What's the Opposite of Critical Thinking?
As you'll see, there's a LOT of this going on!
In my last commentary, I elaborated on a proposed definition of Critical Thinking. Although there were a few suggested refinements, I received no major objections. (If you have any, please put them in the comments below.)
Equally important is what Critical Thinking is NOT. Towards that end, in my most recent article, I outlined a brief layperson overview of some actions that would be considered the opposite of Critical Thinking:
People accepting what is currently politically correct, going along with consensus, deferring to experts, supporting the conclusions of computer programs, buying into one-sided presentations of facts, etc., etc.
I thought I would again test out the new version of Poe AI: Claude-3.5-Sonnet, to see what it had to say about that question — and the answer was rather good:
“The opposite of Critical Thinking could be described in several ways, depending on the context and specific aspects of Critical Thinking being considered. Some possible opposites or contrasts to Critical Thinking include:
Uncritical Thinking: Accepting information or ideas without questioning or analyzing them.
Gullibility: Being easily persuaded or deceived, lacking skepticism.
Dogmatism: Adhering rigidly to preconceived notions or beliefs without considering alternative viewpoints.
Emotional reasoning: Basing conclusions solely on feelings rather than logic and evidence.
Impulsive Thinking: Making quick judgments without careful consideration of facts and consequences.
Confirmation Bias: Seeking out only information that supports pre-existing beliefs while ignoring contradictory evidence.
Groupthink: Conforming to popular opinion without individual critical analysis.
Magical Thinking: Believing in unnatural causality or disregarding logic and evidence in favor of wishful thinking.
Fallacious Reasoning: Relying on logical fallacies or invalid arguments to draw conclusions.
Closed-mindedness: Refusing to consider new ideas or perspectives that challenge existing beliefs.
These behaviors and thought patterns represent various ways in which people might engage in non-critical thinking — essentially doing the opposite of what Critical Thinking entails.”
Yes, those are all bad intellectual habits that should be comprehensively and objectively discussed, (particularly when teaching Science in K-12 schools), so that they can be studiously avoided. However, in general, that is NOT happening (e.g., none of these ten items are covered in the NGSS)…
This is an enormous deficiency in our K-12 education system that needs to be properly fixed, yesterday!
Here are other materials by this scientist that you might find interesting:
Check out the Archives of this Critical Thinking substack.
WiseEnergy.org: discusses the Science (or lack thereof) behind our energy options.
C19Science.info: covers the lack of genuine Science behind our COVID-19 policies.
Election-Integrity.info: multiple major reports on the election integrity issue.
Media Balance Newsletter: a free, twice-a-month newsletter that covers what the mainstream media does not do, on issues from COVID to climate, elections to education, renewables to religion, etc. Here are the Newsletter’s 2024 Archives. Please send me an email to get your free copy. When emailing me, please make sure to include your full name and the state where you live. (Of course, you can cancel the Media Balance Newsletter at any time - but why would you?
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Critical thinking needs to be taught everywhere, not only in K-12 science programs. I learned to spot things like straw man arguments, proof by reference to authority, proof by intimidation, proof by vigorous handwaving... in debate lessons in English and Social Studies classes, back when Pasadena CA schools were among the best (1961-1964).
I attended the same schools that all the black (and Japanese) kids attended. I had classes in physics, chemistry, two years of calculus, and three years of Russian. I could have chosen from six language classes: Latin, French, German, Spanish, Russian, and Mandarin Chinese. The all-white school across town offered trigonometry and two languages, so it was obviously a superior school and the system had to be demolished because the black kids were getting an inferior education. My alma mater almost lost accreditation recently. Now Pasadena schools are near the bottom of mediocre California, thanks to a busing lawsuit (Spangler v. Board of Education, brought by the parents of a student at the all-white school) and the system having been run by a Federal judge (Manuel Real) for twelve years
The need for critical thinking skills arises in making inferences about the outcomes of the events of the future for the physical system that is being modelled. Aristotle's three Laws of Thought provide a sound basis for making these inferences under complete information for a deductive conclusion to be reached by the argument made by a model of this system but not to making these inferences under incomplete information. In the latter case, Aristotle's Laws are replaced by the rule that the induced generalization represents all of the available information but no more.
Terry Oldberg
Engineer/Scientist/Public Policy Researcher
Los Altos Hills, Calfifornia, USA
terry_oldberg@yahoo.com