Part 1
Task- Thinking about thinking:
An important step toward learning to think critically is assessing your level of development as a rational thinker. The Critical Thinking Community has collected resources, tutorials, and articles to help you follow a path toward being a rational/critical thinker.
Take the first step here, and examine your own level of rational thinking with this article: Developing as Rational Persons: Viewing Our Development in Stages. In at least a 1 ½ page reflection summarize the article and the theory of the stages required for rational development. Next, discuss how you can apply these stages to become a more critical thinker. Provide a real or hypothetical example/situation illustrating the logical precession of each stage as we conceptualize and acquire the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that characterize highly developed critical thinkers.
Part 2
Main Task: Apply Critical Thinking
You will now begin to become familiar with one aspect of critical thinking by recognizing logical fallacies. Please review this site for logical fallacies: http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/rgass/fallacy3211.htm. For this activity give one example for each of the four following logical fallacies.
1. Non Sequitur
2. Faulty Analogy
3. Hasty Generalization
4. Equivocation
Be sure to use examples that relate to your own field of study, either examples that you create yourself, or that you locate in articles in your field. Be sure to follow MLA form and style to cite any outside source.
Then, choose any other logical fallacy. Find an example of this fallacy in the news media or in an internet source related to your field. Share the example, and the source, but do not mention the name of the fallacy. Your fellow students will have to identify this "mystery logical fallacy" in their responses to your post!
In addition, explain the impact you think that such faulty logic (of the mystery fallacy) would have on the beliefs and behavior of the general public? What false conclusions and possible resulting actions might occur on the basis of this illogical statement?
Length: Content post 150-200 words
Both your content post and your response post should reflect a collegial attitude, be free of grammar and spelling errors, and include all five of the elements mentioned above.