Helpful Ideas to Increase Your Critical Thinking Capacity

Having accomplished a Business Degree from what was listed as a top 25 Business Week Magazine Undergraduate Business Program, at the time I was graduated, and now, not only closing in on the half-way point of my MBA program, but hopefully, also being about 4 months away from finishing the Accounting educational requirements necessary to sit for the Uniform Certified Professional Accounting examination, I’ve heard quite a bit about how important it is to “think critically,” and the tangential importance of instantiating your path, in such a way that it aligns with your conclusions, from having “thought critically” to begin with, and not to exclude renavigating when necessary.

However, what I heard only once during the past 6 years, were ideas, and or instruction, pertaining to what it means to think critically, as only one class I took even broached the subject, and that was a 200 level Macroeconomics class, I took from Prof. James Craven, at Clark College, in Vancouver, WA.

Okay, now that I have given credit where credit is due, as it was the in-class handout, of his article, Some Elements of Critical Thinking - “Separating the Pepper from the Fly Droppings. that both inspired me as to this topic, and others, but also provided the warp and woof, for what I like to call, “Strategies and Applications for Thinking Critically:”

Strategies and Applications for Thinking Critically

First things first. Let’s focus on being ‘critical.’ I’m starting by telling what being critical DOESN’T mean. Being critical doesn’t mean that because someone within your sphere of influence has made a point, or is attempting to make a point that you either don’t agree with, or anticipate you won’t agree with, that you are honor bound to attack their personal character, and or something as petty as how they present themselves, in an attempt to discredit their social standing, and fluster their gravitas, just because you think you feel you can, as doing so could very well lead to a perfectly respectful debate devolving into a metaphorical grudge match, and people invoking Plato, and other such laments, that would further call into question whether democracy in general, and you in particular should be replaced for a more efficient model.

You know who you are! Change your ways!

Quite frankly, if some egghead is plugging away day and night on how to make my air significantly more breathable, remove pharmaceutical contaminants from my drinking water, or devise some manner of artifice to accommodate the burgeoning toxic load that SEEMS to have resulted from damming the earth, and laying waste to the wetlands, an area that would normally be ideal at filtering out much of our chemical madness. (to be fair, at least the part of our chemical world that is madness) Well, before I ‘digress’ too much, if ’such and so’ sees fit to wear purple shoes with green pants, as an example, that might be a good thing, as at least you’d be able to pick them/they, and their iridescent proclivities out of a crowd, should you want to inquire where you might want to consider relocating your hearth and or home, in an effort to avoid imminent flooding, whether global warming be a natural cycle of ‘nature’ or not.

There is a time and a place for personal attacks based in and on style contents, and fashion statements, and evidently that time and place is a rap contest.

Can’t we all just get along? No seriously,… and, as I’ve heard said, the show must go on…

Separating Correlation from Causation. For those of you who are saying to yourself, “Woe Nelly, they already are separated!” I say, “Very commendable, very commendable.” Here’s your gold star, better yet, I’ll upgrade you to platinum, oo, la, la. (Okay, now imagine you are getting a big shiny star And of course your obligatory pat on the head, — pat, pat — — pat, pat.)

For those of you who might be waiting for me to get on with it, here you go,…I recommend you think of it like a game. The stronger the correlation is purported to be between let’s say, eating sugary foods, and tooth decay, the greater the POSSIBILITY that limiting, and or eliminating sugary foods from your diet will curtail your chew tools from slowly rotting out of your head.Though when we utilize the word “possibility,” it is meant to mean that it is no guarantee, as it may or may not be true. We’ll delve a little deeper into this aspect of causation and correlation in the next post, moreover, and as an example, even if we were able to study every person who ever had tooth decay, (see: elliott-smithtimemachines.com) and every person who does have tooth decay, and were able to ascertain that the only statistically significant correlation was that people with tooth decay ate high sugar content food, that does not NECESSARILY prove that sugar causes tooth decay. Now you might be thinking to yourself that I need the proverbial, “check up from the neck up,” as ‘everybody,’ knows that cavities are “caused,” by eating sweets.

Well, as it turns out there is current research in preventing a person’s capacity to get tooth decay as an adult, by eliminating a bacterial presence in the forming fetus. Last I checked, there was even some effort to work with adults, by utilizing an antibacterial topical agent in toothpaste. So, in terms of keeping your chompers biting, and intact, and discarding what I suspect will be a vigorous debate as to whether mucking about with ‘nature’ in this instance, and for such a purpose, is wise, well, at least until the FDA gets sufficient corporate pressure to relent to our profit making/job creating juggernauts, and continues the ‘great,’ human biochemical experiment that is Americana, there you have a ready example of how what seems to be a cause, very will might not be “a cause,” assumptions provided.

In short, hopefully today’s lesson is patience, carpe diem, certainly, but please position yourself opportunely, as correlation does not necessarily prove causation, it is much rather a relationship to be celebrated in terms of it’s power to solidify better questions, and should you be still pontificating the glow of your platinum star,…well, maybe I’ll find a way to ‘hook’ you on the go around.

Should you feel in my debt, feel free to click on an ad, and then do what comes natural, or leave a comment, or subscribe to an RSS feed, or all three,.. whatever, it’s all good, though I’m most certainly not here to pretend that all are equally “good.”

The next post in this series will delve a little deeper into correlation and causation; specifically some of those wonderful questions I alluded to previously.

Until then…