Critical Thinking: A Guide Through the Storm of Lies, Misinformation, and Opinions

Humans have the most advanced brains on the planet—we should learn to use our capacity for logical, rational thought.

Photo by Darius Bashar on Unsplash

Society has become incredibly contentious and polarized. Opposing pundits and experts bombard us with opinions. Every day we face a deluge of misinformation and lies, masquerading as facts and truth. Who can you believe?

Too many people choose to blindly follow their pundit, news source, or influencer of choice like rats following the Pied Piper, without really thinking and questioning. How can you make sense of it all? Critical Thinking!

What is Critical Thinking

“Critical thinking is skilled, active, interpretation and evaluation of observations, communications, information, and argumentation.” Simply put, critical thinking is a valuable skill to help us identify, analyze, evaluate, and reason about arguments in order to come to logical, rational conclusions about issues. It helps us formulate and present convincing premises to support conclusions, thereby making reasonable, intelligent decisions about what to believe and do.

Critical Thinking Checklist

When confronted with conflicting information, using critical thinking can help determine the logic of an argument or statement and help guide our decision-making. Use the following simple critical thinking checklist as a guide through the pandemic of alternate facts and misinformation that pervades our society today.

Clarity

If a statement is vague or fuzzy we can’t tell if it’s accurate or even relevant. When we hear vague, fuzzy statements we should ask for clarification.

Politicians all along the spectrum are guilty of this. Speeches are rife with fuzzy, feel-good statements that don’t really say anything. How many times have you heard something like, “We need to come together and work out these solutions together.”? Yeah, sure, it sounds fine, but it’s just vague buzzwords and fluff.

Accuracy

A statement can be clear but not accurate. Sadly, the last few years of political theater seem…