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Author | Topic: What Does Critical Thinking Mean To You? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
I deny Him. I don't believe He ever existed. By your logic, I must be on the wrong road.
Not everyone on the right road needs to be outwardly religious but the fact is that if my particular belief is right and that Jesus is in fact the way to know God, Nobody on the right road would deny Him, though some may choose to simply behave and do good without the religious professions and theatrics. Phat writes:
You yourself admit that there is no evidence for your beliefs, don't you? So the question should really be, "Is it okay NOT to deny or ignore them if there's no evidence for them?"
Is it ok to deny or ignore them? Only if after examining all available evidence you honestly conclude that there is nothing to accept nor deny.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
RAZD writes:
Sometimes it's necessary to make a decision when no significant evidence points either way. You might not want to call it "critical thinking" but you still have to make the decision. In such cases, no monsters is the default position.
Is it really critical to make such a decision when no evidence points either way?
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
RAZD writes:
Worldview beliefs don't always apply. If you come to a fork in the road you have to make a choice. The bridge might be out on one road but with no evidence one way or the other, the default position is that the bridge is okay.
The default position is your worldview beliefs: that will be the basis for any decision without clear answers, and it will not be critical thinking so much as blind reaction.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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Catholic Scientist writes:
You can be as critical as you like. Critical thinking is not a magic wand that applies to every situation.
ringo writes:
you're not being critical of your thoughts. In such cases,
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Catholic Scientist writes:
I was responding to the question, "Is it really critical to make such a decision when no evidence points either way?" My point is that in some situations, critical thinking only takes you so far and then your default position, critically, is that absence of evidence is evidence of absence.
The question here is, when are you employing it and when are you not.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Catholic Scientist writes:
I think if you've considered all of the available evidence and looked into ways of obtaining more evidence, then there's no way to distinguish that methodology from critical thinking.
I don't think making a decision in the absence of evidence is thinking critically at all.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Catholic Scientist writes:
It is if all the available evidence is none.
If there's evidence available then it ain't an absence of evidence.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Take two possibilities, unicorns and hippos. You look for evidence for both. You find evidence for hippos and no evidence for unicorns. You conclude that hippos exist, based on the evidence. You conclude that unicorns don't exist, based on the evidence. How is one process critical thinking and the other not?
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Catholic Scientist writes:
Again, my original point was that sometimes you have to make a decision now based on the evidence you have now. ... you should reserve your judgement until you can find actual evidence of absence. The critical thinking process is the same even if you don't have the leisure to carry it through as far as you might like. It should always be an ongoing process. There is no point at which it magically becomes "critical thinking".
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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Phat writes:
Well, critical thought - whether atheistic or not - is based on evidence. Any thinking not based on evidence is automatically more likely to be delusional.
My theory is that you (ringo) have chosen to accept "no monsters" as your default position due to the fact that you regard religious theistic thinking as more delusional than atheistic critical thought.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Catholic Scientist writes:
I thought I did: You're at a fork in the road; the bridge might be out on one fork but you have no evidence one way or the other. You can't just park in the middle of the road forever. You have to make a decision.
Can you give me an example? Why not just not decide? Catholic Scientist writes:
I'd say that critical thinking requires looking for evidence. You don't necessarily have to find any.
... I still think that if you're not waiting until you have sufficient evidence, for whatever reason that you have to decide, then you're not really thinking critically.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
RAZD writes:
The topic is about what critical thinking means to me.
Again, this is your "default position" - your assumption\opinion\belief - based on your worldview, and not necessarily anyone else's default position.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Catholic Scientist writes:
How "horse-like" are they? They superficially resemble horses but how do we know their biology is horse-like? Maybe the heart of the Amazon is their ideal habitat.
Horse-like mammals can't survive in the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the heart of the Amazon, nor the middle of Antarctica.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Catholic Scientist writes:
Yes.
Are there mountain lions in Illinois? Honest question, I'd like to know.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Catholic Scientist writes:
What their intentions are or what our intentions should be have nothing to do with thinking critically about whether or not they exist.
Are they just "passing through", or should they be identified as a native species by the DNR?
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