On Critical Thinking

"Keep an open mind - but not so open that your brains fall out." - James Oberg

“Critical thinking: The process of thinking carefully about a subject or idea, without allowing feelings or opinions to affect you.” - Cambridge dictionary

In this day and age of constant "alt" (and even mainstream) media vying for attention with their heady buzzword tag lines and alluringly titled essays it's even MORE important that we stay grounded in evidence and facts (and indeed ANY entity seeking our attention). “But my favorite media source claims to be a media outsider with inside information? This means they MUST be true and honest, right?" Unfortunately that does not automatically follow. There are snake oil salesmen out there that only want your clicks and precious seconds and have no interest in truth or accuracy, and will do whatever they can to obtain it. It's an open "arms race" for every second of your time because clicks and time drive sales and emotion drives clicks. That battle means that there is increasingly LESS focus on the Truth and more on emotionally driven headlines. Blatant lies are passed off as truth with the assumption that it won’t be fact checked. “Satire” is given an ever more accepting nod and greenlights increasingly subtle pieces until even otherwise careful readers are fooled….the blasé reader long since having believed the latest falsehood.

To combat this rising tide of distraction and misdirection I recommend becoming familiar with the laundry list of logical fallacies so that you can spot them in your day to day readings. Learn to spot emotional writing and bias and how to sort through and separate facts vs opinions. Take a course in critical thinking skills (if such a thing exists anymore) and BE CRITICAL. Question everything, the truth DOES still matter. Seek to validate what you disagree with, and invalidate that which you believe. This is the essence of questioning everything.

It’s an easy thing to question and fact check something you don’t agree with or you don’t understand, but what about something you DO agree with? Why should you call into question information that aligns with your preconceived notions of truth? This is even MORE important to do because truth should be the goal, not confirmation bias. The act - when applied with scrupulousness - of questioning what you think IS true helps keep you grounded and less corruptible, it’s a sort of “zeroing” of bias that must be done regularly.

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" - Carl Sagan

What types of sources should be approached with caution? A piece that does not contain the sources by which they wrote the article should be passed over. If the source links backtrace to the same website it should be avoided. If provided, check them. A statement loaded with logical fallacies can still be true but the source must then be called into even greater question. This requires due diligence and work on your part to validate or invalidate the claim. Be demanding when it comes to sources and the quality of those sources. Be willing to be wrong. The honest drive for TRUTH should be your goal, not simply a bias that confirms what you WANT to hear and believe. Don't fall into emotional language and buzzwords yourself - you help no one when you reduce yourself to that. The more fantastic the claim the more thorough the writing and “cleaner” the sources should be.

What types of sources should be given heed to, then? The BEST types of sources are scientific “white papers” or actual studies that can be read and self interpreted; these are least likely to contain emotional language but can still have bias in their results: question the application of the scientific method. Court records and transcripts are usually reliable but are prone to human input error. Usually. If sources cite each other or you end up in a loop of links and confusion or in a Bias Rabbit Hole (multiple layers of increasingly or equally biased sources all citing and linking each other)...it may be time to discount the claim or do further Google searching via a fresh search string. Being mindful of bias and spin will help you parse emotion out of a story. As an example: A piece critical of conservatives by a conservative source may have more overall credibility than one critical of liberals by the same source since the bias is not as present. It has its own pitfalls and should not be taken at face value either, though, as a self critical piece can still be prone to understatement and obfuscation. Well written and well sourced claims try to cite well and remove emotion and fallacy from their writing.

The more volatile or surprising the claim the more attentive to the facts the source must be. Keep an open mind to truth no matter what it is....but not so open that your brains fall out. Here are a few positive and negative examples of bias and spin in the media that I’ve found:

http://www.mediabiasfactcheck.com is an excellent START for determining the bias and truthfulness of a source. I have not yet determined their OWN bias but their methodology seems thorough so for NOW it’s the most helpful in that endeavor that I've found. They identify biases, attempt to ascertain factual content, and address the density of emotional language in a source.

Fox, CNN, MSNBC, and the other mainstream media outlets are all examples of highly emotional and biased sources, avoid when possible….you ARE entering the spin zone despite what Bill OReilly tells you!

The Associated Press is the least emotional most fact oriented reporting agency and what most draw from for a breaking story. Not always accurate, for sure, but the least interested in spin. This is what is usually sourced and referred to by MSM as "The AP".

Snopes should be utilized for pop culture or low importance checks and never for politics or science (there are better scientific fact checking options).

These are just a few positive and negative examples for perspective. Remember, emotional language can still be accurate in fact, but credibility as an impartial fact reporter is lost. Words that seek to drive up emotion or “click bait” titles and taglines are indicators of a less than pristine source.

Seek Truth….not confirmation of assumption.

-Ronin!