CASE critical thinking method

Concept-based system for actively and independently analyzing information, synthesizing outputs, and evaluating conclusions

Introduction: Why now?

I'm addicted to news. So, in the light of recent events in the politics and elsewhere, I think critical thinking is necessary. it's an emergency. We live in a world where claims have more weight than facts, and where people often can't distinguish between the two. A world where we bathe in information, we are inundated by it, we no longer need to access it. We are constantly interrupted by it.

This state of affairs is by no means new. However, it has been exacerbated by the advent of the technological means of disseminating information. Especially the quality of those transmissions, and the skill with which they are aimed and framed. I'm going to address these facets of the situation first.

The framework I'd like to propose here is not particularly novel, and I apologize for that. But only for the sake of politeness, I'm not actually sorry. Novelty is less important to me than exigency at this point. I've reviewed some of the material available on this subject, and there are some basic components of critical thinking which I will recreate here to suit my purposes.

You might find yourself asking, "Who is this guy?". I'm nobody you're likely to have heard of.

I'm a product of what was once referred to as a Liberal Arts education, which exposed me to a wide variety of ways of thinking. I read a lot, and I read even more in the past. I teach adults from a variety of different disciplines. At this point, that's all you need to know about the author. However, as your first task, I'd like you to think about why it's important to know who I am.

Your second task is to ask yourself why you are still reading.

Contents

• Some words
  • conceptualize
  • analyze
  • synthesize
  • evaluate
  • safety check
• A note on communication
  • signal
  • noise
  • which end are you on?
  • 2.4 framing

Conceptualize

• What do I believe?
• Why do I believe that?
• How am I framing this?

Analyze

• Where did I get the information?
• How good is the information?
• What agenda is the provider of this information pursuing, and how can I know for sure?

Synthesize

• What patterns do I see?
• How do these patterns concur with known previously verified results?
• How does this information fit into the world at large?

Evaluate

• What conclusions can I draw?
• Which are assumptions, and which are backed by evidence?
• Where are the biases at both ends?
• How strong is my validity?

Notes, references, reading list.

Some words

Conceptualize

A concept is a predisposition. It is a filter we try to see the world through.

The first thing a person does when they are exposed to information is compare it to what they already believe. This mechanism is very difficult to turn off. Cultural memes such as "love at first sight" are based on this aspect of human behavior.

"After all, I've fought hard for my world view, and events have transpired that compel me to look at the world in a particular way. I'm constantly asked to make choices. Which breakfast cereal do I eat? Do I eat breakfast cereal? Do I think it's a good idea to eat breakfast? Where do I eat breakfast?"

These questions that describe the choices we face can be arranged in a variety of ways. I can ignore information if I don't think it is important. Someone told me recently, "I'm not interested in birds". This is a concept that immediately whips out the dialectical knife and says:

"There are two kinds of people in this world.

People who are interested in birds.

People who are not interested in birds.

I belong to the second category. If you knew that, you wouldn't try to talk about birds with me."

I've seen this often with students. They assume that something isn't important, so they don't attempt to learn it. Even though they are participating in an attempt to get to know the subject in question, and they have a person who is at the very least marginally more qualified to judge what they need to know and what they don't.

The challenge of conceptualization is the first step in critical thinking because we are often not very adept at performing it. We like simple things. Habits. Brands. Places. We form emotional attachments to these patterns. We teach them to children. "What's your favorite color? Who's your best friend? What's your favorite team?"

This innate emotional desire for hierarchical categorization is a barrier to conceptualization. In order to form a more accurate concept of a new piece of information, we need to turn this off, or at least attenuate it.

There are some other words which would have worked well here. Design. Conceive. I chose conceptualize because it has the least amount of baggage compared to the other two.

I'll have more to say about that, and birds, too.

Analyze

This word comes to us from Greek, by way of medieval Latin and French. In Greek analuein:

ana= up

luein=loosen

Pretty amusing, since the contemporary idea of performing an analysis is somehow the opposite of the idiom loosen up. I'm going to roll with it, since it suits my purposes quite well.

First, I'd like to get something out of the way, a pet peeve of mine. Analysis in its current form is often limited to quantifying. That's not what I'm talking about here. It is absurdly easy to count stuff these days. This has created a variety of situations that obfuscate our path to critical thinking. I'm a huge fan of the scientific method, but data collection often gives us the illusion that we are analyzing something when all we are doing is collecting.

For example, I have a device that measures my physical activity. The stated purpose of that device is to monitor my health by telling me how much I move and how well I sleep. It does this automatically, but I can also manually input information. I assume that it is not very accurate, but it's useful to me because it can compare activity and motionlessness across a longer period of time.

The purpose for the manufacturer of this device is to get me to buy more stuff. They offer a constantly expanding portfolio of sleekly designed products that interact with one another to ostensibly improve my health while at the same time signaling to other humans that I have impeccable taste in design, and a surfeit of wealth to spend on it.

If I don't move enough, or sleep enough, the value of quantifying these attributes is obviated. The device manufacturer sells me the story that I will be fitter if I buy these products, but the principal determiner of my health is my own decision making process.

I'd like to get back to shaking things up.

When you encounter a new piece of information, you should shake it. Find out if anything is loose. Shake it like a wet dog shakes her fur to get the water away from her skin. If you watch a dog do this, it is a quick and very efficient process.

Hold it up to eye level, see how light refracts off its surfaces. Look at it from different angles. Kick the tires of your information. Hold it up to your nose and inhale deeply.

The second to last thing I'm going to say about this for the time being is that proper analysis requires one to hold multiple viewpoints at the same time. This ability will be something that you'll want to cultivate. Those viewpoints may be mutually exclusive sometimes. This stage of the process is not the time to worry about that.

Caveat: this is a rabbit hole in and of itself. Don't get so caught up in touching, smelling, tasting, and shaking that you forget it is only a step in the process.

Synthesize

Once we've shaken things apart, it's time to reassemble the pieces. Put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Un-ring the bell. Solve the puzzle.

The first step in this process is to look for patterns. Luckily, this is a feature of human perception that is well-nigh impossible to shut off. We are pattern recognizing animals. Given a set of stimuli, we will see patterns in that stimuli.

Even if they aren't there. Shit. More about that later.

Once we've seen some patterns, we want to compare them with things that we know. I'm going to introduce a rather wordy term for this, known verifiable results. This is the opposite of what we did in the first two steps. Remember, we've tried to attenuate this feature of human perception to the best of our abilities thus far, but now we need to use it.

A dictionary is a fine example of known verifiable results. So is a technical drawing. Peer reviewed academic journals work in many cases. It's not that the information in these reference materials can't be falsified, or biased, or incomplete, or out of date. They can have all those faults, and more. However, they are less likely to have them than our personal opinions. Or the opinion of an authoritative individual for that matter. Particularly in the absence of a group to discuss your information with. If you don't have someone to bounce ideas off of at one particular point in time, you'll need to use other resources.

This part of the process takes a long time. It is often better to have more than one person to perform it. As a matter of fact, it's exciting to use this entire method in groups, even though it is time consuming. If you never have the benefit of a group, your results are less likely to increase in validity, and you better be very good at holding multiple viewpoints.

Finding resources for our known verifiable results is trivial. Judging their relative validity is a bit more difficult, but we will apply some principles along the way that you will become accustomed to, hopefully. These will help you to make more informed choices.

Evaluate

Evaluating information requires us to look at the reliability, accuracy, authority, appropriateness, bias and, ultimately, the validity of the information we are presented with first. The we want to evaluate our synthesis.

This method is inherently recursive. Cogs within cogs within cogs. The process is iterative, you may never be completely finished with the process, but if you follow the guidelines you will extract results that have a greater likelihood of validity.

Much like synthesis, evaluation is labor intensive, and it benefits from multiple viewpoints. What I said earlier about the ability to hold conflicting perspectives in your mind at the same time here is particularly critical here, and it's unlikely that you will derive good results unless you are willing to do this and have actively practiced it.

By the way, applying the multiple viewpoints approach will help you to work with other people. At this stage, it is critical to be willing to change your mind, even if it means risking rework. This is not a process for the faint of heart, particularly at first. The right kind of stubbornness can serve you well here. As can believing this is a practice, and not a rigid game with winners and losers.

This is where you draw your conclusions. But only if you want them.

Safety check

If you've made it this far, I thank you for your effort. There's some strenuous work ahead of us here, and it will take a while for it to pay off.

Before we go on, I'd like to prime the pump by asking you what the difference between a true thing and a not true thing means to you. Please chew on that a while before moving on. if you are not philosophically inclined by nature, this will be a challenge. Do it anyway.

2. A note on communication

signal

noise

which end are you on?

2.4 framing

Framing

I'm writing this sentence in markdown in my Python IDE on my Linux laptop.

I'm writing this sentence on a tablecloth in a café in Paris.

I'm writing this sentence in the sand on a beach in Costa Rica.

I'm writing this sentence in my office in a Moleskin notebook in the Flatiron building in Manhattan

Which of these scenarios appeal to you? Why? Why would it be important where I am writing this sentence? Which location or environment or method would lend credence, street cred, weight, authority?

Be careful of framing, framing is used to manipulate you. You can use framing to manipulate other people.

Items 4-6 are pending, based on interest level . . .

references

1. Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,