C R I T I C A L T H I N K I N G Part 2

 “The only thing interferes with my learning is my education.”- Albert Einstein

I am indebted to Dr. Eddy Palmer, my teacher and my mentor who taught me about Socratic Dialectic thinking and critical thinking during my gastroenterology training. He told me, ”always use it in my daily life, in my self-learning activities and in my approach to the patients”. He further told me, ”learning by memorization is a defunct system; memorization is not learning.”

Critical thinking (CT) became my unwavering guide in my 40 years of medical practice.

Even though I am not a cognitive psychologist, I very well know what critical thinking is all about. I’m well aware of that thinking as a whole and especially CT is a very complex and very abstract concept. Numerous books and articles have been written about it. I would like to share this knowledge with my readers in a Q&A format for simplification and for better understanding. It is very difficult to summarize CT in a small blog article but I will give a try as a starting point.  The rest is up to you.

Q 1 – What is exactly critical thinking (CT)?

A 1 - To me, CT is a way of thinking in which you don’t accept any data or information you are exposed to on their face value. This data could come from different sources, in forms of news, arguments, statements, picture, graphs, requests, or it could be obtained by you. Doctors do it by communicating with the patients, doing physical examination and ordering proper laboratory and imaging studies.

Before you do anything,  you must look at it with a critical eye and mind, by asking some critical  questions to think by,  like ”why, how ,when, by who, by what methods” and, if necessary, actively investigating  and reading about them and  consulting experts, for finding the truth and legitimacy in them.

Q 2 – How is CT different from other forms of thinking?

A 2  - CT is core thinking that encompasses all other forms of thinking, including analytic thinking, synthesizing thinking, reasoning, logic, experience and knowledge.

One of the universal laws of nature is that nothing happens in nature without a cause andeverything happens according to cause-and-effect relationships. Analytic thinking involve analyzing the information to find the cause and effect relationships, and breaking down complex problems into smaller pieces. Each piece is then analyzed separately as to why and how it happened and how is it part of the complex problem. Then by using synthesizing thinking to put all the pieces together, using your knowledge and experience to arrive a rational conclusion. This whole process of thinking is critical thinking.

All these CT activities require that full attention must be paid during the entire process, in order to find the truth. These types of full attention activities of CT simultaneously create experience generated self-learning and a powerful long term memory for this self-acquired knowledge.

Q 3 – How can you think about things if you don’t know anything about them beforehand?

A 3 -  We usually do not know what we know, and what we don’t know… but we all have common sense. We acquire experience and knowledge, sometimes without even being aware of it, from event and experience in our daily life. Therefore we should always force ourselves to think when we are faced with a question or a problem, before we say I don’t know. This is a copout, an easy way out, a dislike of thinking. 

Q 4 –  Can Critical Thinking (CT) be taught ?

A 4 -  According to cognitive scientists, CT can’t really be taught. It is an inherited ability, just like IQ. But CT is also a learned skill. Like all other skills, to a certain extend it can be taught and perfected by continuous practice. But without inherited talent, nobody could become exceptional critical thinker like Socrates, Darwin, Einstein and many other great thinkers in human history.

Q 5 – What kind of knowledge is needed, in order to be able, to think critically?

A 5 -  CT needs accurate understanding and insight knowledge of scientific methods, logic economy and statistics.

Q 6 -  What kind of skills are needed, in order to be able to think critically?

A 6 -  CT requires that we develop certain habits of mind and body including hard work, energy, will power, knowledge, inquisitiveness, suspicion, open mindedness, observation and objectiveness. 

Q 7 – What are the barriers of CT?

A 7 -  Overreliance to emotions, conformism, dogmas, unconscious bias, peer pressure, preconceived ideas, prejudice, cultism and tribalism.

Q 8 – Why is CT so important in modern life for any profession?

A 8 -  Modern life in every profession require flexible intellectual skills to cope with an overwhelming load of information. Only CT promotes such skills to see the truth in crowd. Only then a rational and effective decision could be made.