Critical thinking is the ability to practice asking questions, examining the available information and evidence and then coming to a conclusion. Critical thinking is essentially the basis for the scientific method; discovering evidence on which to base the conclusion. There are two types of reasoning; deductive and inductive. When we use deductive reasoning, we are processing one or more premises in order to reach a conclusion. When we use inductive reasoning, we go beyond the information that we know and extend our knowledge into new areas by using generalizations and analogies. Strong critical thinkers use system 2 processes and stay clear from any dogmatic absolutism, egocentrism, sociocentrism, subjective relativism and surely stay away …show more content…
I was young, uneducated and now this tiny person was relying on me for survival. I read as many books on parenting and pregnancy as possible and made sure to make all of the scheduled pediatrician appointments. My son seemed to behave as any average child did for the first three years. Then, I started to notice differences in him. He suddenly seemed to become withdrawn, preferred to play alone and was disturbingly obsessed with all things space related. Right around the year 2004, after several more doctor appointments and visits with psychologists and psychiatrists, my son was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome. At the same time, Jenny McCarthy’s son was diagnosed with Autism as well. Jenny was doing tons of press, essentially blaming vaccinations for causing the disease epidemic (Hogg, 2007). Being only twenty years old and naïve, I adopted Jenny’s thought process and came to the assumption that my son developed or contracted autism through his routine vaccines. It was my fault! I now understand that this was a poorly justified inference that I ran with for many years. It was also a poorly justified inference on Jenny’s part. At that time, I practiced only my …show more content…
Critical thinkers are disciplined in that they can take command of concepts, assess the information, think through implications and think across different points of view. A concept is a general idea but often each individual can conceptualize the same idea in different ways. Assessing information is split between inert information, activated ignorance and activated knowledge. Inert information is information that is memorized but not necessarily understood. Activated ignorance is using information that is definitely untrue but it thought to be true, while activated knowledge is using information that is true and understood. My believing that autism was linked to vaccines was an example of practicing activated ignorance. Believing this fallacy was an example of my inability at the time to think through implications because it resulted in my failure to follow through with necessary medical treatment for my child. Had I been more experienced or perhaps a little bit older, I would have developed the ability to think of other points of views. Had I looked at other points of views, I would have discovered that the medical community was shouting from the rooftops how wrong this theory was. Luckily, I started working in the healthcare sector shortly after all of this occurred and was able to “interview” medical doctors that I worked for. From those interviews, I came to my own educated conclusion that vaccines were not to blame for autism and