What exactly is teaching “critical thinking skills” in High School and College supposed to mean? This goes against the major idea in Rothbard’s ‘Education: Free and Compulsory’. A child learns with his own reasoning and mental powers on subjects such as humanities and science without formal instruction.
I’m a believer of The Role Of Intellectuals, that the intellectual’s role is to question the way things are, and seek out truth and knowledge.
So then, what the hell is critical thinking if education breeds a sheepish public?
“it is more common for intellectuals to have leftist political views than right-wing, arguing that intellectuals were bitter that the skills so rewarded in school were less rewarded in the job market, and so turned against capitalism, even though they enjoyed vastly more enjoyable lives under it than under alternative systems.[29]” - Robert Nozick
In my critical thinking class, someone once asked if conservative schools (religion-based schools) taught logic. I thought that was pretty funny, but then I realized he was being serious.
Well, I tend to believe there is a lot of “critical thinking” present in different aspects of life.
As a scientist, I use the “Scientific Method” everyday to understand the unknown. The only method to further advance understanding the unknown is via critical thinking (i.e. testing a hypothesis).
The biggest and most important leap I’ve learned is to apply critical thinking to all aspects of life. When I started thinking about political ideologies and economics, it was “critical thinking” that brought me to Austrian Economics and libertarian philosophy.
Critical thinking, for me, is not blindly accepting the norm. It’s about taking into consideration all possible views and then coming to a sound and logical conclusion.
It means to think freely as long as it is within a confined set of walls that society puts up for you. Anything outside those walls is considered lunacy and would be deemed as unproductive for the conversation by the instructor of the class. In other words, like almost everything else, it means the opposite of its literate meaning. Think like either a black sheep or a white sheep. Ok, perhaps a grey sheep also, but just as long as you’re a sheep.
I have no idea what they teach in school, but here’s my take on critical thinking.
The Bible says that a fool will believe anything, and an intelligent person will know what’s what.
How does the wise man know what’s what? What is the fool missing? The answer to both q’s is mastery of critical thinking.
The way I see it, critical thinking can be broken down into two pieces.
First, the habit of questioning the source of facts. How do you know the mooon is made of green cheese? Why should I believe you?
Second, the ability to see through fallacious arguments. A few examples:
Peter Schiff’s father is in jail for tax evasion. Therefor Peter knows nothing about economics. [Dave Ramsey].
This is your dog. This dog is a father. Therefor this dog is your father. [Ancient Sophists]
The UC Berekeley economics dept has faculty of many ethnic backgrounds. Therefor it is more likely to discover economic truths. [implicit assumption of UC Berkeley economics dept]