Thoughts & Quotes about Critical Thinking
December 30th, 2009 Posted in Boomer News, Brain, social scienceKids, grandpa calls the beginning of the 16th century the beginning of science.That is when Nickalaus Copermicus wrote that the earth circled the sun … rather than the other way around. At that time, Thomas Cardinal Wolsey said; “Be very, very careful what you put in your head, because you will never get rid of it.” (1471-1530). It took a long time for people to get it out of their head that the world wasn’t flat or that the Sun wasn’t circling the Earth.
Kids, it is difficult to think critically about a topic that you no very little about. A critical thinker is skeptical of simple or singular explanations, is mindful of the frequent mistakes people make with their information, actively looks for bias in others, and searches for faulty assumptions.
Grandpa and you kids … are subject to being wrong. Believe it. Assume it. Critical thinkers are humble about their own knowledge. Critical thinkers realize they do not know all the answers. Their information might be incomplete … & as hard as they try … might still be biased in some way.
The first part of Critical Thinking is to expose and unlearn erroneous beliefs you have acquired. “The Illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those cannot learn, unlearn and relearn” __Alvin Toffler. “Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age 18″__ Albert Einstein.
The beliefs which are formed in our subconscious mind are our best choices of information available at the time. However, such choices aren’t always the best to carry throughout life. In fact, some aren’t very good at all. “The most useful learning for the uses of life is to unlearn what is untrue” ___Antisthenes
“Because beliefs hold court in the subconscious, it’s very difficult to change them consciously. Does this mean that you can’t change existing beliefs? Not at all. Our mental system is dynamic and is actually willing to acquire newer, better beliefs, providing there is clearly an advantage to the subconscious mind. A belief that makes the subconscious feel better” ___Jeff Sauber. Kids, It will take another blog to tell you how neuroscientist explain how that might be done.
Happy New Year grandchildren !
One Response to “Thoughts & Quotes about Critical Thinking”
By Dennis Kababik on Jan 2, 2010
Hi George,
It was nice talking to you a few weeks back.
After Jeanne’s memorial service I logged onto your Boomer News and read your past year’s blogs to your grand kids. Great Idea and Very nicely done!
I think we have a similar approach to viewing the cosmos. As you said, is rare in our culture.
What are you reading these days?
Here is a link to the books that I have purchased and read from Amazon since 2003.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/ays/ref=yml_wid_sa?ie=UTF8&sortCol=dateAcquired&tag=widgetsamazon-20&searchTerms=&viewShared=1&targetCustomerId=A2TSWBBVWBW22V&view=_cat_agg_books&sortDir=desc
As you can see I am also a fan of Michael Shermer.
Here is a link to Google’s list of his videos that are on the net.
Some of which I have watched in the past few weeks.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1C1CHMG_en-USUS291US303&tbo=1&output=search&q=michael%20shermer&tbs=vid:1
Please let me know that you received this entry/email.
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To George’s grandkids: your grandfather is not the only one that thinks the way he does. I happen to belong to a community of friends who are on a similar philosophical adventure.
Take care,
Dennis