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Edited on Sat Jun-04-05 12:54 PM by igil
Even some college freshmen (ok, first year students) have difficulty being persuaded of things they don't want to believe. We all do this to some extent. I'd like to think college-educated people didn't use to do this--the only people I knew that did it were fundamentalist Xians--but almost everybody I know routinely has this approach now.
Take the undergrads I taught at a prestigious, private school in the NE a couple of years ago (a group at a large public university on the west coast were the same). They may have no facts bearing on an issue, but to try to convince them that they're wrong on some point by marshalling facts is to impugn their intellect and character, and shows their self-esteem to be based on little. They're entitled to their (groundless) opinion, and entitled to having everybody not only tolerate it, but at the very least respect it, if not actively appreciate it.
Many others decide to ignore facts that are inconvenient. Or they only read what they agree with. Or revise an author's past conclusions based upon something they say today.
Yet others assume "critical thinking" implies only criticism, in the sense of "perjoration", not what "critical thinking" used to mean. Esp. if what is read is somehow tainted--either the teacher's disapproved of it, has said to critique it, or the student disagrees with it or dislikes the author for other reason's ahead of time. (It's distressing to hear a grad student diss well-grounded research not because it's unsound, but because the author's in the "wrong camp".) Part of critical thinking was careful consideration of whether the facts presented are true or at least reasonable, portrayed fairly accurately and in context. Some skip the basic step of reviewing the facts as "elementary" and beneath them, and rush to ask if the analysis was performed correctly--it must be state not only on all the facts presented or known at the time, but on all the facts known to the reader. An analysis may be judged false even if the analysis can accommodate, or be trivially altered to accommodate, facts not presented; or, conversely, the analysis may be judged false if facts that are tangential to the analysis are found to be in error. Or they rush to the conclusion: Belief in the conclusion's erroneousness is sufficient to presuppose errors of fact or analysis, no sufficiently large errors need be identified. In some cases, a margin of doubt in the conclusion is taken as prima facie evidence the analysis is wrong, if the reader doesn't agree with the conclusion; in others, an absence of doubt is taken as evidence the author is arrogant, and can be dismissed. Critical thinking isn't based on fact or analysis, too often.
It's distressing to have a student reject an conclusion that is mostly dead-on accurate, although a detail or two of the analysis or facts are wrong, but only tangentially, or allowing an easy adjustment to the analysis and conclusion; when I asked the student why reject a certain analysis when the conclusion's still fairly sound, I sometimes find the student is a perfect absolutist; or since I had said things ahead of time implying that I disagreed with the author or some fact, the student was just sucking up, and is horribly confused. His role isn't to reason, draw conclusions, and actual garner knowledge, but to find fault, and justify his (or the teacher's) views--unless he already agrees with the conclusion, in which case no error of fact or analysis is too large to be forgiven.
It's basically the American trial system taken into the realm of knowledge, which is a wildly simple-minded view. Scary, in fact. And very unhealthy.
(on edit: in response to #5, I'd add that I don't find that corporate or non-corporate viewpoint makes a difference. It's not the point of view that's at issue, it's that the kids, present and former, weren't taught that critical thinking isn't a weapon, but a tool.)
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