Bible

[MSC290]

Critical Thinking

Critical thinking, in its broadest sense has been described as "purposeful reflective judgment concerning what to believe or what to do."

Critical thinking clarifies goals, examines assumptions, discerns hidden values, evaluates evidence, accomplishes actions, and assesses conclusions.

"Critical" as used in the expression "critical thinking" connotes the importance or centrality of the thinking to an issue, question or problem of concern. "Critical" in this context does not mean "disapproval" or "negative." There are many positive and useful uses of critical thinking, for example formulating a workable solution to a complex personal problem, deliberating as a group about what course of action to take, or analyzing the assumptions and the quality of the methods used in scientifically arriving at a reasonable level of confidence about a given hypothesis. Using strong critical thinking we might evaluate an argument, for example, as worthy of acceptance because it is valid and based on true premises. Upon reflection, a speaker may be evaluated as a credible source of knowledge on a given topic.

Critical thinking can occur whenever one judges, decides, or solves a problem; in general, whenever one must figure out what to believe or what to do, and do so in a reasonable and reflective way.

The list of core critical thinking skills includes observation, interpretation, analysis, inference, evaluation, explanation and meta-cognition.

There is a reasonable level of consensus among experts that an individual or group engaged in strong critical thinking gives due consideration to:

* Evidence through observation
* Context of judgment
* Relevant criteria for making the judgment well
* Applicable methods or techniques for forming the judgment
* Applicable theoretical constructs for understanding the problem and the question at hand

In addition to possessing strong critical thinking skills, one must be disposed to engage problems and decisions using those skills. Critical thinking employs not only logic but broad intellectual criteria such as clarity, credibility, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, significance and fairness.

Willingness to criticize oneself

Critical thinking is about being both willing and able to evaluate one's thinking. Thinking might be criticized because one does not have all the relevant information – indeed, important information may remain undiscovered, or the information may not even be knowable – or because one makes unjustified inferences, uses inappropriate concepts, or fails to notice important implications. One's thinking may be unclear, inaccurate, imprecise, irrelevant, narrow, shallow, illogical, or trivial, due to ignorance or misapplication of the appropriate learned skills of thinking.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_thinking