Critical Thinking
One of the things your Church & Society Committee has talked about frequently is the need for each of us to cultivate the ability to Think Critically. In an age where we are exposed to “spin” on a regular basis, in advertising, politics, news and even religion, we all need to sharpen our Critical Thinking ability. We are all faced with important issues and thinking about them critically becomes more important as the stakes involved are raised to new levels.
Here are some suggestions from an article in the Washington Post, July 7th issue. The eight elements of critical thinking as listed by psychologists Carole Wade and Carol Tavris are:
- Ask questions, be willing to wonder.
- Define your problem correctly.
- Examine the evidence.
- Analyze assumptions and biases.
- Avoid emotional reasoning.
- Don’t oversimplify.
- Consider other interpretations.
- Tolerate uncertainty.
In addition, here are some questions we all need to ask when someone voices an opinion as fact:
- How do you know that?
- What’s the evidence for that?
- What do you really mean when you say that?
- Here’s the implication of that claim.
- Here’s the danger you get into if you try to generalize that claim and apply it to everyone.
Things to think about as we as a nation face critical decisions nationally and internationally.
