Human Governance and Critical Thinking, Part 2

Today's follow up is on yesterday's post, Human Governance and Critical Thinking, Part 1, which was a brief interview on how cognitive bias affects rational decision making. This followup will discuss components of critical thinking.

The first step in any critical thinking process is to understand one’s own personal biases. Holding a bias is not a bad thing in itself, and there are evolutionary reasons that humans developed the “use” of bias in thinking. However, being aware of personal bias can provide a warning light when evaluating evidence that contradicts that bias.

There are several models of the critical thinking process, and a student should familiarize themselves with several in order to determine which method works most efficiently with their own thinking process. However, there is not a single “best” method, and critical thinking can be accomplished without the use of a model. Some models are the Toulmin Model, the Paul-Elder Model, and IDEALS.

There are also methods I have personally used that aren’t formally recognized models of critical thinking. You may have developed (or will develop) or read about your own methods.

The first method I often use to evaluate information is the A-1 matrix. Once upon a time, military intelligence evaluated information on a 2 factor scale; A-E was the range for the reliability of a source, with a score of A representing the most trusted source; 1-5 was the range for the likelihood that the information was accurate, with a score of 1 indicating that the intelligence had been corroborated with another source( so if you got a report that a German tank division was running amok in Chicago during WWII, you would judge that to be a 5, not a likely event).

The other method I use is triangulation of data. For example, I take the information that possibly biased source “A” gives me in reference to source “C”, and the information that possibly biased source “B” in reference to source “C”; I then compare how that information matches to the material that “C” presents. Doing so allows me to judge the reliability of that source, and often can illuminate the bias that affected the presentation of the data. This was a method used by Panamanian dictator Torrijos.

Critical thinking can be improved by study in the following subjects: scientific method, logic, and statistics. Each method has it's own weaknesses.

Well it proves one thing, Mr. Hooper. It proves that you wealthy college boys don't have the education enough to admit when you're wrong - Quint, Jaws

Personally, I liked the university. They gave us money and facilities, we didn't have to produce anything! You've never been out of college! You don't know what it's like out there! I've worked in the private sector. They expect results - Dr. Raymond Stantz, Ghostbusters

The scientific method itself is subject to bias, so beware of using any given study too much unless that data or the conclusion that you want to present has been evaluated using critical thinking of your own. Problems that affect the scientific and academic communities include replicability, the hesitance of journals to publish studies which do not find positive results, the question of institutional bias towards liberal/leftist positions, the funding of studies, and groupthink. In addition, you should consider Karl Popper’s philosophy of science, and the concept of falsification. Finally, in areas of human interaction such as justice or conflict, there are usually more variables that can be accounted for, so a study that cannot fully account for all other variables may not be reliable.

Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding - Ambrose Bierce. Art, Thinking, Reasoning

Logic is dependent on evidence to reach conclusions; data and statistics can be misrepresented (see suggested reading). Logic is also subject to logical fallacies. A logical fallacy can be looked at like it is a math equation using the wrong math operator, like “plus” or “minus”. So a logical fallacy is a logic equation that is made using the wrong operator for the situation. It should be noted that logical fallacies are often used intentionally to be dishonest about an argument. A critical thinker should know what general types of logical fallacy (formal versus informal) there are as well as knowing how specific logical fallacies are used.

I will introduce three logical fallacies, but you should research how many fallacies there are, the types of fallacies, and how to recognize them.

• Anecdotal fallacy – This fallacy uses a personal experience to make a judgement on a a situation as a whole; if the experience is an outlier (see this term in statistics), then the personal experience will cause an error in judgement.
• Fallacy of the inverse – This fallacy is shown in the following, “If A, then B. A is not tue, therefore B is not true.” The problem here is that B may have other reasons to be other than A. For this not to be a fallacy, the statement would have to be “If and only if A, then B. A is not true, therefore B is not true.”
• Binary thinking – This is also known as a false dilemma. This fallacy limits options in choices, and ignores other possibilities. An example is the gun control argument that if guns are banned, then terrorists can't make mass casualty attacks. There are obviously other means for mass casualty attack such as bombs.

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics - Mark Twain , who attributed it to the Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli

What is statistics? Statistics is a mathematical approach to collecting and analyzing facts (data). It is used to understand the relationship of facts within a subject area of knowledge. Statistics will look at the whole of a group of subjects (the population), or a test group within a whole (the sample). The mathematical basis of statistics has shown that examining a sample can accurately make predictions about how the population will act or react to the same conditions the sample was put in. However, like everything else we have discussed so far, statistics are subject to bias in the way that facts are collected or analyzed, or presented.

Two concepts come from statistics that need to be known are the norm, and outliers. Without getting into the statistics course you should take, let's simplify. The norm is not a statistical term, but derives from normal distribution. It was surprising to me when I first studied statistics, but normal distribution, usually represented by the bell curve, is the phenoma in which during the measurement of a population, most results fall into the center of the measurement. There are fewer occurrences of more extreme measures the farther from the center one gets. This results in a range in which most occurrence with close to the same measurement fall. The range with the greatest number of occurrences can be looked at as the norm. The extreme occurrences are outliers. Outliers do not occur as much as instances within the norm, and are also referred to as deviating from the norm. However, you should note that normal and deviant are descriptions of frequency, and do not have inherent meanings of good or bad.

The more you understand of scientific method, of logic, and of statistics, the better your own critical thinking will become.

Other benefits of critical thinking include:

• Being able to present information in an orderly and coherent way
• Being able to integrate the data and conclusions of others into your own argument, in your own words (don’t forget to acknowledge sources!)
• Being in control of and responsible for your own learning.

Simply sitting in front of your TV or computer screen parroting politicians and journalists say provides you with few benefits, “Garbage in, garbage out” applies to humans as well as computers. If you do not possess the tools need to filter what comes into your brain, then you can’t account for what goes out of your mouth.

Tomorrow's installment will cover irrationality and stupidity. Here's a teaser...sometimes stupidity isn't as stupid as you think it is.