Critical Thinking
Critical thinking is a key skill for learning. It’s the difference between blindly absorbing and internalizing every idea you consume, and understanding and evaluating information for truthfulness and relevance.
Worldview: Objective detachment
Part of learning is changing your mind as you encounter new information that perhaps challenges your knowledge or beliefs. This isn’t possible if you’re so attached to what you think you know that you aren’t willing to hear, read, or incorporate new information.
The key is a mental framework around ideas that allows them to be fluid, adaptable, and a little bit detached. Maybe you were pretty confident that you had the solution to a problem at work, but then you heard another person’s perspective and it made you rethink your idea. Maybe you considered another perspective but ultimately decided that the original solution was still the best solution for the situation and the moment in time.
The outcome of which solution was implemented is almost irrelevant. What matters is the willingness to be objective about ideas and hold them loosely enough that they can change and evolve.
Behavior: Evaluating sources for bias
The flip side of this worldview in which ideas are malleable is that not all information is created equal. It’s important to consider the source of information when determining if or how to allow it to change your ideas.
Bias in sources is a research principle that I have interpreted more broadly to apply to non-fact ideas as well. In this framework, bias has different forms and different levels of impact depending on the context of the information. The presence of bias does not inherently discredit a source.
To better illustrate this, I present two extreme examples on opposite ends of this spectrum. On the harmful and discrediting end, we have the bias of oil companies pushing lies about climate change. On the just-something-to-consider end, we have the bias of someone encouraging others to join them for pre-dawn workouts because of their own positive personal experience and perhaps their desire for company.
If it’s facts that we’re discussing, evaluation of sources and consideration of bias is crucially important.
Ask questions like:
Does the source have the qualifications and credibility to be distributing the information in question?
Does the source have other motives or agendas that could be influencing what and how they communicate?
Would the source benefit from you accepting what they are saying as fact?
What are the stakes if you misjudge the source?
In the case of learning facts, you risk incorporating factually incorrect information into your body of knowledge. This has negative consequences if you then act or advise others to act based on this incorrect information.
In the case of less objective realms, like personal philosophies or preferences, multiple schools of thought can coexist. Rather than objective right or wrong, these kinds of ideas can be right for some people and wrong for others. Maybe something works for your friend, but you try it and it doesn’t work for you.
In these grayer areas, you can ask those questions in a softer way. It’s more about taking into consideration what experiences may have shaped the source’s worldview. In this context, you’re looking for bias to determine if or how the information or ideas are relevant to you.
You can try:
Does the source have first hand experience with the topic?
Is the source someone or something you want to be learning from?
Does the source align with your values?
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