A) A CRITICAL THINKER LOOKS FOR
UNDERLYING, POSSIBLY FAULTY ASSUMPTIONS.
This is perhaps the most critical part of
examining thinking. What does the speaker or writer assume? Frequently it is assumed that
people understand the same thing when a term is used. If I say "welfare" can I
assume that you and I have the same understanding of the government programs that comprise
it? What about the terms conservative, liberal, Christian, American?
Often beliefs that seem to be true to almost everyone
in a particular group, or even in an entire country, are based on assumptions that are
partially or completely false.
Many United States politicians observed elections in
EL Salvador in the early 1980’s and saw that Salvadoran citizens were not prevented
or coerced in voting; saw that the voting results were counted honestly, and therefore
declared that the government that was elected by this process was democratic and
legitimate. The U.S. government then supported this government and gave it, and the
military that supported it, billions of dollars in aid. Many of the opposition groups that
fought this government and military declared themselves to be socialist or Marxist.
Clearly then, the United States was correct in supporting the democratic government.
The first mistake that was made here, in this
writer’s opinion, was that many Americans assumed that because people could vote
freely and the votes were counted correctly that there was indeed democracy. In fact, the
government and the military in El Salvador systematically murdered almost anyone who spoke
against them. Reporters were shot; union organizers tortured and killed; priests, nuns,
teachers and others were assassinated if they spoke against the military or the
government. The government controlled the newspapers, television and radio. The only
thoughts or statements that they allowed to be printed, shown or spoken in the media were
those that the military permitted.
Many Americans assumed that because voting was free
that democracy existed. They thought that the armed opposition was part of a communist
movement bent on taking over the world. Many of these assumptions were false. They went
largely unexamined. The United Nations did an investigation in El Salvador to find out
what really happened. Their findings were that the military and its supporters in the
government had murdered approximately 10,000 people in El Salvador during the time that
the United States was supplying billions of dollars in aid.
For approximately ten consecutive years during the
Reagan and Bush administrations the gross national product grew. Many people therefore
assumed that the economy was doing well. However, the government was going deeply into
debt at the same time this economic growth was occurring. This debt would contribute to
higher taxes and less government spending in succeeding administrations. Also, statistics
that this author read, (hopefully accurate?!) suggested that most of the economic growth
in the Eighties went to the upper-middle class and the wealthy. Most people in the United
States did not fare significantly better during this time. In fact, many studies said the
number of poor people in the United States increased relatively and absolutely at the same
time of the supposed economic growth.
Critical thinkers often look beneath widely accepted
truths and see false assumptions or ignored factors.
B.) A CRITICAL THINKER IS SKEPTICAL OF SIMPLE OR SINGULAR EXPLANATIONS TO SOCIAL PROBLEMS.
Often people give very simple explanations for
social phenomena. Usually there are many factors that contribute to a given situation;
very seldom is there just one. Also, frequently the factors that cause a certain
phenomenon act upon each other in various ways. Consider, for example, the following
factors: poverty, ignorance, illness, illegitimacy, malnutrition, and feelings of
hopelessness. All of these factors interrelate. In a sense they all contribute to creating
the others. At a given point in time, one factor might be more causal than others. For
example, poor children might well be malnourished; they are then likely to be ill
frequently. Sick, malnourished children often do poorly in school, become dropouts, have
children without being married, and feel that they will never be able to succeed. They
then find it difficult to provide good nutrition, decent guidance or motivation to their
children. Their problems are often reproduced in the next generation.
It would be incorrect to say that poverty causes
malnutrition. Many factors can cause malnutrition. It would be incorrect to say that
ignorance causes poverty; there are many factors that can lead to poverty. One could say
that poverty can be a contributing factor to malnutrition or that ignorance is often a
factor related to poverty.
Below are a few statements that offer a single causal
explanation for situations or conditions that are far more complex.
WE HAVE DISCIPLINE PROBLEMS IN SCHOOLS BECAUSE
PARENTS DO NOT TEACH THEIR CHILDREN RESPECT AT HOME.
WE HAVE SO MUCH CRIME IN THE UNITED STATES BECAUSE
PENALTIES ARE TOO LENIENT.
PEOPLE WHO ARE ON WELFARE ARE TOO LAZY TO WORK.
STUDENTS WHO GET LOW GRADES DO NOT STUDY.
WE HAVE SO MANY ABORTIONS IN THE UNITED STATES
BECAUSE IT’S SO EASY TO HAVE AN ABORTION.
THE DIVORCE RATE IS SO HIGH IN THE UNITED STATES
BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE TOO SELFISH TO WORK ON MARITAL PROBLEMS.
THE REASON THAT SO MANY BLACK MEN ARE IN PRISON IS
BECAUSE OF DISCRIMINATION.
A frequent mistake is to ascribe causation to
correlation. A relationship is causal if one factor directly brings about another, that
is, the second factor could not have and would not have occurred if not for the first. As
stated above, almost never is there a single cause for social phenomena.
A correlation is simply a relationship. Two things
occur at the same time, or one after the other, but one does not cause the other, rather
they both may be caused by other, non-related factors.
Some people say that welfare programs have caused
single- parent families. They often point to statistics that show a large increase in
single-parent families amongst poor people, especially black Americans, at the same time
that welfare spending was increased in the United States. Some welfare programs,
especially Aid to Families with Dependent Children, required that the parent be unmarried
in order to qualify. Others, like Food Stamps, are income dependent; meaning that
one’s income must be low enough to qualify. A single woman does not have a
husband’s income to include in her application and therefore would be more likely to
receive benefits. Some people argue that in order to receive more welfare benefits many
women do not marry or decide to divorce.
A critical thinker is wary of simple explanations.
What else could have contributed to an increase in single-parent families? Many people
believe that there was a significant change during the Sixties and Seventies in the United
States and other countries concerning sexual conduct and marriage. It became more
acceptable to have sex outside of marriage; society also became more tolerant of divorce.
The women’s movement encouraged women to find jobs, to become more independent, more
self-sufficient. Another social phenomenon was occurring at the same time. Many African
Americans were moving out of the South and out of rural areas and into big cities. As more
poor people were moving to the cities, at the same time many well-paying, low-skill jobs
were moving out of the city to the suburbs or being phased out by technology. Therefore,
more poor people, especially black men, could not find jobs that paid much over minimum
wage, making them more likely to be poor and less likely to be good marriage prospects.
In short, there are many possible factors that could
have led to the increase in single-parent families. It is possible that the birth control
devices that became increasingly available in the Sixties and Seventies had an effect on
beliefs concerning sexual practices. Were the advancements in basic science responsible
for the discoveries in birth control? Is it possible that the relationship between the
increase in single-parent families and the concurrent increase in welfare programs is
largely or mostly correlational? Were they both caused primarily by other factors? Was one
partly causal of the other? These are some questions that a critical thinker might ask.
C) A CRITICAL THINKER IS WARY OF NUMBERS.
THEY ARE OFTEN MISUSED, INCORRECT OR MISCITED.
This writer has encountered many mistakes that
supposedly reputable authors have made using numbers. Don’t trust teachers, or
newspapers or textbooks to be correct. Often they are not. In the spring of 1997 I was
reviewing two US Government textbooks; one said that the U.S. Senate had sixteen standing
committees, the other said there were seventeen. They were both printed the same year
(1997). One might assume that something as simple as this wouldn’t be missed. But it
was. (I used the Internet and checked the Home Page of the US Senate. They said there were
sixteen.)
In December of 1997 I found that an article that I
was using in one of my classes said that foreign aid was only 0.012% of our budget. They
misplaced the period. They meant to say 1.2% of our budget.
Frequently errors are made in reference to public
opinion polls. The first mistake is to assume that the numbers cited in a poll are exactly
representative of the general public. If a poll is done with scrupulous
methodology, it still has a margin of error. For example, many polls say that they have a
range of + or - 3pts and a reliability of 95%. This means that the numbers given in the
poll have a probability of being correct 95% of the time within a range of + or - 3pts. If
a person says that 52% of Americans are in favor of cutting Medicaid spending, because
that is what a recent poll found, he is not being careful. The pollsters themselves would
not say this. The only thing that is certain is that 52% of the people polled
had this opinion. If the population being polled at the time was all adults over 18 in the
United States, one might reasonably conclude that a similar percentage of this
population would have answered the poll’s questions in the same way.
Secondly, poll figures are always indicative of
people’s opinions in the past. For example, in early January of 1996,
Bill Clinton’s approval ratings-- (percentage of people polled who thought he was
doing a good or excellent job as President) were slightly over 50% in several polls. Many
authors then stated in magazines and newspapers that Bill Clinton’s approval ratings
were over 50%. By the time articles appeared in periodicals, the polls were over a week
old. Public opinion can change rapidly. What was true a week ago may well not be true
today. Issues that are perennial or long-standing such as opinions on abortion or capital
punishment generally do not change quickly. However, issues that the public knows little
about, such the situation in Haiti, or in Bosnia, often show significant changes in public
opinion in short periods of time. This is also true of approval ratings. They can change
rapidly.
Another common error is to state exact numbers when
it is clearly impossible to know if the numbers are exact. Nobody knows exactly how
many people live in the United States today. If someone says that there are 265 million
people in the USA, he almost has to be wrong. If a Senator says that his bill will reduce
spending on Medicaid by ten billion dollars over the next five years, he is saying
something he cannot possibly know. It will not be exactly ten billion dollars, and it may
well be considerably more or less. No one knows how many people will apply for and be
accepted for Medicaid payments over the next five years. Who can predict with precision
what type of illnesses these people will have or what type of medical procedures will be
available or how much these treatments might cost? One can project future savings;
one cannot know exactly what they will be.
Critical thinking involves checking the source
of statistics or numbers. For example, one might be wise to doubt statistics provided by
the AFL-CIO on the job satisfaction of union and non-union labor. The national Chamber of
Commerce likewise wouldn’t generate much confidence if they commissioned a study on
the same topic. One might expect that academics would be trustworthy in their use of
numbers. Unfortunately this is often not so. An article in the Orlando Sentinel on Friday,
May 17, 1996 stated that a sociologist named Lenore J. Weitzman: "reported that
women’s households suffered a 73 percent drop in their standard of living in the
first year after divorce, while men’s households enjoyed a 42 percent rise." The
paper then cited another professor who took the same numbers and found that women’s
households had suffered a 27 percent decrease, while men’s had increased by 10
percent. The second study came some two years after the original book came out. According
to the Sentinel, the original statistics were cited in 175 newspaper articles, 348 social
science articles, 250 law review articles, 24 appellate and Supreme Court cases and
President Clinton’s 96 budget.
One finds with disappointing regularity that people
do not add, subtract or multiply correctly. These are simple operations, but often
mistakes are made. These people are very possibly incorrect in their use of numbers simply
because they are not careful. Often, however, mistakes are made because a person wants
the numbers to say something. Their mistakes may not be conscious or completely
deliberate, but one tends to find that the mistakes made have a marked tendency to support
what the authors believe or wish to convince others of.
A critical thinker treats numbers with respect and
does not easily accept the numbers written or used by others as correct. The careful use
of numbers can add precision to thinking and understanding. Sloppiness with numbers often
means sloppiness in thinking.
D) CRITICAL THINKERS LOOK FOR BIAS.
It is often easy to see bias in others and
difficult to see it in ourselves. In the social sciences we assume bias, that is, we
understand that there is bias in all human perceptions. This doesn’t necessarily
invalidate a perception or opinion, but it does mean that one must look to see how the
bias might have contaminated the opinion or finding.
Often we see what we want to see; we look for what we
wish to find. Our opinions or perceptions are colored not only by our experiences, but
also by what is convenient for us to believe.
A common practice that we engage in is
rationalization. We explain our own behavior or that of those we support in a manner that
makes us or them look good. Students are likely to say that lower tuition and more public
spending for education is an investment in the future of America. The fact that it
directly benefits students and allows them to spend more money on other things may not be
mentioned. The military says it wants more spending because it’s necessary to defend
America. The fact that it will increase their salaries and make their lives a bit easier
probably won’t be stated. A wealthy person is likely to say that forcing rich people
to pay higher taxes will stifle initiative and eventually ruin our economy. Poor people
think that the government should spend more money in social welfare programs, because a
wealthy country must take care of its poor and poor people are likely to turn to crime.
In politics, the reasons given for support or
opposition to a given program is often a form of rationalization. A Republican
Congressperson representing a wealthy suburban constituency is likely to support a cut in
welfare payments and food stamps. If you ask him why, he might well say that there is
evidence of fraud in these programs and that these programs foster laziness and
dependency, things that are destroying what America stands for. There is probably an
element of truth in what he says. However, it is very possible that since very few people
in his district benefit directly from welfare and food stamps they see little need for it
and vote for people who share their ideas.
A Congresswoman representing Harlem is likely to
support affirmative action programs and say that they have greatly contributed to creating
opportunity for ethnic minorities and women. Again, there is probably truth in what she
says. However, it is very likely that many people she represents have directly benefited
from affirmative action programs and it is clearly in their direct economic interest that
these programs continue to exist.
Business groups believe if they can pay lower wages
and less tax they can make increased profits, employ more people, invest in new business
ventures and increase production. Unions believe that if employees are paid good salaries,
the workers will work harder, spend more money, and therefor increase business
productivity and sales. This will then enable businesses to hire more workers at higher
salaries.
A critical thinker looks for bias, understands that
it motivates much reasoning and contaminates many arguments.
In summary, critical thinkers understand that social
problems seldom have simple, singular solutions, are skeptical of the accuracy of
statistics or numbers, assume that bias is present in most human opinions or beliefs, and
look for faulty assumptions that often underlie many ideas.
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