The New Gospel

The ability to think critically is not hardwired into our brains, nor is it simply an accumulation of common sense that develops as we grow up.  Critical thinking involves a deliberative application of concepts developed across centuries of intellectual history, such as deductive and inductive logic, avoidance of logical fallacies, and consideration of base rates and control groups.  Critical thinking also requires a willingness to favor reason over emotion and to suspend judgment and live with ambiguity when the evidence is weak, confusing, or beyond our ken.  In the absence of critical thinking, we leave ourselves reliant on the easy interpretations that grow out of direct experience and the anecdotal accounts of others, interpretations which are all too vulnerable to error and delusion.