broad topic.
So, in the interest showing you a basic example, I ask a third time:
Do you see the logic in the following sentence:
A campfire means there will probably be heat; heat does not necessarily mean there is a campfire.
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
LOL! So the great teacher can't answer simple questions? Got it..Then don't expect any answers from me either.
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
Yours is not a simple question. There's courses devoted to the subject.
Mine is simply hour one of day one of class.
Don't fail out before lunch.
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
Is there only one kind of thinking? That's a pretty simple question.
Magical Realist said:
Why have you responded to the first sentence I posted, and said nothing about the rest? The rest of my post indicates that you do know how to think critically, you say you would research something a teacher told you.
But you want to go back off the track and thrash your agenda. You want an answer that seems contradictory and you haven't seen it yet.
You have to engage in dishonest discussion towards this end. Well, sod that.
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
I respond to whatever I feel like. Get over it. This is my thread. You're not going to derail it with your boring 3 page hypotheticals..
You know where the exit door is..
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I learnt to swim and to dive from the high board doing a triple twist with pike and half turn pirouette while playing the trumpet from reading about it
Nailed it first time I tried
Does that count as critical thinking?
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
He hasn't suddenly forgotten. He has a chip on his shoulder about science (something to do with his career if I recall correctly) and has made it his mission in life to annoy scientists. So it's all quite deliberate. Pity, as he is not a fool, clearly. Or not a complete one. He reminds me rather of Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged.
(I now confidently expect howls of synthetic outrage, and reports to be made. So be it.)
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
Methinks the ladies doth complain too much..
Strange that I haven't even mentioned science in this thread...and still I'm the enemy of science.
Strange that I haven't even mentioned science in this thread...and still I'm the enemy of science.
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It's any popular expectation or presupposition out there -- that critical thinking either is or should be "one thing with one meaning" -- which would be the actual myth. A belief that the expression references a precise region of systematic cerebration or course of action. Rather than it being an umbrella concept or group-label for a range of processes / skills which may be discipline-specific sometimes.
CT usually does indicate a restrictive set of philosophic orientations / stances, standards, and rigors falling out of the history of Western intellectual development. Which is to say, though general, the term does not liberally subsume all cultural claims and prescriptions of what "regulated thinking / organizing" slash "judgmental examination" is either today or in the past (around the world). Yet to point this very thing out would probably seem eccentric, since the "tool-kit" (within the dominance of its vast sphere) would not deem any competent rivals to be present on the landscape or horizon (or perhaps even possible).
At the broad level CT generically features items like reasoning, competence at analyzing / evaluating arguments and complex texts according to established criteria; the ability to assume and defend a stance about a topic; employing orderly procedures to collect and assemble evidence, form and support conclusions; etc. But when narrowing down to immediate instances of its employment... Again, some aspects attributed to it may become more magnified and refined in certain disciplines than in others, and may acquire quirks and twists more unique to those individual turfs.
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
As a student, you are not in the position of asking. By your own admission, you don't know about the thread topic so you can't know what to ask.
Start a new thread about "is there only one kind of thinking". This thread is about you trying to learn what critical thinking is.
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
You don't decide what or whether I ask. I decide that. And since you won't answer it, I'm assuming you want to be ignored for trolling again. Done..
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DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
No, you don't. Unless you can time travel. You admitted you don't know what it is, and already asked.
It's just not the simple question and answer you think it is. It takes learning.
I am not trolling and you know it full well. You ignore people when you have lost an argument.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_thinking
Small extract
Critical thinking was described by Richard Paul as a movement in two waves (1994).[1]The "first wave" of critical thinking is often referred to as a 'critical analysis' that is clear, rational thinking involving critique. Its details vary amongst those who define it. According to Barry K. Beyer (1995), critical thinking means making clear, reasoned judgments. During the process of critical thinking, ideas should be reasoned, well thought out, and judged.[2] The National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking[3] defines critical thinking as the "intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action."[4]
Check the link
If you don't understand the information on the link you are not thinking critically enough about critical thinking
Bells
Staff member
Well, truth be told, you haven't exactly presented an argument for him to lose..
To date, only a few people have attempted to actually discuss "critical thinking". No one has been able to give a definition.
Which is kind of the point of this thread, don't you think?
Critical thinking is not something that is set in stone. It is subjective. And this thread astonishes me, because given today's political climate, no one has been able to even apply it to that. Instead, you appear to be focused on pixies for some bizarre reason and others intent on simply doing god knows what.
The irony is that in arguing that he lacks critical thinking skills, everyone else has shown just how much of it they lack.
One of the interesting displays in this thread has been your own perceived role as a teacher or educator of sorts... But you cannot even define "critical thinking" as you see it or define it for yourself.. So either you don't know, or you aren't exactly a "teacher".
From his OP:
Skeptics deny all of it. Yet, they support scientific research into things like trying to discover alien life forms? Science is trying to determine why people see a white light when they die, for example. There are studies that showed that some people do experience the whole 'life flashing before their eyes' at the time of their death, and posit that it is the brain's death throw of sort. There are scientific studies on people having out of body experiences. But we are told that if one applies critical thinking, none of this is actually possible. But studies show just how it is possible. Just as studies are starting to see why people see ghosts, for example and other strange phenomena that skeptics who demand critical thinking and deny it is even possible.. But people do experience these things and there are possibly scientific reasons to explain why. But those who deny it because of what they deem to be critical thinking, deny it is even possible.
People do have these experiences and it isn't for lack of critical thinking. One study proved this in a fairly astonishing way:
Researchers blindfolded their test subjects and placed them between two robots. Participants were then instructed to reach forward and make a motion on the robot sensor in front of them. When they did, the robot behind them mimicked the same motion on the participant’s back at the exact same time, in a loop of sorts. This was a little strange — imagine how it feels to rub your hand, but then feel the rubbing on your knee — but it only got spooky once they slightly delayed the reaction between the robots. “That replicated the effect of a lesion in those areas of the brain that integrate your own body signals,” Rognini says.
When the researchers tweaked the timing, respondents claimed it felt as if some other presence was touching them. Others claimed it felt as though the room was now full of people, rather than the few researchers who were actually present. (Again, respondents were blindfolded during the act.) A few were so freaked out by the “ghostly presence” that they asked to end the test.
When they crunched the data to see what parts of the patients’ brains were firing during these lab-created FoP episodes, researchers saw activity in three areas of the central cortex that deal with visual input, memories, and perception. “These areas give you representation of your body,” Rognini says. “They give you the [feeling] that you are a specific body.” When that sensory process is fudged, your brain makes the assumption that there’s someone else in the room with you.
When the researchers tweaked the timing, respondents claimed it felt as if some other presence was touching them. Others claimed it felt as though the room was now full of people, rather than the few researchers who were actually present. (Again, respondents were blindfolded during the act.) A few were so freaked out by the “ghostly presence” that they asked to end the test.
When they crunched the data to see what parts of the patients’ brains were firing during these lab-created FoP episodes, researchers saw activity in three areas of the central cortex that deal with visual input, memories, and perception. “These areas give you representation of your body,” Rognini says. “They give you the [feeling] that you are a specific body.” When that sensory process is fudged, your brain makes the assumption that there’s someone else in the room with you.
The kicker and one that no one seems to have been able to address is this bit and this falls back to your declaring you are educating him:
They pursue it, without being able to define it. Children are not taught it at school. But they are somehow expected to know what it is and apply it? How does that work, exactly?
If you cannot define it, how can you educate others to define it or apply it? How can you teach others anything about critical thinking, when there isn't really any framework to base it on?
Which goes to the whole subjective nature of critical thinking and the problem that the author quoted in the OP was actually explaining.
Actually, no it isn't.
The quoted passage in the OP pretty explains the issue with "critical thinking" and how few are actually able to define it, let alone teach it. And you and others kind of proved that point for what? 6 pages now? Which would be hysterically funny if it wasn't so tragic.
Not only was I able to, Bells, I actually gave a few definitions in my Post #36 - here they are again :
- "Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action."
- "Critical thinking is self-guided, self-disciplined thinking which attempts to reason at the highest level of quality in a fair-minded way. People who think critically consistently attempt to live rationally, reasonably, empathically. They are keenly aware of the inherently flawed nature of human thinking when left unchecked. They strive to diminish the power of their egocentric and sociocentric tendencies. They use the intellectual tools that critical thinking offers – concepts and principles that enable them to analyze, assess, and improve thinking. They work diligently to develop the intellectual virtues of intellectual integrity, intellectual humility, intellectual civility, intellectual empathy, intellectual sense of justice and confidence in reason. "
- "In a seminal study on critical thinking and education in 1941, Edward Glaser defines critical thinking as follows “The ability to think critically, as conceived in this volume, involves three things: ( 1 ) an attitude of being disposed to consider in a thoughtful way the problems and subjects that come within the range of one's experiences, (2) knowledge of the methods of logical inquiry and reasoning, and (3) some skill in applying those methods. "
- all three of the ^above^ quoted from, and much more at Link : http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/defining-critical-thinking/766
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DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
If one reads up on a few definitions, one finds they are so general that they will hurt more than help. Most of them simply talk about being open-minded - which is harmful when abused. And MR will be all over that.
It's a subject requiring nuance. I've been trying repeatedly to start with simple, obvious examples.
No. The point of this thread is to cast it as a myth. It says so.
MR has made it explicit that he is not actually interested in learning about critical thinking; he is interested in denying it. Having been presented with some very basic questions as examples, he has refused to respond because he knows they will weaken his case.
Then again I haven't exactly made it a safe space.
It has been troubling me how far into a bickering war I've allowed myself to get, and I don't see it as being constructive. I will take a step back, and perhaps make it a little easier for this thread to gain some traction. Who knows, maybe it will evolve into something more than a denialist diatribe.