Critical Thinking Skills and Case Studies
“Critical thinking is an on-going concern with the problems inherent in human thinking. It leads to the historical art of analyzing and evaluating thinking with a view to improving it. It includes, but is not exhausted by the mental process of analyzing or evaluating information, particularly statements or propositions that people have offered as true. It includes, but is not limited to, a process of reflecting upon the meaning of statements, examining the offered evidence and reasoning, and forming judgments about the facts.”
- Wikipedia entry on Critical Thinking
“The critical habit of thought, if usual in society, will pervade all its mores, because it is a way of taking up the problems of life. Men educated in it cannot be stampeded by stump orators ... They are slow to believe. They can hold things as possible or probable in all degrees, without certainty and without pain. They can wait for evidence and weigh evidence, uninfluenced by the emphasis or confidence with which assertions are made on one side or the other. They can resist appeals to their dearest prejudices and all kinds of cajolery. Education in the critical faculty is the only education of which it can be truly said that it makes good citizens.”
- William Sumner, former Chair of the Political and Social Science Department, Yale University
“This Framework proposes that critical thinking skills be taught at every grade level. Students should learn to detect bias in print and visual media; to recognize illogical thinking; to guard against propaganda; to avoid stereotyping of group members; to reach conclusions based on solid evidence; and to think critically, creatively and rationally. These skills are to be taught in a context of a curriculum that offers numerous opportunities to explore examples of sound reasoning and examples of the opposite.” History – Social Studies Framework for California Public Schools, pg. 8. ( http://www.cde.ca.gov/re/pn/fd/documents/hist-social-sci-frame.pdf ).
“This Framework encourages teachers to present controversial issues honestly and accurately within their historical or contemporary context. History without controversy is not good history, nor is such history as interesting to students as an account that captures the debates of the times... Students should also recognize that historians often disagree about the interpretation of historical events and that today’s textbooks may be altered by future research. Through the study of controversial issues, both in history and in current affairs, students should learn that people in a democratic society have the right to disagree, that different perspectives have to be taken into account, and that judgments should be based on reasonable evidence and not on bias and emotion.” History – Social Studies Framework for California Public Schools, pg. 22.
Using critical thinking skills to evaluate policy in government and economics are central to our American way of life. Democracy only functions when citizens are responsible for understanding and speaking for our most important policies. In addition, voters, juries, and consumers all have to use critical thinking skills to consider “expert” testimony and evidence with the understanding that the information claimed to be true might be misleading or an outright lie.
This assignment has three specific objectives for your learning:
1. Discern fact from spin. Facts are measurable, independently verifiable, objective, and do not change no matter what is said about them. Spin is subjective, exists only when someone languages it into existence, and may or may not closely conform to factual analysis.
2. Participate in civil conversations based on facts. In order to ethically disagree with a position, one must be able to accurately state that position. Students will apply classical and conservative skills from the art of argumentation to hold people accountable for accurate factual information and to identify and destroy spin not based on fact.
3. Engage in policy decisions. Policy (what to do) is the end result of conversation. In American democracy, dissenting opinions are often as important as the majority opinion, as time and further evidence often shift our understanding. Diversity of opinion provides multiple perspectives and depth. Democracy honors all policy positions that respect factual accuracy in their premises.
We’ll examine the tools of critical thinking used for the evaluation of evidence in professional and scholarly work in law, science and history. We’ll then apply those tools to three case studies, the most widely believed “conspiracy theories” of the American public. Each theory claims that the United States government is covering-up crucial information and/or complicit in:
· the assassination of President Kennedy,
· the attacks on the US on 9/11,
· the presence of UFOs.
In each of these case studies, I’ll present both sides’ strongest arguments. This evidence has been compiled with the contributions of colleagues, parents and students over the years. I welcome additional submissions of best evidence in any of the case studies. I will not provide any analysis of my own, but play devil’s advocate to challenge students’ thinking to support their analyses and conclusions with compelling evidence. I’ll encourage students to discover logical and factual errors in each other’s analyses. Above all, I will focus students to the point of the lesson: to demonstrate the above three skills in critical thinking and civic competence.
Critical Thinking Tools: Classical and conservative scholarship has over 2,000 years of developing tools of thinking and the art of argumentation. In the evaluation of evidence, physical evidence is the most reliable. Physical evidence is reliable because its data conform to immutable laws of science. The academic fields of physics, chemistry, and biology can provide independently verifiable and replicable data that will support some hypotheses/claims, while falsifying others. Simply, physical evidence cannot lie. Legal documents have language that can vary with interpretation, but are generally written to convey specific legal meaning. Case law (past legal rulings) evolve to clarify ambiguity in legal interpretations. The least reliable evidence is testimony. Testimony only exists because of what people choose to say. This can be inaccurate from faulty observations and/or reporting, along with the possibility of deliberate misrepresentation. However, we often rely on testimony, with their strongest contributions coming from multiple, independent, and reliable primary witnesses. In discerning fact from spin, we should note that political “leaders” can support a policy that is “politically correct” while their voting record and/or executive actions will undermine that policy. You’ll consider this issue in your next assignment on specific policy analysis.
The consideration of policy often includes competing factual allegations. The scientific method can be adapted to evaluate the probability of truth in competing explanations. Simply put, explanations supported by compelling evidence are rational. Explanations/hypotheses that do not have strong evidence and/or have strong evidence that falsify that explanation are rationally dismissed. When people embrace a hypothesis unsupported by evidence, there are several possible explanations. From our own experience, we know the most likely reason is that someone is lying to protect their personal interests. Also within our personal observations is that people are often quick to say they “believe in” something even when they have no idea what they are talking about or even when the facts seem to make their belief impossible to be true. Another factor is that human beings can deny facts that are too challenging to their most valued beliefs. The psychological theory of cognitive dissonance[1] states that people can reject the facts rather than destruct their belief system. I encourage you to recognize and champion the idea that a person’s belief system does not meet any academic or professional standards for evaluating reality. We can create a spectrum to show these ideas:
Falsehood Truth
(less) EVIDENCE (more)
Ignorance Knowledge
Denial Embracing the facts
Cognitive Dissonance Realist
Psychosis Sane
Lying Honest
When people deliberately misinform, there are rhetorical tactics that scholars have studied for literally thousands of years. Among the most likely you’ll encounter: ad hominem (character attack), straw-man (lying about and/or distorting an opponent’s argument), cherry picking (choosing only the evidence that supports one’s argument while ignoring competing evidence), and appeal to authority (trusting experts rather than examining the evidence).
Ad hominem is rejected in academic, scientific, legal, and professional consideration when evidence can be evaluated on its own merits. As stated, I require students to accurately represent an opponent’s argument before disagreeing, thus eliminating straw-man arguments. I’ll encourage you to identify cherry picking, and to understand your power to demand full disclosure of important information. An appeal to authority can be helpful as expert testimony, but only when that testimony walks us through the evidence to improve our understanding. An invalid application is when the speaker asks the audience to merely believe the “expert” or if the expert’s work obfuscates rather than clarifies.
A recent contribution to our understanding of fallacious reasoning is from Professor Harry Frankfurt of Princeton, one of our nation’s most respected philosophers. His 2005 New York Times’ bestseller, On Bullshit and his follow-up 2006, On Truth are poignant.[2] Frankfurt advances a classical academic argument: when we are unaware of something (in this case, BS), we are unable to intelligently respond in its presence (literally “irresponsible”). When we can clearly distinguish BS, we can artistically and effectively respond (literally “responsible”). Frankfurt defines BS as manipulation to herd people into supporting a particular policy, and ubiquitous in government. BS will use facts when they support its policy goal, but its purveyor has no regard for the facts; only for the public to believe and follow what the BS-artist is dictating. BS does not use facts to help people’s comprehensive understanding and democratic choice of what to do. BS selectively uses partial truths to thwart comprehensive understanding and eliminate people’s democratic choice based on the facts. Its purpose is to control what people do. If lies serve better than partial truths, lies will be used. If lies are revealed, the BS-artist will continue to say whatever’s necessary to keep pushing people toward their policy goals. In political theory, the manipulative control articulated by Frankfurt as BS is categorized more as dictatorial government rather than a democracy. Voting without the facts does not count as a choice. When the information to choose is controlled, one is being dictated to without freedom of full choice.
Importantly, factual consideration of current government and economic policy is from a different framework than factual consideration in the study of history. Historical research and analysis understand that current events will benefit from future factual disclosures and time to consider the meaning of events. In government and economic policy, our professional time frame to consider and act on issues is necessarily limited and initiates on prima facie evidence. Prima facie means that if the best current evidence is found to uphold the alleged facts and not successfully challenged, it’s held as legally reliable. Policy and legal actions embrace historical research, often leading up to the present. Because the limitations of accurate understanding of current events is understood, the process of prima facie welcomes any challenge to the evidence and/or alternative evidence, considers expert testimony from multiple perspectives, and then debates the issue to sufficient degree to best inform a policy choice. This process is repeated with every policy proposal and is mirrored in our legal proceedings.
Prima facie is an essential concept for government and economics; we’ll continuously refer to it. The idea, in other words, is to lay one’s cards on the table for all who are interested to see. If any of the alleged facts are proven to be false, those cards are removed from the table. If other revealing facts are discovered, they are put on the table. In our work of studying government and economics we will honor prima facie evidence as sufficient to establish facts in question unless rebutted.
Honest scholars in history, government, and economics never claim to command the complete set of facts. We’re quite clear that discussion of policy move forward on the best available evidence, is entirely open to the submission of new evidence and correction of existing evidence, welcomes diverse perspectives on the meaning of the evidence, and honors democratic choice for policy.
I encourage you to embrace the classical education idea of dialectics[3], whereby competing claims are considered, discussed, and appreciated from their contributions to clarify complex issues. Multiple contributions often lead to a synthesis or unimagined discovery. No individual knows all and sees all. Each of us has only some of the virtues of being human, and even then only in relative strength. It’s only from multiple points of view that we achieve our best approach to comprehensive understanding. To illustrate, the following drawing of happy faces show individuals’ limited perspectives viewing a complex issue (represented by the polygon). We can only understand the whole when good people from diverse perspectives report what they see of the facts and their analysis of those facts. Without others’ contributions, any individual is limited in understanding. Please note: the most informative facts and analysis come from the point of view directly opposite from one’s own! This also means that the more students contribute to our class discussions, the better all of our learning will be.
Part of the political climate you enter as young adults is public ambiguity as to what the facts are concerning important political actions, irrational and vicious argument, and disengagement from public participation in policy decisions. I suggest that what’s needed from you as adults is leadership to:
· Discern fact from spin.
· Participate in civil conversations based on fact.
· Engage in policy decisions.
Master the above three skills! We will help each other do so in our class discussions. A note about “controversy:” the etymology of this word is a Latin compound that roughly means talking against each other. To “converse” means to be talking together. In democracy, talking against each other, controversy, is predictable and welcome. Policy consideration begins with people of intellectual integrity and moral courage helping each other get the facts. Facts are the same for everyone, objective, and independently verifiable. We then welcome multiple points of view as to the meaning of those facts; in other words, controversy. Controversy allows the entire audience depth of discussion and multiple policy options. Therefore, we embrace controversy. With your mastery of critical thinking, you will be a voice of reason for the facts, encourage rational discussion with diverse views, support a democratic vote, and respect the losing policy as a possible future option should the winning policy not perform to expectations.