1. Damian Gordon

2.  What is Critical Thinking?

3. What are some of the dangers associated with DHMO?
• Death due to accidental inhalation of DHMO, even in small quantities.
• Prolonged exposure to solid DHMO causes severe tissue damage.
• Excessive ingestion produces a number of unpleasant though not
typically life-threatening side-effects.
• DHMO is a major component of acid rain.
• Gaseous DHMO can cause severe burns.
• Contributes to soil erosion.
• Leads to corrosion and oxidation of many metals.
• Exposure decreases effectiveness of automobile brakes.

6.  Born Oct 20, 1859
 Died June 1, 1952
 Born in
Burlington, Vermont
 Philosopher, psychol
ogist, and
educational reformer
 Very influential to
education and social
reform

7.  Reflective Thinking
 1909
 “...an
active, persistent, and
careful consideration of a
belief or supposed form
of knowledge, of the
grounds that support
that knowledge, and the
further conclusions to
which that knowledge
leads. ”

8.  Reflective Thinking
 1909
 “...an
active, persistent, and
careful consideration of a
belief or supposed form
of knowledge, of the
grounds that support
that knowledge, and the
further conclusions to
which that knowledge
leads. ”

9.  Critical Thinking
 1941
 “Involves three things:
 1. An attitude of being disposed to consider in a
thoughtful way the problems and subjects that come
within the range of one's experiences,
 2. Knowledge of the methods of logical inquiry and
reasoning,
 3. Some skill in applying those methods.”

10.  Critical Thinking
 1989
 “Critical thinking is reasonable, reflective thinking
focused on deciding what to believe or do.”

11.  Critical Thinking
 1993
 “Critical thinking is that mode of thinking – about any
subject, content, or problem – in which the thinker
improves the quality of his or her thinking by
skillfully taking charge of the structures inherent in
thinking and imposing intellectual standards upon
them.”

12.  Critical Thinking
 "a constellation of cognitive skills"
 "willingness to consider interpretations of
data or experience that may conflict with
one's own preferred world view"
 "an orientation to learning"

13.  Regrettably Critical Thinking “is another
concept whose value is diminished by
terminological disarray” (Gabannesch, 2006,)
 And
 Barnett (2004) noted that “critical thinking is
a defining concept of the Western university.
Almost everyone is in favor of critical
thinking, but we have no proper account of it”
 How do we mark fairly if we can’t define?

14.  to recognize problems,
 to find workable means for meeting those problems,
 to gather and marshal pertinent information,
 to recognize unstated assumptions and values,
 to comprehend and use language with accuracy, clarity, and
discrimination,
 to interpret data,
 to appraise evidence and evaluate arguments,
 to recognize the existence (or non-existence) of logical relationships
between propositions,
 to draw warranted conclusions and generalizations,
 to put to test the conclusions and generalizations at which one arrives,
 to reconstruct one's patterns of beliefs on the basis of wider
experience, and
 to render accurate judgments about specific things and qualities in
everyday life.
 (Glaser, 1941)

15. Managing the Thinking
Setting the focus
Making summaries
Overviews & conclusions
Action Plans
Feelings and Intuition Information & Data
Emotions and hunches Neutral and objective
No reasons or justifications Checked and believed facts
“At this point” Missing information &
Keep it short Where to source it
FOCUS
Creative Thinking Why it may work
Possibilities * Alternatives Values * Benefits
New Ideas * New Thinking (both known and potential)
Overcome black hat issues Logical reasons
Reinforce yellow hat issues must be given
Why it may not work
Cautions * Dangers
Problems * Faults
Logical reasons
must be given

16.  People sometimes try to persuade us of a
particular point
 This could be considered “arguing the case”
 It is important we understand what their
reasoning is.

17.  Going from the general to the specific
 E.g.
◦ 1. All men are mortal. (premise)
2. Socrates was a man. (premise)
3. Socrates was mortal. (conclusion)
 Thus, the conclusion follows necessarily from
the premises and inferences. In this way, it is
supposed to be a definitive proof of the truth
of the claim

18.  Going from the specific to the general
 e.g.
◦ 1. Socrates was Greek. (premise)
2. Most Greeks eat fish. (premise)
3. Socrates ate fish. (conclusion)
 An inductive argument is one in which the premises
are supposed to support the conclusion in such a
way that if the premises are true, it is probable that
the conclusion would be true.
 BUT WE WILL RECALL...

19.  General statements (theories) have to be based on empirical
observations, which are subsequently generalized into
statements which can either be regarded as true or probably
true.
 The classical example goes from a series of observations:
◦ Swan no. 1 was white,
◦ Swan no. 2 was white,
◦ Swan no. 3 was white,…
◦ to the general statement: All swans are white.
◦ Proof by Induction

20.  Let’s look at an example...

21.  A student made the following complaint to me:
 I spent two days working on your
assignment, I read all of your notes and
memorized everything we were told, and
did a good job of reciting it back to
you in the assignment, and I only got a
“C”, come on. So after doing all that
work I think I should have done
better, therefore I think the test was
unfair.

22.  A student made the following complaint to me:
 I spent two days working on your
assignment, I read all of your notes and
memorized everything we were told, and
did a good job of reciting it back to
you in the assignment, and I only got a
“C”, come on. So after doing all that
work I think I should have done
better, therefore I think the test was
unfair.

23.  Since Mary would not lie to her best
friend, and Mary told me that I am
indeed her best friend, I must really
be Mary's best friend.

24.  Analysis
◦ What are the main conclusion(s)?
◦ What are the reasons?
◦ What is assumed?
◦ Clarify the meaning.
 Evaluation
◦ Are the reasons acceptable and credible?
◦ Does the reasoning support its conclusion(s)?
◦ Are there other relevant considerations to be
considered?
◦ What is your overall evaluation?

25.  You are going to buy a second-hand
car, you know very little about
cars, so you employ an AA mechanic to
check the vehicle over, he tells you
the car is in good condition and that
it would be a good buy.

26.  How acceptable are the claims?
◦ How certain is it claimed to be?
◦ Does the context of the claim influence its
acceptability?
◦ Does it require research to decide?
◦ Is it widely known?
◦ How well does it fit in with other beliefs?
◦ Is it from a credible source?

27.  Judging the source
◦ Is the person an expert?
◦ Were they an eye-witness?
◦ Is the reputation good?
◦ Might they have a vested interest?

28. Critical Thinking Non-Critical Thinking
Epistemological
• shades of gray - strives for depth • black and white - superficial level
Standpoint:
• interdisciplinary • uni- or adisciplinary
• knowledge is open • knowledge is closed
• knowledge is intertwined with • knowledge is independent of
thinking thinking
Modes of • irrational and inconsistent
• rational and consistent
Inquiry: • strives to learn what to think
• strives to learn how to think
• uni-disciplinary/linear
• holistic/webbed
• relies on second-hand information
• original/insightful
• one or very limited frames of
• multiple frames of reference
reference
Concrete • suspends closure • strives for closure
Strategies for • explores/probes • dogmatic/avoiding
Thinking: • questions • doubting
• fair-minded • ego-/ethnocentric/emotional
• active • passive
• collaborative/communal • authoritative
• precise language • vague language

29. Bloom, B.S. (Ed.) (1956) Taxonomy of educational
objectives

32.  McConnell, J. V. (1962) “Memory transfer through
Cannibalism in Planarium”, J. Neuropsychiat. 3 suppl 1 542-
548.
 Reports that when planarians conditioned to respond to a
stimulus were ground up and fed to other planarians, the
recipients learned to respond to the stimulus faster than a
control group did.
 McConnell believed that this was evidence of a chemical basis
for memory, which he identified as memory RNA. Although
well publicized, his findings were not reproducible by other
scientists.

34.  Potential Issues
◦ In natural conditions, these worms will react to light by
elongating and to shock by contracting, in this experiment
they were trained to contract in response to light and
elongate when exposed to shock, thus not only were they
being trained to run a maze but to do so in complete
opposition to their instincts. That raises questions and
variables which weren't taken into account during the
course of the original experiment, and could has caused
bias.
◦ The propensity of planarian worms is to choose to follow a
path coated in the mucous or slime trail left by a previous
worm rather than to slither off in new directions.

38.  SWOT
 Developed originally as strategic planning tool for
organisations to determine the internal and
external factors that might be advantageous and
detrimental to their business.
 Although the origins of SWOT are elusive, generally
it is credited to Albert S. Humphrey working at the
Stanford Research Institute in the 1960s and
1970s.

39.  SWOT stands for:
◦ S: Strengths - what is going well in this
organisation?
◦ W: Weaknesses - what is not going well in this
organisation?
◦ O: Opportunities - what external elements are
present to improve success?
◦ T: Threats - what external elements are present
that might be an impediment?

40.  SWOT can be used for
SWOT
any decision making
scenario where a clear Helpful Harmful
end goal has been
External Internal
established.
 The Strengths and
Weaknesses tend to
S W
look at the present
whereas the
Opportunities and
Threats focus on the
O T
future.

42.  The Law of Identity
 The Law of Non-Contradiction
 The Law of Rational Inference
 The Law of the Excluded Middle
 plus Occam’s Razor

43.  The Law of Identity
 This states that if something is true, it is
always true. That which is, is, for
example, men are men, women are women
and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri
are small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri;

44.  The Law of Non-Contradiction
 This states that two statements which are
antithetical (opposite) cannot both be true.
For example, Aristotle cannot be both alive
and dead at the same time;

45.  The Law of Rational Inference
 This states that if statement A is equal to
statement B and if statement B is equal to
statement C, then statement A is equal to
statement C.

46.  The Law of the Excluded Middle
 This states that if a statement is not true, then the
opposite of that statement is taken to be true. For
example, if Aristotle is not alive, he must be dead
 Or, the disjunctive proposition "Either it is raining
or it is not raining" must be true. Also, if it is true
that it is raining, then the proposition "Either it is
raining, or I own a car" must also be true. It really
doesn't matter what the second phrase is.

47.  Finally we have Occam’s Razor, which in its original
form states "Entities should not be multiplied
unnecessarily" {"Pluralitas non est ponenda
sine neccesitate"}, taken to mean in this case
that if two theories present themselves that are
both equally likely to be true, pick the one that
makes the fewest assumptions.

49.  Aristotle said that there is
a different between the
following two statements;
 “The wood is not white”
 “It is not white wood”
 Can you see the
difference?

50.  “The wood is not white”
 This statement means that the thing under discussion IS
wood BUT isn’t white, so, from example, it could be green
wood, yellow wood or black wood
 “It is not white wood”
 This statement means that it is anything other that white
wood, so, for example, it could be blue wood, green metal, or
white plastic.

51. . . .
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How can the definition of critical thinking help you solve this problem? Connect
the 9 dots using 4 straight lines. Once you start drawing the lines, do not stop
until all 9 dots have been connected. HINT: Lines may be vertical, horizontal
and/or diagonal.

52. . . .
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. . .

53. . . .
. . .
. . .
How can the definition of critical thinking help you solve this problem? Connect
the 9 dots using 1 straight line.

54. . . .
. . .
. . .
How can the definition of critical thinking help you solve this problem? Connect
the 9 dots using 4 straight lines. Once you start drawing the lines, do not stop
until all 9 dots have been connected. HINT: Lines may be vertical, horizontal
and/or diagonal.