Capstone Essay: No Finish Line

Abstract

During the past few weeks, our cohort has endeavored to study the topic of critical thinking. Together, we reviewed and discussed our definitions of critical thinking and applied considerations of critical thinking to contexts of social media, bias, advertising, and propaganda. Looking back, it seems we plotted our course to first discover the noble possibilities that critical thinking avails us, and then dedicated ourselves to understanding some of the favorite pitfalls that might rob us of those opportunities – so much so that this week, I began to ponder the topic of critical thinking as the beautiful frailty of the human mind. Working backward through our study, I will bring you to my newest ideas on critical thinking and share with you what those ideas mean for my work.

Treatment

In our most recent work together, the cohort team reviewed the strategies employed in advertising and propaganda. We learned techniques that intend to bypass or override rational decision making by appealing to deep psychological imprints, embedding an influence beneath cognition into the emotional or fight/flight centers of the brain’s neural network (Dretzin, Goodman, and Soenens, 2003).

During the previous week, we reviewed the influence of bias and prejudice, where we encountered the mind’s inclination for somewhat tilted thinking. We learned that “Categorizing information based on simple and easily accessible categories is a typical cognitive shortcut used by human beings to make quick decisions” (Simard, n.d.).

This shortcutting informs and misinforms our interpretation of the world around us. John Bargh of New York University explained, "We have to rely on our memories and our awareness of what we're doing to have a connection to reality. But when it comes to automatic processing, those cues can be deceptive” (qtd. in Paul, 1998).

This led us to the discovery that our most immediate thoughts and impressions might likely be affected by a number of forces which are not fully reason-centered. Furthermore, we learned it can be very difficult to become aware that one’s thinking is incomplete or unduly influenced (Paul, 1998). The mind’s miraculous efficiency is also capable of leading us greatly astray.

Our cohort established that as we participate in, or review, clinical research, we must constantly be aware of the misdirection inherent in impressioned thinking. A researcher’s background and belief inform every phase of study, from hypothesis formation to the interpretation of results (Sackett, 1979). Even raw data are subject to bias and interpretative flaws (Delcore & Mullooly, 2009).

Anthropologists Delcore and Mullooly suggested that in order to approach fuller, more complete thinking, we must engage one another, think in community. They claimed science “only works via social and cultural means, and that capricious insights and idiosyncrasies — personal, social, cultural — matter greatly in how the work of science gets done” (2009).

Critical thinking, like science, is a group activity. Without criticism and support of other thinkers, our own individual thinking may sometimes be too substantially limited and compromised to fully form. Controversy and dialogue are what evolve discovery and understanding (Lipps, 1999).

In week three of our study together, an exploration of social media, we read that Clay Shirky described this kind of inspired group interaction as the “hothouse environment of a collaborative circle” (2010, p. 104), noting that groups produce innovation and creativity that exceeds the capability of a lone contributor.

Social media is one important venue where our higher selves come to engage each other in this way, attracted by our own sense of generosity and by the invitation to togetherness (Shirky, 2010). This new and developing landscape provides one forum for reasoning that’s enhanced by our collective thinking. It builds upon the diversity of perspective that broadens and challenges the thinking that is sometimes too informed by our selves - our minds, directed by memory and culture, the layered functioning of the brain, tricks of cognition, and sometimes the insidious powers of discreet influence.  

And so we return to the place from which we began: the question of critical thinking. We learned from the materials that critical thinking, at a high level, involved the practical application of deliberation of premises, organization of thought, and an ability to recognize relevance and validity. Core skills included “observation, interpretation, analysis, inference, evaluation, explanation, and meta-cognition” (“Critical thinking,” 2011, “Skills,” para. 1).

We also warned ourselves to be aware that individuals who lack maturity and openness can fall prey to self-deception, rhetoric, fallacy, manipulation and may even be inclined to use the basic critical thinking competencies to perpetuate invalid or unsubstantiated argument (“Critical thinking,” 2011).

Our own definitions convey the promise and the pitfalls inherent in critical thinking, and that scholarship is broadened and strengthened in community. We need to check our gaps with one another, to question and grow from the limits of our first and solo thinking (so clumsy and misshapen), in order to think effectively and fully. The promise of critical thinking is fulfilled in humility and community.

Conclusion

I have formed two take-aways from our journey together these last few weeks: 1) we do our best thinking in each other’s company, and 2) we are never done thinking.

Here’s what I mean.

1. There are so many opportunities for our own individual thinking to fail us that we need each other, or even just the potential of each other – the imagined contribution or appraisal of an other, to add considerations and perspectives to our own. Critical thinking is the process of broadening from our own initial impressions and ideas to reflect, rethink, reconsider, and reinvent the notions that guide our beliefs and sponsor our actions. Critical thinking observes “my first reaction is not complete,” and then it humbly asks for further input, checks, and considerations. This input is best when it comes from outside the self.   
2. Critical thinking is an ongoing evolution of ideas and perceptions. It needs the spirit of wonder and curiosity, openness to mystery, and tolerance of ambiguity in order to truly invite the reformations that companion the challenges and insights of others. Critical thinking understands “this thinking will never be complete.” My malformed and unfinished work comes together with yours and we build something new and good, and then run that process again. We will never have it perfectly right. There is no finish line.

This means a big shift in the way I perceive my work, my relevance. In the practice of forming submissions for the cohort twice weekly, I learned to just submit something, the best of what I have today. My ideas are as formed and unformed as anyone’s, but to pretend I don’t yet have something to say is fairly futile. There’s no point at which it will be “time” for me to begin contributing. What could I be waiting for? We’re all offering ourselves from a place of continuing development.

In my first submission, I suggested there was a conversation happening in a “somewhere out there” kind of reality, and that I had an inkling that perhaps I ought to be participating in it. Over the last few weeks, I’ve learned that having joined the Fielding community, I have entered the conversation and I am welcome to bring the best of what I have, today.

References

Critical thinking. (n.d.)  In Wikipedia. Retrieved February 7, 2011, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_thinking

Delcore, H. and Mullooly, J. (2009, July 17). Data and Insight in Tension? Retrieved from http://theanthroguys.com/2009/07/17/data-and-insight-in-tension

Dretzin, R., Goodman, B., & Soenens,M. (Producers). (2003). Frontline: The persuaders[video]. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/

Lipps, J.H. 1999. This is science! Pp. 3-16 in J. Scotchmoor and D.A. Springer (eds.). Evolution: Investigating the evidence. Paleontological Society Special Publication, vol. 9. Retrieved from http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/people/jlipps/science.html

Miller, P. (2005). Web 2.0: Building the new library. Ariadne, (45).  Retrieved from  http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue45/miller/ 

Paul, A.M. (1998). Where bias begins: The truth about stereotypes. Psychology Today. Retrieved from http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/199805/where-bias-begins-the-truth-about-stereotypes

Sackett, D. L. (1979). “Bias in analytic research.” J Chron Dis, Vol 32, pp 51 – 63. Pergamon Press Ltd Great Britain. Retrieved from http://www.epidemiology.ch/history/PDF%20bg/Sackett%20DL%201979%20bias%20in%20analytic%20research.pdf

Shirky, C. (2010). Cognitive surplus: Creativity and generosity in a connected age. New York: Penguin Press.

Simard, C. (n.d.). “The prevalence of gender stereotyping and bias: An overview.” Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology. Retrieved March 4, 2011 from http://anitaborg.org/files/the_prevalence_of_gender_stereotyping_and_bias.pdf