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   Author  Topic: Critical Thinking: Part Skill, Part Mindset. And Totally Up to You  (Read 1571 times)
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Critical Thinking: Part Skill, Part Mindset. And Totally Up to You
« on: 2006-12-02 10:57:54 »
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source: WSJ (subscription)

October 20, 2006; Page B1

In 1854, Sir Roger Tichborne, age 25, was reported lost at sea. His
mother, who had raised him in her native France, refused to accept
that her son was gone, and 12 years later it appeared that her
stubbornness had been justified: a gentleman in Australia got in touch
with the bereaved lady, claiming to be Sir Roger.

He had made his way to Australia after surviving the shipwreck, he
explained, and vowed to make a success of himself without his family's
help. Unfortunately, he had suffered numerous business setbacks, and
had been too embarrassed to contact them. Seeing an advertisement for
his whereabouts, which his mother's solicitors had placed, filled him
with remorse. Would she kindly send passage money for himself, his
wife and his children?

If you smell a rat even from 150 years away, then clearly your heart
is not in this -- your head is. It is a truism that emotions and hopes
can trump reason. But with so many contentious issues these days
manifesting themselves as clashes in which reason squares off against
passion, researchers are becoming keenly interested in the reasons
people hold tight to seemingly ludicrous beliefs.

Which Lady Tichborne did. As recounted in the 2006 book "The Science
of Sherlock Holmes" by E.J. Wagner, when the claimant arrived in
England, he was grossly obese. Sir Roger had been very thin and with a
graceful frame. Sir Roger had tattoos on his arm. The claimant had
none, though he did have a birthmark on his torso. Sir Roger did not.
While Sir Roger's eyes had been blue, the claimant's were brown. The
two men had noses and ears of different shapes, and the claimant was
taller by one inch. The claimant did not speak French.

Lady Tichborne nevertheless joyfully proclaimed the man her lost son
and granted him a stipend of £1,000 per annum. Eventually, after her
death, the claimant was found guilty of imposture and sentenced to 14
years of penal servitude.

It is not just grieving mothers who toss reason and empiricism out the
window in favor of blind faith. Arthur Conan Doyle, for one, was no
slouch in the critical-thinking department -- both in his work at a
medical clinic and in solving crimes, which he put to good use in his
Sherlock Holmes stories. Yet he believed that mediums could contact
the dead.

Alfred Russel Wallace, who like Charles Darwin discovered natural
selection, was second to none in his capacity for rational thinking
and respect for empirical data. At least when he so chose. But Wallace
believed in ghosts, haunted houses, levitation and clairvoyance.

Critical thinking means being able to evaluate evidence, to tell fact
from opinion, to see holes in an argument, to tell whether cause and
effect has been established and to spot illogic. "Most research shows
you can teach these skills," notes cognitive psychologist D. Alan
Bensley of Frostburg State University, Maryland. "But
critical-thinking skills are different from critical-thinking
dispositions, or a willingness to deploy those skills."

A tendency to employ critical thinking, according to studies going
back a decade, goes along with certain personality traits, not
necessarily with intelligence. Being curious, open-minded, open to new
experiences and conscientious indicates a disposition to employ
critical thinking, says Prof. Bensley. So does being less dogmatic and
less authoritarian, and having a preference for empirical and rational
data over intuition and emotion when weighing information and reaching
conclusions.

As he puts it, "critical-thinking skills have to do with the cognitive
ability of reasoning. Critical-thinking dispositions are more related
to traits that determine whether you choose to use those skills."

In other words, critical-thinking skills are necessary for engaging in
critical thinking, but they are not sufficient. You also have to want
to think critically. If you have good critical-thinking skills but for
some reason are not motivated to deploy them, you will reach
conclusions and make decisions no more rationally than someone without
those skills.

As Lady Tichborne showed, people aren't inclined to deploy
critical-thinking skills if those skills lead to a conclusion that
clashes with deeply held beliefs or hopes -- in her case, that her son
was alive.  Sir Arthur had a similar motivation: His son was killed in
World War I, and he attended séances to contact him. Wallace hoped to
contact his dead brother.

"Both Conan Doyle and Wallace had a strong predisposition to believe
in spiritualism and other woolly things, so they looked for confirming
evidence," says Prof. Bensley. "They didn't deploy their
critical-thinking skills in questioning whether sleight of hand and
other tricks could account for what the mediums did, let alone in
questioning the basic premise of contacting the dead."

Examples abound of critical thinking being "context specific," which
means it is trotted out in some situations but not others. The same
person who rationally analyzes all her portfolio options also believes
she was abducted by aliens. The same person who critically parses
newspaper editorials for lapses of logic believes in astrology.

Adding other examples is left as an exercise for the reader.

Email Sharon Begley at sciencejournal@wsj.com
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