Critical thinking skills will often determine your success in school, work, and life. The prevalence of misinformation and information overload makes it so important to develop a mindset that focuses on critical thinking.
“The orator persuades by means of his hearers, when they are roused to emotion by his speech; for the judgments we deliver are not the same when we are influenced by joy or sorrow, love or hate.” – Aristotle Can you think of a time when you believed something to be true, but in hindsight, … Read more
If you’re trying to prove something is true, what is the first thing you look for? I think it’s fair that most people would say that evidence or facts is where they start when searching for the truth. But, if you can’t find any evidence, where do you go next? You may give up and … Read more
We all make assumptions. Making assumptions is a way to save brain power, as we can simply put patterns together of human behavior or other phenomena based on our past experiences. Doing so helps us make sense of the world as we encounter new people or situations. And while making assumptions isn’t always a bad … Read more
If you work hard day in and day out and always strive to put your best foot forward at anything you’re doing, you will probably be surprised to know that your brain…is lazy. On the other hand, if you’re familiar with the “exercise paradox” — the contradiction that despite increasing knowledge about the importance of … Read more
Thinking back to your childhood, do you remember your parents ever asking you, “If all of your friends jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?” I know this fictional scenario was often presented to me when I argued to do something “because everyone else was doing it” but it didn’t often work very … Read more
In literature circles, a red herring is a narrative element that is meant to mislead readers by providing irrelevant information. For example, an author might introduce some plot point to distract the reader and mislead them so the ending is more surprising. Red herrings also pop up in rhetoric and argumentation. A red herring fallacy … Read more
What is “truth?” Truth has been a topic up for discussion for thousands of years, especially in the eyes of philosophers. But when it comes to everyday people, we typically accept truths as being any ideas or concepts that aim to represent reality or correspond to it in some way. The truth is represented by … Read more
In general, drawing comparisons between things can be useful. However, comparisons are not always apt and we sometimes end up drawing comparisons between things that are actually not alike. A false equivalence is a type of logical fallacy in which a person attempts to draw an equivalence between two things based on the presence of a few … Read more
When in his 80s, a friend’s grandfather (Pappy) told me that he’s smoked a pack of cigarettes a day since he was a teenager and he turned out just fine, so it can’t really be that bad for you. Now, for any of you who can think back to statistics 101, n=1 in Pappy’s little … Read more
In the context of a debate, it’s always good practice to make sure you clearly understand your opponent’s position before you respond, so you can argue against their actual views. Unfortunately, good practice doesn’t always come through and people end up misrepresenting other people’s views. A straw man fallacy is a kind of logical fallacy … Read more