What Does Critical Thinking Mean To You?

Well, my own ideas on the subject would go something like this. We have a way, the best way, of answering factual questions. It's called the scientific method. If critical thinking is something different from this (as is suggested by it having a different name) it is awareness of the various pitfalls in thought that make us do something other than follow the scientific method.For example, the scientific method tells us to judge theories against reality. It does not explicitly tell us not to judge them by whether the originator of the theory was by our standards a good or bad man, that we shouldn't care whether Mendeleev was a bigamist, Haldane was a communist, Newton was a weasel, Huxley was a racist, Turing was a homosexual. Critical thinking does explicitly tell us that, it names the fallacy and explains why it's no good. The scientific method tells us how to reason well; critical thinking tells us how to spot when we (or others) are reasoning badly.

Well, that's a completely useless definition. Offer it to a Satanist, and he'll conclude that "critical thinking" includes all the reasoning that led him to have faith in Satan, and so he'll include (maybe, for example) listening to what Ouija boards tell him under that rubric.Or suppose, as you do, that Christianity is correct. Now suppose someone becomes a Christian because a Magic 8 Ball tells him to, he asks "Is Christianity correct?" and the oracle of the pool hall tells him "YES". Is that an exercise in critical thinking? It led him (you think) to have faith in the right things, but was he a critical thinker when he decided to put his faith in the 8 Ball?Or if someone dreams that he wins the lottery, so he buys a ticket, and then just happens to win, unlike all the other people who had a similar dream and bought losing ticket, is that critical thinking? Was it critical thinking when he did it, but not when all the people with losing tickets did exactly the same thing?If critical thinking means anything, it must be defined as a way of thinking, not by the outcome.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Yesterday I saw a flying pig.This story is the only evidence you have for flying pigs. Is it therefore stupid to dismiss it?

That leaves me uncertain as to what your answer would be if you gave one.

Well, the JREF tests people who submit themselves for testing. If no yogis submit themselves, then we must suppose either (a) that every yogi knows himself to be a fraud, and so is unwilling to submit himself for testing (b) that no yogi wants a million dollars, either for himself or to donate to the charity of his choosing, and that for some reason no yogi would want to demonstrate his powers under stringent conditions for the religious edification of mankind either, although they are perfectly willing to demonstrate them under conditions where fraud would go undetected.Now option (b) would be, if anything, more extraordinary than that they should actually have miraculous powers, wouldn't it? If you challenge a man to prove that he can do what he says he can, and offer him a million dollars if he can, and if it would be of vast importance to the whole human race to prove that he can --- then what possible consideration would stop him, except that he can't?If the JREF offered me a million dollars to prove my contention that I can juggle three balls, then although this claim has little significance it itself --- well, you'd better not stand between me and the guy who's offering me the money. If my juggling would in addition enlighten humanity as to some important question, then that would make me even keener to show off my talent.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

But in what way should you reserve your judgement? Should you say, until you've seen every corner of the planet --- which you can't --- that the existence of unicorns is 50:50?I think not. Suppose you were required to bet your life on the question of whether or not there are unicorns (with your inquisitor being some sort of omniscient daemon who actually knew the answer). Would you toss a coin to decide how to answer? Or would you say "There are no unicorns?"So how exactly do we go about reserving judgement?

So ... if asked whether unicorns exist, you consider that you should and would answer "I don't know"?

Oh, I'm sure we haven't looked everywhere. People do, after all, keep finding new species, which suggests that they haven't looked everywhere yet.And I took that to be what you were saying yourself in post #176.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Well, we haven't.

What do you mean, "everywhere"?It was only a few years back that scientists found the first underwater mushrooms. They'd looked at a lot of rivers, but clearly they hadn't looked everywhere. Int the first place, that's a generalization based on only on all the horse-like mammals you know about, and in the second place unicorns are magic. Well of course they're extinct in Eurasia now, but not before crossing the Bering Land Bridge, heading south and over the Isthmus of Panama, and hiding in the Amazon rain forest, behind some of the trees you haven't looked behind.