My bet for the number of people in here who will counter my post with anything remotely in the realm of sound argument. To do so, you'd have to understand the arguments and be willing to ask questions on anything requiring clarification. That takes time and effort -- and the demands that come with critical thinking (where you arrive at conclusions, not jump to them). Talking about the importance of critical thinking is not critical thinking. Critical thinking takes work. Critical thinkers do not read something and essentially say, "Well, I can't understand everything you're saying, therefore I can't understand anything."
If you "can't" grasp the entire post, why not start with a single screenshot? The answer is obvious: Because you're not looking to listen and learn, you're looking to respond (and entire industries are engineering that "need"). When you don't understand something and/or it is even perceived as threatening your interests, you fall back on Old Faithful: Blame the source, blame the length, blame the website, blame the writing, blame anything and everything but you and your blameless way of life.
If you wanna start solving problems, it's gotta get ugly -- or as ol' Bill perfectly put it: "I must be cruel only to be kind; Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind." -- Shakespeare.
That the decline of America over the last 30 years doesn’t unfold for standard scrolling with ease — is not a flaw in my argument and array of illustrations: It’s a flaw in your willingness to work through it — absorbing each building block of information your brain is well-equipped to handle. Or at least it used to be before information became so funneled in a fashion to your liking — you don’t even know what to do with anything that isn’t.
A prominent personality once said:
"That the reaction is not to think it through, not to question, not to assemble facts, not to make arguments — but instead to wave banners and spout slogans such that you could hardly distinguish what they were doing from a manifesto that would come out of [does it matter?]"
When the context suits you, such words are solid gold. What you do when it doesn’t — determines the worth of your word.
What I do takes work -- time and effort to consider. What you're all doing here is entertainment. Prove me wrong -- please! Multi-dimensional problems demand multi-dimensional solutions, and that's the only reason I'm here. If you're not interested in hearing me out and having meaningful discussion, we have nothing to talk about and I wish you well. I am asking you politely: If you're not interested in serious-minded discussion actually acting on your concerns -- please don't waste my time by responding at all. Thank you!
*************************
The rules have changed, as in — there are none. By failing to recognize that, you cannot adapt to deal with it. Conventional means have no chance of breaching the envelope of intransigence around armies of unreachables in the trench warfare of our times. All of America is trying to plow through problems when you should be going around them (think asymmetrical "warfare").
“[W]e must accept responsibility for a problem before we can solve it.”
— M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled
In a nation that incessantly blames and complains (seemingly for sport) — no one’s taking responsibility for anything. The ever-rising ocean of partisan pettiness is gluttony under the guise of concern. In reference to its opening image on Without Passion or Prejudice, I wrote: “Half the country is with me on this and I just lost the other half. Had I started with the image below, it would be the opposite half.” When you make up your mind on lickety-split perception alone — in what parallel universe does that qualify as critical thinking?
But in the force fields of fallacy that people hide behind today, you can claim to be a critical thinker and not do anything that remotely reflects its requirements. What was once understood as a demanding process that puts your mind to the test: Is now one Tweet away from glory in the Gutter Games of Government. In this fantasyland where liars are loved as bastions of virtue and people telling you what you wanna hear are “geniuses”: You can “win” an argument without even knowing what the issue’s about.
And the professionals answer to America suffocating in an atmosphere of absurdity? Endlessly rehashing the same old problems in the same old ways. It’s all an illusion of progress — perfectly captured by John Wooden’s “Never mistake activity for achievement.” But there’s an opportunity to turn it all around — by taking the problem and turning it into a solution. A student wrote of her psychology professor: “Tim Wilson taught me the importance of breaking problems down into more manageable pieces.” Lo and behold, at the bedrock of my idea is exactly that. If you want to start solving problems, first you need to clear the clutter that’s crippled this country. To do that, you don’t go after everything, you go after one thing that ties to everything. And you do it by holding one man to his own “standards”: A professional know-it-all with a cult-like following unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
As I’ve been in the trenches battling hermetically sealed minds for decades, that’s saying something. His disciples see him as some kind of saint-like Sherlock Holmes. And that — is an opportunity! How do we make people realize they’ve been lied to? You have to knock down one small pillar that’s easier to reach. I’ve got the perfect pillar — on the biggest and most costly lie in modern history (which shaped everything you see today). I don’t need mass appeal to make this happen, I just need to get to one man. Long before brain imaging to understand human behavior, we already had all the tools we needed for a hopeful humanity. We didn’t take advantage of the gifts we were given, and what a shocker — we don’t make good use of those fancy new insights either. Your field is forever fighting the forces of human nature whereas my solution banks on it.
I have a very specific target audience to get this in gear, so it wouldn’t take much. One email could set off a chain of events that could open the door to the kind of conversation this nation’s never had. Imagine! There was a time when we did.
Thank you, John. This is an excellent resource to educate the great masses who have no knowledge of either critical thinking skills or to the scientific method. Both are lacking in the public schools.
Your relentless promotion of this will be paying dividends in the not-too-distant future , I hope.
Thank you John for your relentless focus on the need to teach critical thinking in K-12 education in North Carolina! I so appreciate your efforts to ensure that leadership in the General Assembly and the NC Department of Public Instruction is aware of this missing and vital part of our curriculum. If we have learned anything in the COVID era, it is surely that far too few adults in positions of power have these necessary critical thinking skills. For us to have a hope of keeping our republic, we have to begin teaching these critical thinking skills in our public education system.
Applied Critical thinking is not an abstract concept with no real-world relevance. In fact, it is a crucial thought process that is vital for survival and success.
Unfortunately, to teachers and academics, it is in fact little more than a concept because their livelihoods do not depend on it. It may be a process for addressing subject matter, but that is as far as it goes.
I offer in contrast the vital role of critical thinking in my career as a nuclear attack submarine officer. First, we operate a nuclear reactor. We monitor its performance and maintain its safety by critically thinking through what the readout of the instruments and detectors are telling us. We operate a submerged ship that is in a hostile, potentially literally crushing environment, relying only on passive sonar to assess potential threats. It is like being blind and navigating the streets of a city by hearing only. You must critically examine what the sounds are telling you. We take the submarine on missions against potentially hostile forces, where maintaining our stealth and remaining undetected are vitally important. You assume nothing; take nothing for granted; reject unfounded premises. In other words, you think critically about every bit of information you can process, and then try to think through the information that you wish you had but is not available. Or, you get killed.
Almost every real world career or activity demands critical thinking to achieve success and to avoid failure, if not bodily harm. You should learn to read. You must learn critical thinking.
A society with citizens with no critical thinking skills is doomed. Critical thinking enables individuals to make better decisions about their lives, therefore for their country. As a person from a developing country, I can attest that the rule number one to keep people busy trying to survive is eliminate any critical thinking from schools and any other social gatherings/activities because that turns the people more feral, looking for short term rewards, instead of a better country.
Thank you John for leading this battle for America's mind, you are giving a beautiful gift for the next generations. May your work bear fruits for the next generations.
Eliminating the skill of critical thinking was a plan, which (IMHO) was simply and skillfully executed by Obama’s Duncan. Common Core’s core was the elimination of thinking, the dumbing-down of youth, and mass-indoctrination of “new standards”. It sought to – not only, not question authority, not question at all. Blind acceptance. Its execution was simple because qualification for Federal Ed. funding, depended upon state adoption of the standards (aka: Rot). We are now 14 years down the road…..
In my schooling (I’m old), the nuns and others, including parents taught us to THINK critically, question rigorously, form hypotheses, develop experiments and study results and assess or judge outcomes. To question advertising, and debate issues. What I see today (mostly from my students/employees under 30) is young adults confusing “information”, with “knowledge”. Information is easily found through google, while knowledge (to say nothing of mastery) which is only gained by time and experience.
John identifies ACTD as America's Number One problem. An obvious underlying reason is the lack of the appropriate education in our schools about critical thinking and the scientific method. Worse than that lack is that they attack critical thinking. A particularly egregious example is the Position Statement of the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) on Climate Change. It is egregious because NSTA'a role should be to develop critical thinking skills in students and the use of the scientific method. Instead the NSTA statement promotes consensus science, an attack on and rejection of critical thinking and the scientific method. The CO2 Coalition (co2coalition.org) published a detailed report on the NSTA statement at: https://co2coalition.org/publications/challenging-the-nsta-position-on-climate-change/
Yes, critical thinking is very important and we must encourage students at all levels to do their own thinking and analysis, and to be skeptical of all sources of information. This practice must apply at an age appropriate level and, on background appropriate topics so youth can be reasonably expected to judge and weigh the evidence for themselves. After recently reviewing many science (climate change focused) textbooks, I have become aware of the common practice of propaganda disguised as development of critical thinking skills. For instance, examples when only one set of data and facts are presented, namely those that support the climate alarmist narrative. Also, questions that are posed with a premise of an assertion of "fact" (such as CO2 is dirty and a pollutant) and then ask students the best way to eliminate CO2 (with one of the answer choices to enact government mandates). My conclusion is that development of critical thinking skills must be done in the proper way with all of the facts and data presented, and at an age appropriate level. Otherwise, it can be used in effect as just another propaganda technique.
For some reason, quite a few people send me emails, rather than make comments here. I encourage them to post directly, but... Since I understand that they are busy, I'll repost some examples. The second is from Dr. Will Happer, an esteemed scientist:
John Droz has drawn attention to an age-old problem in human society, the unwillingness, and in some cases the inability of people to think for themselves. In the introduction to his timeless book, "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds," first published in 1841, Charles Mackay noted the rarity of critical thinking with his remark: "Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one."
Groupthink is not a harmless human failing. It has allowed human society to stumble into one catastrophe after another: World War I, Bolshevism and Nazism a century ago; climate fanaticism, wokeness, and dangerously unstable regional wars like those in Ukraine and the Near East today.
With near universal access to information on the internet, one might think that critical thinking would be mopre favored and there would be less incentive to think in herds. But just the opposite may be happening, with Orwellian thought police cleansing the internet of "disinformation."
For some reason, quite a few people send me emails, rather than make comments here. I encourage them to post directly, but... Since I understand that they are busy, I'll repost some examples. The first is from Jerry Egolf:
John, thank you for taking up the banner in this battle regarding the thoughts and minds of people from all walks of life. During a curriculum review, the NC School Board had a chance to change the K-8 curriculum, to include critical thinking, for North Carolina's students when we fought similar battles over Common Core years ago. Politics left us out to dry then and I hope they don't repeat their ineptness in helping our children. I taught critical thinking for almost fifteen years to USMC and DoD classes, mainly for analysis and research but, the one thing that my students kept telling me was how much the critical thinking was helping them in their personal lives.
In today's world, there are so many nonsensical ideas and prejudices floating around and there seems to be more every day. Many of the core principles with critical thinking are recognizing and mitigating biases and prejudices that all of us are either born with or acquire through living our lives. Instead, teachers are encouraging their students to "join the mob", "be a victim", and join whatever group think is popular. They teach false, or fake, information and pretend that it is real. If any of their students knew how to think critically, they would recognize the BS for what it is.
In addition to recognizing the bad information, students would be able to effectively argue an opposing viewpoint. A major part of critical thinking is countering the biases and fallacies that we want to believe are real. Debate has become a lost art due to the lack of being able to construct counterpoints in an argument or discussion.
Finally, the best part of learning and practicing critical thinking is that it soon becomes second nature. It becomes the default way that you think, react, postulate, and interpret. You don't have to consciously do it! It really can make things better in a lot of ways (Hint: I don't usually practice critical thinking when ordering from a menu but . . . ) Again, I applaud your efforts and hope you have much better success than we had years ago. I am at your service.
John, As a physician-scientist Professor Emeritus in the fields of environmental genetics and evolutionary genomics, I am author-coauthor of more than 770 scientific publications on clinical genetics and genomics. I find it hard to believe that we must even talk about "critical thinking." Back when I was in college, medical school, and clinical pediatrics---everyone was "doing" critical thinking without even being reminded of what we were doing.
Every laboratory experiment began with a hypothesis, following which we designed experiments to confirm or prove it wrong. Experiments were always repeated multiple times to be sure we had the right answer. Our results were then published, as well as discussed at numerous scientific meetings or symposia. This process just described is The Scientific Method, which goes, hand-in-hand, with critical thinking.
To think that students today are discouraged from thinking for themselves, to me, smells like Marxism. "Groupthink" or "consensus thinking" will be the death of this nation.
D W Nebert, prof emeritus, University of Cincinnati, Ohio
Thanks John for continuing to draw attention to this serious problem. I am not sure of what can be done on a practical basis to change course at this late date in the transition to widespread indoctrination, but I suspect that politics might have to take the lead. The problem isn't so much with what we are teaching our young students at this juncture, but what we are teaching our teachers. Critical Thinking should be a required course for all teachers, and maybe an entire field of study for science teachers.
I have been appalled at what has been passing as "scientific research" in my own field of forestry the past few decades, and a documented result of substituting simplistic theories and computerized modeling for traditional scientific research methods can be measured in millions of acres of burned forests, thousands of lost lives, hundreds of impoverished communities, hundreds of millions of dead wildlife, and major increases in global air pollution. And that's just in one field of science. Something needs to be done, and thank you for your continuing efforts to do so!
John Droz hits the nail squarely on the head in arguing the merits of critical thinking.
America has seen a gradual decline in the ability to think critically for a long time, as our public school system has quietly eradicated teaching critical thinking skills from their curriculum. In fact, many teachers today, who have been indoctrinated in the social emotional learning paradigm, are likely unaware of its absence…and may believe they are actually teaching kids critical thinking skills! And. Based on my observation, a large portion of our adult society is unaware they are afflicted with “Adult Critical Thinking Deficiency”, as John calls it. It’s apparent in their attitude toward everything from climate change, to COVID, to governmental policies.
The lack of critical thinking has hit critical mass. If we don’t begin to instill critical thinking in our youth, we are condemning them to life as sheeple, susceptible to every huckster, con artist, and the latest pop culture fad that emerges. They’ll spend their lives bouncing from one mistake to another and wondering why. It’s not only imperative we correct this issue quickly…it’s evil not to fight for the re-institution of critical thinking in our curriculum.
John has identified the biggest problem we face today, and administering the remedy to the lack of critical thinking is crucial to the survival of our country, our society, and our young people. Great post, John!
John, I could not agree more with this. My husband and I emphasize critical thinking in our home to our two children every day. It's built in to what we do and how we talk about issues, people, situations etc. We view it as a survival skill at this point as it seems the vast majority of people have lost the ability and simply think what they're told without a single independent thought. It is tragic that critical thinking is not currently taught with any consistency in k12 schools (I would know as I follow my children's curriculum closely). Instead I've found quite the opposite - rapid adoption and advancement of SEL, reduced academic rigor in the form of extended deadlines, notes used on tests or resubmitting corrections on tests for boosted grades, teachers who look and act unprofessional. It's a mess. Critical Thinking would largely fix ALL of that, and so much more.
America's education system is failing on many fronts, but foremost among them is that few students are taught how to use reason. They learn little or nothing about logic, argumentation and evidence. Therefore, they are easy marks for specious claims and emotional appeals. They also take offense quickly when faced with dissent from their beliefs. Nothing would do more to improve the country than to teach students how the reasoning process works, beginning in grade school.
EXACTLY ZERO!
My bet for the number of people in here who will counter my post with anything remotely in the realm of sound argument. To do so, you'd have to understand the arguments and be willing to ask questions on anything requiring clarification. That takes time and effort -- and the demands that come with critical thinking (where you arrive at conclusions, not jump to them). Talking about the importance of critical thinking is not critical thinking. Critical thinking takes work. Critical thinkers do not read something and essentially say, "Well, I can't understand everything you're saying, therefore I can't understand anything."
If you "can't" grasp the entire post, why not start with a single screenshot? The answer is obvious: Because you're not looking to listen and learn, you're looking to respond (and entire industries are engineering that "need"). When you don't understand something and/or it is even perceived as threatening your interests, you fall back on Old Faithful: Blame the source, blame the length, blame the website, blame the writing, blame anything and everything but you and your blameless way of life.
If you wanna start solving problems, it's gotta get ugly -- or as ol' Bill perfectly put it: "I must be cruel only to be kind; Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind." -- Shakespeare.
That the decline of America over the last 30 years doesn’t unfold for standard scrolling with ease — is not a flaw in my argument and array of illustrations: It’s a flaw in your willingness to work through it — absorbing each building block of information your brain is well-equipped to handle. Or at least it used to be before information became so funneled in a fashion to your liking — you don’t even know what to do with anything that isn’t.
A prominent personality once said:
"That the reaction is not to think it through, not to question, not to assemble facts, not to make arguments — but instead to wave banners and spout slogans such that you could hardly distinguish what they were doing from a manifesto that would come out of [does it matter?]"
When the context suits you, such words are solid gold. What you do when it doesn’t — determines the worth of your word.
What I do takes work -- time and effort to consider. What you're all doing here is entertainment. Prove me wrong -- please! Multi-dimensional problems demand multi-dimensional solutions, and that's the only reason I'm here. If you're not interested in hearing me out and having meaningful discussion, we have nothing to talk about and I wish you well. I am asking you politely: If you're not interested in serious-minded discussion actually acting on your concerns -- please don't waste my time by responding at all. Thank you!
*************************
The rules have changed, as in — there are none. By failing to recognize that, you cannot adapt to deal with it. Conventional means have no chance of breaching the envelope of intransigence around armies of unreachables in the trench warfare of our times. All of America is trying to plow through problems when you should be going around them (think asymmetrical "warfare").
“[W]e must accept responsibility for a problem before we can solve it.”
— M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled
In a nation that incessantly blames and complains (seemingly for sport) — no one’s taking responsibility for anything. The ever-rising ocean of partisan pettiness is gluttony under the guise of concern. In reference to its opening image on Without Passion or Prejudice, I wrote: “Half the country is with me on this and I just lost the other half. Had I started with the image below, it would be the opposite half.” When you make up your mind on lickety-split perception alone — in what parallel universe does that qualify as critical thinking?
But in the force fields of fallacy that people hide behind today, you can claim to be a critical thinker and not do anything that remotely reflects its requirements. What was once understood as a demanding process that puts your mind to the test: Is now one Tweet away from glory in the Gutter Games of Government. In this fantasyland where liars are loved as bastions of virtue and people telling you what you wanna hear are “geniuses”: You can “win” an argument without even knowing what the issue’s about.
And the professionals answer to America suffocating in an atmosphere of absurdity? Endlessly rehashing the same old problems in the same old ways. It’s all an illusion of progress — perfectly captured by John Wooden’s “Never mistake activity for achievement.” But there’s an opportunity to turn it all around — by taking the problem and turning it into a solution. A student wrote of her psychology professor: “Tim Wilson taught me the importance of breaking problems down into more manageable pieces.” Lo and behold, at the bedrock of my idea is exactly that. If you want to start solving problems, first you need to clear the clutter that’s crippled this country. To do that, you don’t go after everything, you go after one thing that ties to everything. And you do it by holding one man to his own “standards”: A professional know-it-all with a cult-like following unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
As I’ve been in the trenches battling hermetically sealed minds for decades, that’s saying something. His disciples see him as some kind of saint-like Sherlock Holmes. And that — is an opportunity! How do we make people realize they’ve been lied to? You have to knock down one small pillar that’s easier to reach. I’ve got the perfect pillar — on the biggest and most costly lie in modern history (which shaped everything you see today). I don’t need mass appeal to make this happen, I just need to get to one man. Long before brain imaging to understand human behavior, we already had all the tools we needed for a hopeful humanity. We didn’t take advantage of the gifts we were given, and what a shocker — we don’t make good use of those fancy new insights either. Your field is forever fighting the forces of human nature whereas my solution banks on it.
I have a very specific target audience to get this in gear, so it wouldn’t take much. One email could set off a chain of events that could open the door to the kind of conversation this nation’s never had. Imagine! There was a time when we did.
From the Earth to the Moon to “WUT”
https://onevoicebecametwo.life/2024/04/24/from-the-earth-to-the-moon-to-wut/
*************************
Thank you, John. This is an excellent resource to educate the great masses who have no knowledge of either critical thinking skills or to the scientific method. Both are lacking in the public schools.
Your relentless promotion of this will be paying dividends in the not-too-distant future , I hope.
Thank you John for your relentless focus on the need to teach critical thinking in K-12 education in North Carolina! I so appreciate your efforts to ensure that leadership in the General Assembly and the NC Department of Public Instruction is aware of this missing and vital part of our curriculum. If we have learned anything in the COVID era, it is surely that far too few adults in positions of power have these necessary critical thinking skills. For us to have a hope of keeping our republic, we have to begin teaching these critical thinking skills in our public education system.
Applied Critical thinking is not an abstract concept with no real-world relevance. In fact, it is a crucial thought process that is vital for survival and success.
Unfortunately, to teachers and academics, it is in fact little more than a concept because their livelihoods do not depend on it. It may be a process for addressing subject matter, but that is as far as it goes.
I offer in contrast the vital role of critical thinking in my career as a nuclear attack submarine officer. First, we operate a nuclear reactor. We monitor its performance and maintain its safety by critically thinking through what the readout of the instruments and detectors are telling us. We operate a submerged ship that is in a hostile, potentially literally crushing environment, relying only on passive sonar to assess potential threats. It is like being blind and navigating the streets of a city by hearing only. You must critically examine what the sounds are telling you. We take the submarine on missions against potentially hostile forces, where maintaining our stealth and remaining undetected are vitally important. You assume nothing; take nothing for granted; reject unfounded premises. In other words, you think critically about every bit of information you can process, and then try to think through the information that you wish you had but is not available. Or, you get killed.
Almost every real world career or activity demands critical thinking to achieve success and to avoid failure, if not bodily harm. You should learn to read. You must learn critical thinking.
A society with citizens with no critical thinking skills is doomed. Critical thinking enables individuals to make better decisions about their lives, therefore for their country. As a person from a developing country, I can attest that the rule number one to keep people busy trying to survive is eliminate any critical thinking from schools and any other social gatherings/activities because that turns the people more feral, looking for short term rewards, instead of a better country.
Thank you John for leading this battle for America's mind, you are giving a beautiful gift for the next generations. May your work bear fruits for the next generations.
Eliminating the skill of critical thinking was a plan, which (IMHO) was simply and skillfully executed by Obama’s Duncan. Common Core’s core was the elimination of thinking, the dumbing-down of youth, and mass-indoctrination of “new standards”. It sought to – not only, not question authority, not question at all. Blind acceptance. Its execution was simple because qualification for Federal Ed. funding, depended upon state adoption of the standards (aka: Rot). We are now 14 years down the road…..
In my schooling (I’m old), the nuns and others, including parents taught us to THINK critically, question rigorously, form hypotheses, develop experiments and study results and assess or judge outcomes. To question advertising, and debate issues. What I see today (mostly from my students/employees under 30) is young adults confusing “information”, with “knowledge”. Information is easily found through google, while knowledge (to say nothing of mastery) which is only gained by time and experience.
Hugh Kendrick.
John identifies ACTD as America's Number One problem. An obvious underlying reason is the lack of the appropriate education in our schools about critical thinking and the scientific method. Worse than that lack is that they attack critical thinking. A particularly egregious example is the Position Statement of the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) on Climate Change. It is egregious because NSTA'a role should be to develop critical thinking skills in students and the use of the scientific method. Instead the NSTA statement promotes consensus science, an attack on and rejection of critical thinking and the scientific method. The CO2 Coalition (co2coalition.org) published a detailed report on the NSTA statement at: https://co2coalition.org/publications/challenging-the-nsta-position-on-climate-change/
Yes, critical thinking is very important and we must encourage students at all levels to do their own thinking and analysis, and to be skeptical of all sources of information. This practice must apply at an age appropriate level and, on background appropriate topics so youth can be reasonably expected to judge and weigh the evidence for themselves. After recently reviewing many science (climate change focused) textbooks, I have become aware of the common practice of propaganda disguised as development of critical thinking skills. For instance, examples when only one set of data and facts are presented, namely those that support the climate alarmist narrative. Also, questions that are posed with a premise of an assertion of "fact" (such as CO2 is dirty and a pollutant) and then ask students the best way to eliminate CO2 (with one of the answer choices to enact government mandates). My conclusion is that development of critical thinking skills must be done in the proper way with all of the facts and data presented, and at an age appropriate level. Otherwise, it can be used in effect as just another propaganda technique.
For some reason, quite a few people send me emails, rather than make comments here. I encourage them to post directly, but... Since I understand that they are busy, I'll repost some examples. The second is from Dr. Will Happer, an esteemed scientist:
John Droz has drawn attention to an age-old problem in human society, the unwillingness, and in some cases the inability of people to think for themselves. In the introduction to his timeless book, "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds," first published in 1841, Charles Mackay noted the rarity of critical thinking with his remark: "Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one."
Groupthink is not a harmless human failing. It has allowed human society to stumble into one catastrophe after another: World War I, Bolshevism and Nazism a century ago; climate fanaticism, wokeness, and dangerously unstable regional wars like those in Ukraine and the Near East today.
With near universal access to information on the internet, one might think that critical thinking would be mopre favored and there would be less incentive to think in herds. But just the opposite may be happening, with Orwellian thought police cleansing the internet of "disinformation."
For some reason, quite a few people send me emails, rather than make comments here. I encourage them to post directly, but... Since I understand that they are busy, I'll repost some examples. The first is from Jerry Egolf:
John, thank you for taking up the banner in this battle regarding the thoughts and minds of people from all walks of life. During a curriculum review, the NC School Board had a chance to change the K-8 curriculum, to include critical thinking, for North Carolina's students when we fought similar battles over Common Core years ago. Politics left us out to dry then and I hope they don't repeat their ineptness in helping our children. I taught critical thinking for almost fifteen years to USMC and DoD classes, mainly for analysis and research but, the one thing that my students kept telling me was how much the critical thinking was helping them in their personal lives.
In today's world, there are so many nonsensical ideas and prejudices floating around and there seems to be more every day. Many of the core principles with critical thinking are recognizing and mitigating biases and prejudices that all of us are either born with or acquire through living our lives. Instead, teachers are encouraging their students to "join the mob", "be a victim", and join whatever group think is popular. They teach false, or fake, information and pretend that it is real. If any of their students knew how to think critically, they would recognize the BS for what it is.
In addition to recognizing the bad information, students would be able to effectively argue an opposing viewpoint. A major part of critical thinking is countering the biases and fallacies that we want to believe are real. Debate has become a lost art due to the lack of being able to construct counterpoints in an argument or discussion.
Finally, the best part of learning and practicing critical thinking is that it soon becomes second nature. It becomes the default way that you think, react, postulate, and interpret. You don't have to consciously do it! It really can make things better in a lot of ways (Hint: I don't usually practice critical thinking when ordering from a menu but . . . ) Again, I applaud your efforts and hope you have much better success than we had years ago. I am at your service.
John, As a physician-scientist Professor Emeritus in the fields of environmental genetics and evolutionary genomics, I am author-coauthor of more than 770 scientific publications on clinical genetics and genomics. I find it hard to believe that we must even talk about "critical thinking." Back when I was in college, medical school, and clinical pediatrics---everyone was "doing" critical thinking without even being reminded of what we were doing.
Every laboratory experiment began with a hypothesis, following which we designed experiments to confirm or prove it wrong. Experiments were always repeated multiple times to be sure we had the right answer. Our results were then published, as well as discussed at numerous scientific meetings or symposia. This process just described is The Scientific Method, which goes, hand-in-hand, with critical thinking.
To think that students today are discouraged from thinking for themselves, to me, smells like Marxism. "Groupthink" or "consensus thinking" will be the death of this nation.
D W Nebert, prof emeritus, University of Cincinnati, Ohio
Thanks John for continuing to draw attention to this serious problem. I am not sure of what can be done on a practical basis to change course at this late date in the transition to widespread indoctrination, but I suspect that politics might have to take the lead. The problem isn't so much with what we are teaching our young students at this juncture, but what we are teaching our teachers. Critical Thinking should be a required course for all teachers, and maybe an entire field of study for science teachers.
I have been appalled at what has been passing as "scientific research" in my own field of forestry the past few decades, and a documented result of substituting simplistic theories and computerized modeling for traditional scientific research methods can be measured in millions of acres of burned forests, thousands of lost lives, hundreds of impoverished communities, hundreds of millions of dead wildlife, and major increases in global air pollution. And that's just in one field of science. Something needs to be done, and thank you for your continuing efforts to do so!
John Droz hits the nail squarely on the head in arguing the merits of critical thinking.
America has seen a gradual decline in the ability to think critically for a long time, as our public school system has quietly eradicated teaching critical thinking skills from their curriculum. In fact, many teachers today, who have been indoctrinated in the social emotional learning paradigm, are likely unaware of its absence…and may believe they are actually teaching kids critical thinking skills! And. Based on my observation, a large portion of our adult society is unaware they are afflicted with “Adult Critical Thinking Deficiency”, as John calls it. It’s apparent in their attitude toward everything from climate change, to COVID, to governmental policies.
The lack of critical thinking has hit critical mass. If we don’t begin to instill critical thinking in our youth, we are condemning them to life as sheeple, susceptible to every huckster, con artist, and the latest pop culture fad that emerges. They’ll spend their lives bouncing from one mistake to another and wondering why. It’s not only imperative we correct this issue quickly…it’s evil not to fight for the re-institution of critical thinking in our curriculum.
John has identified the biggest problem we face today, and administering the remedy to the lack of critical thinking is crucial to the survival of our country, our society, and our young people. Great post, John!
John, I could not agree more with this. My husband and I emphasize critical thinking in our home to our two children every day. It's built in to what we do and how we talk about issues, people, situations etc. We view it as a survival skill at this point as it seems the vast majority of people have lost the ability and simply think what they're told without a single independent thought. It is tragic that critical thinking is not currently taught with any consistency in k12 schools (I would know as I follow my children's curriculum closely). Instead I've found quite the opposite - rapid adoption and advancement of SEL, reduced academic rigor in the form of extended deadlines, notes used on tests or resubmitting corrections on tests for boosted grades, teachers who look and act unprofessional. It's a mess. Critical Thinking would largely fix ALL of that, and so much more.
John, bravo on your excellent work! We're getting lots of favorable feedback from the article we recently published telling the story of your triumph with the NC State BOE. Here's a link: https://thenewamerican.com/print/restoring-true-science-education-in-schools/ Keep up the good fight!
America's education system is failing on many fronts, but foremost among them is that few students are taught how to use reason. They learn little or nothing about logic, argumentation and evidence. Therefore, they are easy marks for specious claims and emotional appeals. They also take offense quickly when faced with dissent from their beliefs. Nothing would do more to improve the country than to teach students how the reasoning process works, beginning in grade school.