Latest / Incredible Mind / Critical Thinking: Michelle Cross Smith
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- Season 2 Episode 2 Critical Thinking FINAL mixdown: Hello and welcome back to the Incredible Mind Podcast. I'm your host, Michelle Cross Smith. Today we are doing a slightly different episode. Rather than interviewing one of the many brilliant and wonderful experts and practitioners out there who provided so many great insights into your unique intelligence, I'm going to share some of my own educational content on a topic that is extremely relevant for many countries around the world, including the United States, at this time. Critical thinking. This episode is going to focus in particular on the critical thinking skills around evaluating information. I have worked with so many different kinds of learners across the years. I've taught everything from how to clean a hotel room to how to optimize complex software. I have so much faith in the intelligence of the individual, but have noticed that in many cases, critical thinking is not a skill set commonly taught in K through 12, also known as primary. Education, which is where most of us get the majority of learning in our lives. So today's episode is dedicated to everyone who truly wants to see the world as clearly as possible, who's interested and curious about information, but maybe looking for a guide or even a refresher on how to evaluate the information that they work with every day. As always, the incredible mind I'm talking about is yours. Let's get started. It's time to talk critical thinking. To begin, a great critical thinking practice is to define the terms we're using to make sure everyone's on the same page. So here we go. Critical thinking, applying reason and questioning assumptions in order to solve problems, evaluate information, and discern biases. Thanks, Miriam Webster. Something I want you to know about critical thinking is that it is not fast thinking, especially not at first. You're going to need to take time to really explore the information that you're looking at. Or the problem you're trying to solve, and think a little more deeply. Look for potential errors in the information that you're looking at. Question your own thinking and become more aware of biases. This takes time, but it is totally worth it. Now you might be thinking, in a world with answers at our fingertips and artificial intelligence offering to do the thinking for you, why does critical thinking even matter? Well, number one, not all problems have a solution on Google. Chat GPT or Claude, sometimes you need to think on your feet. You can get yourself unstuck from those tricky problems that are messing with your life and start exploring and testing solutions. Second, we live in a glut of information. With critical thinking skills, you start to be able to review what you are reading, what you're watching, what you're hearing, and separate the good from the garbage. And third, you were born with this incredible brain. Use it to come to your own conclusions and be aware of and avoid manipulation tactics. For the remainder of this episode, we're going to focus on critical thinking when it comes to evaluating information. Problem solving is another major component of critical thinking. However, we already have some fantastic content on this topic from season one of the podcast. Check out the episode You Can Create with Zarana Ivchevich Pringle for some great recommendations and learning. On divergent thinking and problem solving. And the Invisible Art of Product Design with Kathy Bergstrom for a real life look at defining and tackling problems. When it comes to evaluating information, I want you to take on two personas the detective and the judge. When you're doing the work of the detective, you're going to scan the information that you are reading, watching, listening to, identify its topic, its conclusion. And the reasoning behind its conclusion. Once you've done that, it's time to be the judge. This is where you check the reasoning for fallacies, missing perspectives, and decide if the conclusion in that information is valid. As I just mentioned, most information you're going to run into has three basic elements a topic, in other words, what is it about, a conclusion, this is a statement that can be an opinion or a solution that the information is offering, and then reasoning. What are the facts or points that this information is making that support and bolster the conclusion? It is your job as a detective to find these elements. If one or more is missing, the information is possibly something that you could ignore, or it's structured in a different format, like a dictionary definition or something like that. Quick tips for you Topics are often in the title of a piece, but not always, or they're in the first couple of lines. The conclusion can either be stated right at the beginning of a piece, Or it can end up at the very end. Reasoning is almost always in the middle of a piece of information. Now, if conclusions and reasoning sound familiar to you, you may have already learned something about logic. These are components of logical argument. Logic is a way of thinking you probably use automatically. However, it is a fascinating and complex topic that's worth its own time in the spotlight. We'll explore logic in future episodes. Okay. So you've identified the key elements of information that you need. Now we're going to put down the magnifying glass and pick up the gavel, because it is judgment time. Review what you've found. Does it all add up? Do the reasons support the conclusion? And is the conclusion relevant to the topic? If any of this doesn't add up, you've probably got to toss the information that you're looking at. Number two, are there red flags or fallacies involved? Red flags are warning signs or signals that draw attention to a problem or error. In this context, we'll be looking at information red flags, reasoning in the argument that stands out as containing fallacies. Fallacies are errors or even deceptions in reasoning. The words origins go way back to a common root with fail and failure. In other words, a fallacy is a failed attempt at reasoning, but that doesn't mean it's always easy to spot. We'll dig into red flags and fallacies in a little bit. And last but certainly not least, is there anything missing? Are there perspectives or contexts or even factors being left out, whether on purpose or totally by accident, that would weaken our acceptance of the conclusion on this particular topic? Finding these requires a little bit of imagination and broader thinking, and maybe even some research of your own. But with all this critical thinking complete, you can decide, is the information usable? You've looked through it, you've reviewed it, you've identified the pieces. You search for missing parts, you make the judgment call. Is this something you want to stick with? You now have your alter egos, the detective and the judge, ready to support you in your effort to evaluate information. What we just covered was pretty high level, so I want to spend some time going a bit deeper into information, red flags, and fallacies. First off, I'm defining red flags as big, easy-to-spot signals or categories you can use when scanning information. And looking for what jumps out at you as potentially problematic. I'm focusing on four main types of information red flag categories that seem to be really common in today's information. Partial pictures, but numbers, emotional crutches, and straight up lies. Let's get started with partial pictures. A partial picture is the oversimplification of an argument by providing limited or incomplete information. A lot of times partial pictures are not intentional. But whether they're intentional or not, what they can do is lead you to coming to the wrong conclusion based on the information you have in front of you. One of the ways that partial pictures are the most easily identified or in the form of a fallacy I call incomplete info. This involves using one or two facts to come to a conclusion, where if you had more information, the conclusion you might come to could be totally different. Now, when you run into incomplete info, know that it may be intentional. But it very well may not be intentional at all. I'm going to be giving you a few responses that you can make when faced with these different kinds of red flags or fallacies. With incomplete information, it can be as simple as, I need more information. And another one of my favorite questions, is there anything left out that we should consider? Another partial picture is a classic critical thinking fallacy known as the false dilemma. False dilemma is offering one or another option or an either or decision. When in reality, there are far more options available to you. When you're faced with a false dilemma, there are also easy questions you can ask. Number one, are these really the only options? And number two, what about blah blah blah as a third choice? When you find a red flag, if you can call it out, ask. Ask for more than what you're getting. And then the third partial picture, another classic fallacy, is known as the circular argument. In a circular argument, You're not really getting any information to support the claim. The reasons used to support the conclusion are just restating the conclusion in a slightly different way. For example, AI is always right because it never makes mistakes. Always right, never wrong, just two different ways of saying the same thing. There are a ton of circular arguments out there. When faced with one, you can call it out. Well, sorry, but your information is a closed loop or repetitive. Or you can simply ask, can you give me another type of evidence that supports what you're saying? Incomplete info, false dilemma, and circular argument. These are the three types of partial picture red flags. Moving on to the red flag category that I love to hate is but numbers. But numbers is using poorly sourced, incomplete, or unrelated data to back up your claim. The first type of butt numbers red flag that we're going to talk about is questionable data. This is using an unverified statistic or number to prove your point. The way you know that you're dealing with questionable data is that you ask for the source of the data. That's one of your responses, by the way. Can I please see the source? Or you start looking on your own for third-party data you can use to corroborate the claim in this questionable data and nothing comes up. You come up with crickets, or you keep going down this rabbit hole where the actual source of the original data was a blog post that wasn't sourced. This is questionable data. In my opinion, you should toss it, ignore it. Now the next type of butt numbers red flags is called cherry picking. With cherry picking, the argument is pulling one or two statistics or numbers from a report and using those to verify what they're saying, when if you had the whole report, you would come to a completely different conclusion. This is another take on incomplete info. When faced with cherry picking, simply ask. I would like to see the full report. Ask for more information. Then the final one, which makes me crazy, is the use of random numbers. Just jamming in a piece of data to make your argument sound more official, when actually the data has absolutely nothing to do with what's being said. This is another common tactic that's used to give the false impression of validity to a piece of information. Be wary, it is a major red flag. If you see something like that, call it out, or even just think to yourself, this number has nothing to do with their point. If you can't instantly connect it to what's being said, it's probably a random number. Now, let's explore a third general red flag category. It's what I call the emotional crutch. This is evoking an emotional response in order to distract from a lack of strong reasoning. Emotional crutch is really commonly seen in something that I like to call the blame game. In the blame game, someone's stoking anger towards one group, or sometimes it's even one individual, as the cause of a problem. When in reality, the problem is way more complex and nuanced than something that a single person or group could be responsible for. One way that your blame game red flag can go up high is also when the actions of one individual is used to smear an entire group of people who share the same characteristics. Just be really wary of this kind of stuff. And if you hear it, say, How can group XYZ be the primary cause of such a complex problem? Or you can say, there are other factors involved or Calm down, we don't want to paint everyone with the same brush here. Also, look at the underlying information and are there weaknesses in it that would spur someone to instead try to get us to be angry about something else. Another emotional crutch is what I call the pity party. So this is the intentional use of emotional language or even imagery to persuade someone to take action in a certain way, usually leaning into people's compassionate or caring side. One thing that makes the pity party stand out is when images and video are used, very emotional ones, but they are not sourced. They're not necessarily connected at all to the organization or the people who are making this point. If you find that your emotions are really being played on or even preyed on, ask some questions. It's sad, but can you explain your solution in more detail? And where did this image or video come from and when was it taken? Sometimes there's footage provided to make a certain point and make you feel bad when the footage is about a situation or a time completely unrelated to what's being discussed. Now, please don't take this fallacy as a reason not to donate or support charities. I've worked for nonprofits. I love them. There's some great organizations out there doing great work, but do your homework. Be aware that there are some sham organizations out there as well that play on the kindness of people's hearts to get them to take action in a way that benefits the Person sharing the information. Just be mindful. Then the last emotional crutch is another classic fallacy known as moral equivalence. So, with moral equivalence, the person making an argument is taking two very different things and making them equally good or bad. Most commonly, it's just as bad as. One simple example I like to use is: you're asking me to wear shoes in the Minimart. I might as well be living in Nazi Germany. It's taking one infraction that someone considers unjust and comparing it to something that is truly terribly unjust, when in reality, they're basically not alike at all. Now, moral equivalence is also used to excuse bad behavior. Someone might say, Well, yeah, so I cook the books. Who cares? Everybody does it. They're just as bad as I am. Really? Is that any excuse for bad behavior? Just saying that everyone else is doing it? Come on. Last but not least, the ultimate information red flag that you should keep your eye out for are straight-up lies. Lies are used when the truth can't stand on its own. There are two super common forms of straight-up lying that are going on out there today. Sometimes they use a seed of truth, but they're pretty much just lies. The first one is conspiracy theories. We all know at least one conspiracy theory by now, don't you think? Conspiracy theories are Complicated false stories that are used to explain an event or a series of events or a phenomenon. Most of the time, conspiracy theories have some bad guy at the bottom of it, some top secret malicious actor or group of actors with a grand plan to destroy the world or hide the truth from everyone else about, let's say, the Yeti. When you're faced with somebody spouting a conspiracy theory at you, ask them, where did you learn about this theory? And have you considered alternative explanations? This is one thing you could say to someone. If they're even willing to come out of their conspiracy theory bubble. And it is alright to say, I'm sorry, but this doesn't add up. I don't believe it. The person might get mad at you, but if you feel safe doing so, just let them know you're not buying what they're saying. Just as insidious and even more commonplace than conspiracy theories is disinformation. Disinformation is different from misinformation in a simple way. Misinformation is accidentally getting the information wrong. Whereas disinformation is intentional use of false information. Most disinformation is used either to cause confusion or to get people to do something or behave in a way that they wouldn't have otherwise had they known the actual truth of the matter. Disinformation, similar to conspiracy theories, plays on people's built-in biases and assumptions, because biases and assumptions can make you very vulnerable to disinformation and conspiracy theories. When faced with disinformation, you can say, I need to see evidence to support your claim, real evidence to support your claim. And if somebody's really giving you a hard time and you feel comfortable doing so, tell them, repeating something over and over again doesn't make it true. All right, you have learned a ton of information red flags and a few common fallacies to boot. Well, there are four more classic fallacies that I really want you to know before we close things out today. So we're going to go over them real quickly right now. My guess is that these are going to sound familiar to you, but it's good to bring them to your attention. First one is the bandwagon. Well, everyone is thinking this. Everyone is doing this, so so should you. Should you? Know that this is really a really common fallacy. Know that this is a really common fallacy. Similarly, there's false authority. Well, this famous actor or celebrity or CEO says ABC, so therefore you need to agree with them. Do I? Are they actual experts on what's being promoted here? False authority is a common fallacy to look out for. Then we have one that you may have heard of called the straw man. The straw man you'll see most commonly used in debates and arguments between a few people. With the straw man, somebody makes a good argument, and their opponent, not able to successfully refute the argument on its own merits, instead distorts the argument that was just made into something that is easier to fight against. The reason it's called straw man, rather than attacking the argument of the person who you're arguing with. Instead, you create a sort of straw version, a scarecrow, if you will, of the person and their argument. Make a completely distorted, ghoulish thing. Fight against that because it's much easier to do. Last but not least, we've got the slippery slope fallacy. We've all heard this. it's just a slippery slope. If you hear that, you're probably hearing a slippery slope fallacy. In the slippery slope fallacy, there is a chain of events that is being claimed are inevitable if you make this first choice or agree with this one thing. Common slippery slope argument used back in the day was that if we legally accept gay marriage, marriage between two men or two women, it's going to lead us down a road where eventually people are going to be legally marrying their pets or marrying their staircase or whatever. Slippery Slope takes the first point that may seem completely reasonable on its own, but snowballs it into this catastrophic, insane outcome. That is slippery slope. You now have a number of information, red flags and fallacies in your toolkit when you're checking out information. You are both detective and judge in this situation. You find these things and you make a judgment call. Is this a red flag or fallacy? Is this something I should just say is accurate or not accurate? Go ahead, make the decision, and practice. Start looking for red flags and fallacies in your daily life. Start paying attention to the arguments that are being made, the reasons provided in a piece of information. And see if your red flag's spidey senses go off. If you see them, it's up to you to decide if you want to speak up about it or not. I know this is a ton of information, so check out the resources page of my website, incredible-mind.org, for takeaway infographics, and even learning videos. Thanks for joining me on a learning adventure in critical thinking. Critical thinking is one of my favorite topics. So if you want to continue this conversation, find me on social media, an arena where you definitely need to use your critical thinking skills. And of course at my website, Incredible Dash Mind.org. Incredible Mind Podcast is written, produced, and edited by me, Michelle Cross Smith. Peter Aronson is consulting producer. Angela Ferrero designed the cover art, and the music was created by Alex Grohl. Thanks for listening.