Critical Thinking and Culture

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Critical Thinking and Culture

• By Prof. Carl Ratner
• Distinguished Visiting Prof. Psychology
  Department Of Imam University
• http//www.sonic.net/cr2

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Critical Thinking and Culture

• critical thinking, like all thinking, is
  cultural a cultural form of thinking. It is
  like a language
• is shaped by specific cultural requirements,
  needs, opportunities, stimulation, models, ideals
• it only exists where these exist it is
  culturally variable
• acquiring critical thinking is like learning a
  new language
• contains a world view it is a world view just
  like language is to learn language properly
  requires absorbing its world view to learn
  critical thinking is to learn a new way of
  viewing the world like mathematics is a new way
  of viewing the world
• it is not a purely technical skill it is a
  conceptual skill
• it requires psychological change, change in who
  you are, how you approach information and respond
  to information

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Need for Critical Thinking

• Assess enormity of information. Every year 3
  billion gigabytes of information is generated in
  the U.S.A. Need to assess, select, interpret, and
  acquire vast amount of information quickly
• Assess causes and consequences of action e.g.,
  does driving cars cause global warming, does
  eating fatty food cause heart attacks? In US,
  some people say its good for people to have guns
  because this reduces crime. How could you assess
  this claim? Critical thinking makes you want to
  asses this claim rather than passively accept it.
  It is a motivation, and also a strategy for
  knowing how to assess causes and consequences of
  action.
• Example if you find that people who smoke get
  lung cancer more often than non-smokers, can you
  conclude that smoking causes cancer?
• Avoid misleading information deliberately
  produced in advertisements and political
  ideology. Example nobody beats our prices
  implies that the price is the lowest on the
  market. What does critical thinking show it
  really means?
• Avoid distortions of the mind. Human mind is
  susceptible to distortion. Ex. asking a question
  in 2 different ways leads to different responses
• a) do you get headaches frequently? A random
  sample reported 2.2 headaches/week
• b) do you get headaches occasionally? A random
  sample reported 0.7 headaches/week

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Critical Thinking Defined

• Strategies for solving problems, calculating
  probabilities, identifying causes and effects,
  making decisions
• Focus on cognitive processes rather than
  information. Focus on processing of info., not on
  info. itself. Not that is a tree, but how do
  I know that is a tree? How do I know whether
  eating fat causes heart attacks? Treats
  cognition, consciousness, epistemology, the mind
  as an object, a phenomenon. Examines how it
  works. Think about thinking. Reflexive
  metacognition.
• Studies how to teach, learn, and think about
  info.
• This focus on the mind itself is a cultural
  phenomenon. Is a new phenomenon to think about,
  and a new way to think, i.e., think about ones
  own mind, not just about info. that the mind
  addresses. Am I being rational, logical,
  analytical? Many cultures do not focus on this
  phenomenon. Requires a cultural basis to attend
  to cognition.
• Critical thinking is close to epistemology and
  cognitive psychology how does the mind work.

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Exercises in Critical ThinkingUse Critical
Thinking Skills

• A crime was committed and detectives determined
  it was committed after 11PM. Sarah has an alibi
  after 11PM she was at a friends house. Then the
  detectives determined the crime was committed at
  1030. Sarah has no alibi for 1030. Therefore
  she committed the crime
• Yes/no?
• At a crime scene, police found a footprint size
  10.
• Alissa wears size 10 shoe.
• Alissa committed the crime
• Yes/no?

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Critical Thinking Skills

• Plan
• Flexible
• Persistent
• Admit error
• Self-reflexive, self-correcting
• Falsify seek disconfirming possibilities
  (evidence, reasons, theories, conditions,
  factors)
• Give reasons
• Seek reasons beyond overt appearance
• Analyze arguments, dont simply accept them
• Test hypotheses logically develop appropriate
  empirical tests using methodologies that clearly
  indicate causes, effects, and processes
• Deduce from premises
• Skeptical/questioning always doubt what you
  see, look for alternatives, deeper meaning,
  reasons, consequences. The advertisement, or
  politician claims/promises X. Is it really true?
  How can we tell if its true?
• These skills are cultural phenomena, culturally
  formed not natural or universal

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Exercises in Critical Thinking

• 1) People who pray are healthier than people who
  do not pray.
• Therefore prayer makes people healthy
• Yes/no?
• 2) All Muslims pray
• Abdul prays
• Abdul is Mulsim
• Yes/no?
• 3) Diabetes causes weight loss
• Anne has lost weight
• Anne has diabetes
• Yes/no?

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Conclusion

• Critical thinking is a useful motivation and
  strategy for solving problems, understanding
  causes and consequences of events
• Critical thinking helps avoid errors in thinking
  and action. Without critical thinking, we would
  draw erroneous conclusions about Abdul (being
  Muslim), Anne (having diabetes), Alissa
  (committing a crime), and Sarah (committing a
  crime)
• Critical thinking motivates us to understand,
  question, think, imagine, test, reason, analyze,
  deduce, and doubt, self-reflect, and
  self-correct. It makes us want to understand how
  we think and how we can think more accurately. It
  also provides strategies for accomplishing these
  motives.