What Does Critical Thinking Mean To You?

Delusion is also accepting things despite evidence to the contrary. How do you draw a line between Faith and delusion?I think critical thinking simply means examining the reason for your beliefs as well as examining your perceptions. Since our perceptions are colored by our experiences and prior adopted beliefs, challenging the evidence is simply not enough.

Because the definition is useless. To use the definition, we have to decide what is valid. and we have to acknowledge that at times we must act without complete information.Finally, critical thinking alone is not sufficient to lead to acceptance of only valid things.

There is still the garbage in/garbage out problem. And also the problem with factors that are purely or almost purely subjective.

I suggest that it interfered with critical thinking. Despite your best efforts, you do not have the ability to reject all of the garbage and all of the diamonds. And a subjective opinion may be the best you can do and that result might still be wrong. So it interferes, sometimes fatally with critical thinking reaching only valid results.

Really? Critical thinking means that you have no ability to reject anything not proven wrong? Because if that is the case, then I submit that nobody uses critical thinking.I don't have any personal knowledge of scientific testing to verify that poltergeists don't hide TV remotes or that toys don't talk when no humans are around. Not saying that the evidence is not there, but I don't know of it. But there is no point at which I am going consider the possibility that a spook stole the remote or decide that it's time to bug the kid's playroom.

What evidence can you cite demonstrating that there are no invisible poltergeists? I am not familiar with the evidence. Really? What about my experience from the 562 other times that I found the remote in the seat cushions or behind the couch? Shouldn't I look there first? What about the fact that I was always able to find the remote in some mundane place before someone told me the poltergeist story?I reject the idea that I would attribute something to magic after hearing an anecdote, when every other time, Fnet =ma, where the source of all F's was perfectly ordinary, perfectly accounted for the location of the missing remote. You should too.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

And I'm saying you are wrong. My experience before ever hearing about poltergeist is enough to dismiss them when I do hear about them and some things they are supposedly responsible for.And that's true even if the story is about the cause of lightening or cases of cholera even if I don't happen to know the real causes for either of those. That's also the case for leprechauns, and pink elephants, and it does not matter if the missing object is a remote or an electric sweater knitter. If the claim is that some mystical entity used magical means to hide the object from me, I won't just not accept the claim. I will dismiss them. My claim is that the dismissal is the critical thinking thing to do.

But it is not evidence about spooks or any entity that I've never heard of. If I see that the remote is not on the mantle piece, and before I can start looking, you swear to me that a poltergoose picked up the remote, I'm going to tell you to get off of the couch so I can look for the remote.Even if I don't find it there, I'm not going to pay any attention to your goose story. I'd be more likely to suspect you of dishonesty or pulling my leg, and I might even suspect that you moved the remote.What you seem to be arguing in the posts to which I am responding to is how I ought to react if I was a toddler. Under what other set of facts ought I to consider that the poltergeist story is possible correct, regardless if I've ever heard of them.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

So when people reject God only because there is no evidence for God, rather than because there is evidence against God, then that is not critical thinking?I don't buy that at all.

This is not how anyone actually thinks. If this thinking were actually the case, people would make preparations for what they would do if the bridge were out (such as leaving home hours early, bringing some food along, etc.).In fact, you do have an opinion about whether the bridge is there, and your opinion has a loose probability attached to it. If your understanding is that the probability of the bridge being gone is very low, then you'll act accordingly even if the penalty for being wrong is fairly high.

By a piece of paper with some squiggles, I understand you to refer to a map. A map is some evidence. I did not describe any evidence. What I discussed is what you use you make of evidence. Generally speaking we don't decide to rely on a bridge without assigning some probability to the bridge being there. If we thought there was a significant probability of the bridge being out, we'd make some allowances for that. I wish I'd said that. Oh wait... Saying "to a degree of scientific certainty" covers everything from maybe to near certainty. Perhaps you used one too many modifiers here?

Certainty is not required before forming an opinion.

Life requires that we act without complete information. When we are short of certainty, one logical approach is to access the probabilities and consequences for being right or wrong and to act even in the face of uncertainty. If critical thinking is in opposition to that thought process then critical thinking is useless. We form an opinion that man is an evolved primate and we teach such things to children without being 100 per cent certain. We plan to drive to work crossing that bridge tomorrow and we are not 100 per cent sure our car is going to start.