We Desperately Need Critical Thinking

in dtube •  7 years ago 


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

I think it's highly important for 2018 as people stand to loose a lot of money if they don't think critically enough about what they are actually investing in!

yes dear you are right seen a lot of people specially in #bitcoin

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.

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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.

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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!

Critical thinking is very important. It starts with using basic common sense and some people fail to use it.

Critical Thinkng is very important for growing a good personilty.Human Brain is one of the complex thing in world.

I would love to watch those miniseries david. I hope to hear more from you buddy

I blame the rampant religiosity in America.
If you grow up in a society where belief without evidence (faith) is lauded, where any findings ( irrespective of the evidence supporting them) that disagree with religious teachings must be rejected out of hand and any questioning of dogma is actively discouraged......well, you get intellectually uncritical citizens.

Many things can be turned into a religion. When someone gets fixated on a belief and believes they are right and the rest of the world is wrong while leaving little possibility that they could be wrong about some things then they can effectively turn almost anything into the same type of mess as religion.

I know "atheists" who as far as I'm concerned worship the state. They treat certain people in the state like priests, and saints who can do no wrong and sometimes effectively have shrines to them in their homes.

I know people that can treat science like a religion, when one of the most important aspects of the scientific methods is to ask questions, and continually challenge everything. It can become a point where they talk about consensus and they hit people that challenge them with Appeal To The Stone Fallacies and basically making challenge and questioning a taboo thing. At that point it is more religion than it is science. It is certainly NOT the scientific method. Asking questions is ALWAYS a good thing in science. That doesn't mean the question is always a good one. :)

So we must all be vigilant. If we become hardened and so certain of any position then we risk turning it into something akin to a religion.

Yeah, and you can thank that for TV ads that thank the president for ending the war on Christmas. You know, that war.... If you're interested in seeing the commercial, I posted it here: https://steemit.com/politics/@theinsideout/new-tv-ad-thanks-trump-for-ending-the-war-on-wait-for-it-xmas

Ironically, Trump never said Merry Christmas in any of his tweets.

SAD!

Not really. Since it is not true. ;) I was curious and did a quick Google and DuckDuckGo search. Both showed such a tweet. So you don't need to be sad anymore.

Google is pretty easy to use.

EDIT: Correction I did this search on DuckDuckGo. For all I know Google may make such things more difficult to find since they too are on the anti-Trump bandwagon.

Let's see...

NOPE... turns out it is the first search result there too. Don't repeat everything someone else tells you. Look before you leap. :)

I conducted a search on Yahoo, to bring a third search engine into the mix, and I stand corrected. My apologies for getting snookered by a fake news story.

No problem my friend. It happens to ALL of us at points. It says a lot about your character that you can admit when it happens. ;)

I have honestly never seen the logic behind continuing to support a point that has been refuted and thank you for the compliment.

Yeah, but that expression on his face.

I am not one of those idiots that tries to find anything to bash they can from something he does. I think the fixation with how he drinks water during a speech is moronic and petty. I also think fixating on how he dumped food into Koi was pretty damn stupid too. Yet for the past year that seems to be the lame excuse for entertainment that keeps some people breathing.

An expression on a face can look pretty stupid on any of us with cameras. I often see weird ones when I pause a video. It is odd that he would choose to tweet that image though. I often think he does that stuff to bait people. They waste so much effort looking at petty things to complain about him and don't pay attention to what he may or may not be doing that actually matters.

I completely agree with this comment and even if he hadn't of said "Merry Christmas" it is not that big of a deal to me. Although, it would have been ironic.

Religion isn't the root cause. Apathy is. You can find people who don't bother to think in any group, not specifically in religion. Theologists can be some of the smartest people you'll meet and most are excellent critical thinkers. Minds like Jordan Peterson are genius and worth listening to to develop better thinking skills.

That's true. I agree with you. We really need critical thinking in every day life.

A course on producing and identifying cogent arguments would be beneficial to many people, especially those that haven't had the opportunity to learn such material

agree with you i lose many thing due to lack of CT

I'm thinking that people who seek out independent media may already have a certain level of critical thinking skills. (tooting my own horn) I feel the lessons of CT would be better absorbed by an audience who has yet to engage with you, or independent media.
What is the plan to reach those people?

So try not to preach to choir?

*Choir. Love you!

It really starts with education. You can't rely on teaching critical thinking skills to people who are already adults with set views (We should still absolutely try to do this too, but...) it's more important to teach this skills to children or teenagers, because then people can begin to engage with knowledge in a more dynamic way, where we can share information, argue perspectives, and develop a smarter generation for the future. Many schools are already having kids participate in Socratic Seminars, or small group discussions where they are asked to think about a topic from multiple perspectives, or to defend their own opinions. Kids. 13 year olds. I have four step sisters who've gone through that stuff in school, and they didn't enjoy it much, but I feel it's helped them to learn better CT skills.

Wowww, that will be great. Looking forward to seeing those mniseries on critical thinking in 2018 when its out all things being equal.

Thaaank you!!!! We need less simple minded people in this world haha

Basic Thinking is an area general reasoning expertise. The capacity to think obviously and soundly is vital whatever we do. On the off chance that you work in training, investigate, fund, administration or the lawful calling, at that point basic reasoning is clearly imperative. Be that as it may, basic reasoning aptitudes are not confined to a specific branch of knowledge. Having the capacity to think well and take care of issues methodicallly is a benefit for any vocation.
Good post my brother!

Nice one friend. Like your summation.

Understanding thinking and reasoning skills can really help prepare you for any job, you're absolutely right. Even in academia, or production, or agriculture, really anything.

how critical are critical thinking? do certain culture of thinking dominates the concept of critical thinking? how it responsive is CT to other culture?

Hi @fahrul - to my mind real CT works as close to reality as possible and is therefore blind to culture. Cultures are inherited views shared by members of communities and only critical thinking can help you discern what is true and what is not.

A wonderful new year to you!

Screen Shot 2017-12-29 at 10.46.07 PM.png

Critical thinking, that's something I can google right?

We need critical thinking because we are living in the most critical times in human history.

What makes now the most critical time in human history as opposed to the 1950s? As opposed to the 1850s? As opposed to the Renaissance? As opposed to the Middle Ages? As opposed to the Ice Age?

I don't know what specifically about our time now requires more critical thinking than any other time. It has always been important and will always be important.

Is there a steemit or steemit like community that resembles Youtube or D tube? I wonder if a platform like this will be the future of journalism. Critical thinking is usually influenced by the information an entity has processed. Most of the time I find having bad information to base our beliefs on is the biggest of issues thanks to mainstream media. Im new to this community if a platform already exists I am unaware.

well its something so important. critical thinking is something which gives people a base for thinking both positive and negative consequences and results. CT is not only to criticize something or talking negative about it. It means that you are able to understand the terms and you know the other side of the coin which is more important.

critical thinking is very important,human beings should start to like these in order to development.

Indeed! It is so necessary for us to possess these essential characteristic to become more humane. Why so? This trait will lead to decisions which will be beneficial not only unto us but to the greater good.

@davidpakman
Thank you for this..
CT is an important course.

Society has lost memory of the ultimate purpose of education.

The first purpose of Education is to teach students how to learn.

The second is to develop a love of continuous learning.

.

critical thinking is indeed very important

valuable information for many people just getting into the crypto rollercoaster, steemit is a good place to learn I think, you have a chance to earn without taking out a second mortgage to speculate on this volatile market haha great post @davidpakman

This is an important subject. I will watch out for it in 2018. Thanks for this.

Of course we need critical thinking but the TV has programmed the populace to accept a politically correct hive mind where you cannot question the narrative. If you do, you are dismissed as a conspiracy theorist. The worst offenders are the comedians of today.

very nice photo

its is inportant i experience that base population but does not have any critical thinking it start with rebounce on oneself

good post, thanks for sharing the story

Awesome idea! Most people do not possess the proper critical thinking and problem solving skills to be successful and happy. I teach kids at the high school level and am huge on them using their brains to analyze!!!

I’d be interested in it if it were free and each segment were like 15 minutes long.

Cool I would have loved to have a CT module at uni! Especially one which would really go back to the roots of CT, the Frankfurt School (and so briefly covering Kant, Marx etc along the way). Going back to the FF School means covering some of the basics, especially the subjet-object dichotomy, which are essential to grasping the movements of a critical mind.

Other useful resources to tap into could be papers on reflexivity. These draw on a slightly different ontology, but nonetheless present good resources for researchers wanting to be more critical of their work and would be something to cover later on in a course.

What programme do you teach? And what is your take so far on structuring a CT minicourse?

Very nice article :)

Critical thinking skills are sorely missed today. Memorization is prized over reasoning. I'm not always right but critical thinking has saved my hide on a number of occasions. Unfortunately, expressing thoughts derived from logic and critical thinking can get you labeled as crazy. Actually, a lot of people simply don't like to be challenged to think.

Very nice article :)

I agree, and I think there is a lack of Logic as well. Not sure how many Logic classes are offered these days, but those classes have been helping me my whole life.

"Critical Thinking" is (at least nowadays) being taught at colleges like MSU Moorhead in Minnesota, as a required aspect of some classes, but it is not (at least I don't believe) available as a course in and of itself.

I think when it comes to CT, people need to understand what it means to be introspective, and retrospective, in order to better understand their place in the world and in history. Everyone is capable of thinking, and of contributing great ideas, even people who don't believe in themselves. In the future I plan to teach Philosophy classes, and I'd love my students to have at least gone through a primer on what it means to think, and to figure things out piece by piece.

When I was a kid and I didn't know how to pronounce a word, I'd ask my dad. He'd always tell me to sound it out, so I learned to work through the word carefully and figure out for myself how it should sound based on my understanding of the English language. I think this self-reliance is a good way to teach people how to learn. Try to work it out on your own first, ask questions, evolve your understanding, and learn.

Bgood post. Thank you

@davidpakman You upload always good content. I like also D'tube.
Just help me to give up my account.Thanks
Hope you will help me.Waiting for your answer!!..
@oliviaalexa

No, I have no critical thoughts about this...

💙 Great post. Very good writing,i like this post 💙

       🎅 Thanks for Sharing  🎅

OpenMusic Merry Christmas.jpg

yes. critical thinking is indeed important for it's someone's ability to think clearly and rationally on what to do or what to believe. thanks for this post. by the way i am a minnow here. so getting some inspirations from others posts as well. thanks!

Hello, what a great article, it is very well detailed, it must have taken a lot of time, right?
You deserve to be more popular on the steemit platform because your work provided and exciting and very impressive;)
Nice to meet you, my new friend.
I hope you can go see my content on my blog;) and you give your opinion, ok?
https://steemit.com/@m47test
Have a good day ;)

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I agree with the critical importance (no pun intended) of this topic. Critical thinking skills are foundational to the advancement and even safety of our democracy. The topic is elusive though with the push for inter-dependence and peer/world collaboration as an idea that we all must get on the same page. This has been a false premise of a healthy society, in my opinion that has done us no favors. We have a need to get back to critical thinking as a cornerstone of our education system! You are doing us all a favor to explore this topic further!

Critical thinking must absolutely be constant in all of us. Young students need more class time devoted to CT. Public schools should devote more time restructuring toward relevance.

This drove me down memory lane, Critical thinking should an apt attention in our present tense. I've had a personal experience which I hope to share soon.

I view critical thinking more as a conversational process rather than something to be instructed on. Regardless of that I would encourage it. The methodology to teach critical thinking isn't exactly difficult (really just the Socratic method) so I don't see why you would need 12 parts, but it is certainly absent in our culture.

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2018 is going to be a great year especially in the world economy with the advent of a lot of crisis and natural disaster but am optimistic and hopeful... However, i know a critical reasoning strategy will do loads of help while navigating through this road called 2018.

So David, bring on the episodes the world is waiting on you!

Critical thinking is a great life skill that should be fostered at all levels, unfortunately it has become a bit of a dirty word to some people.

I have been working in high schools for the past 5 years and critical thinking is not taught enough!

It's a must!! Especially in the day and age of mass information. It's how we grow as a society!

Great article. I took critical thinking class when I attended University of Phoenix a few years ago and on the very first day of class my teacher said if anyone can give me the correct definition of the word "bias" I will give you an "A" in this class. No one got it right....can anyone guess what my
teacher's answer was?

most people have never been educated to think for themselves but have instead undergone indoctrination and conditioning protocols, hence the degraded circumstances of the world community
critical thinking is essential for us all to learn and develop-yes to your series!

Very nice post, thank you for giving me the post, for the beautiful post, I resteem the writing for this, always request this kind of information....thanks

Wow...the davidpakman show,this is very good.

Yes, very good point. Critical thinking is important to grow and develop the urge to improve oneself.

Really this us extreamly important thinking most of people does not have critical thinking and this is wrost

good post. I like. if you can know which person I want to follow your trail. happy to follow you. please log in my blog

Do it!

I am on it! So true...

Common sense isn't so common nowadays.

Hello I'm new here and I am always looking for new perspectives on everything. Especially those around thoughts, psychology, and the human mind in general. Very interesting stuff how the human psyche can be so easily manipulated. Only those smart enough to see it can break free of the flock.

I know.. that you know.. that... DAUUUMMM... You've got an uphill battle here, getting people to just think is a challenge in itself let alone getting them to do it critically and/or logically lol. But I'm pulling for you and I'll keep an eye out for your miniseries. I had to write that word out all the way cause it just looked funny saying I'd keep an eye out for your mini. .

Told you it looks funny. .

super article

Critical thinking is mainly useful when you're trying to fulfill a specific objective or solve a clearly defined problem. Thoughts that produce tangible results and lead to insights that produce tangible results are the ones that hold the most value

Excelente noticia, las personas tienen que mejorar y corregirse para vivir cada día mejor

I was born with that disease I think - has had me in trouble all my life!

Congratulations @davidpakman!
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Nice post @davidpakman

amazing, greetings know ya.upvote me too

good words u write amazing article

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That's a good idea, we need to be deprogrammed from the brainwashing we received in the government indoctrination camps.

Critical Thinking is BS we need Lateral Thinking

The simple believes everything, but the prudent gives thought to his steps. Proverbs 14:15
But test everything; hold fast what is good. 1 Thessalonians 5:21

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...

I work on Upwork.com as a mechanical engineer and some jobs advertised there are for completing college projects and assignments. Seems a few young people are lazy and lack critical thinking abilities to solve problems. Which is sad because humans have a wonderful gift to be creative and invoke inspiration from creativity. Critical thinking forms the basis for the thought process.

good upload, as always

Let's do it!
I'm re-igniting my own critical thinking show : my proposal:
You take a PRO position, and I'll take a CONTRA -- we can start with global warming.
You game?

I agree. We desperately need it.

I would say that we need overhauling of our education system from the very base to stimulate critical thinking in the fresh minds.

This is captivating post, i look forward to see more of you, these because there is power in information.