Critical Thinking

Let’s clarify something first before talking about mind-blowing critical thinking exercises. This is as opposed to analytical thinking and lateral thinking. There is a difference, according to Jon Warner:

• Analytical thinking mainly aims to review the data/information we are presented with (for relevance, patterns, trends etc.)
• Lateral thinking aims to put data/information into a new or different context (in order to generate alternative answers or solutions)
• Critical thinking aims to make an overall or holistic judgment about the data/information which is free from false premises or bias as much as possible.
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Check out this slideshow about the process of critical thinking:

http://www.slideshare.net/MIWorksMO/critical-thinking-and-problem-solving-41823850

Some questions:

Why do Chameleons change colour?
Why do we call the fruit an 'orange', is it named after the colour or the other way around?
How many senses do human beings have?
Was Napoleon short?
What percentage of the human brain do we use?
Describe a viking to me please
Did humans evolve from apes?
Are bats blind?
What colour makes bulls angry?
Who invented the light bulb?
What was the forbidden fruit that Adam and Eve ate?

Now let us watch 2 videos on this:

https://globaldigitalcitizen.org/critical-thinking-exercises-blow-students-minds?utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=30682597&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_UW6d8mwgnKKGBOzC2ZKaiTZTZB_Skf4QTwtf9jAf2ydVU9zFo6Deb5w3EQsMrklLi6VHLDZvgCx-Vk0aovZw0QPOmSw&_hsmi=30682597

• What was it that perpetuated misconceptions in the first place?
• Assuming that the misconceptions were created inadvertently, what happened historically to create it in the first place?
• Why did it continue?
• What contributed to the recent change in thinking of this misconception?
• How do you know the current ‘truth’ about the misconception is ‘more true’ than the previous version of the story?
• What in your life changed after clarifying your thinking?
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Ethical and Moral Dilemmas

Critical thinking sometimes involves the formation of ethical codes. These kinds of critical thinking exercises were handed down to me from my own elementary school teachers. They challenged my ethical programming and have stuck with me as central tenets in my moral code.
A familiar example might be Heinz dilemma:

“A woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to produce. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug.

The sick woman’s husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together about $1,000 which is half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said: “No, I discovered the drug and I’m going to make money from it.” So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man’s laboratory to steal the drug for his wife. Should Heinz have broken into the laboratory to steal the drug for his wife? Why or why not?”

(Kohlberg, Lawrence (1981). Essays on Moral Development, Vol. I: The Philosophy of Moral Development. San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row. ISBN 0-06-064760-4.)

Then there’s The Trolley Problem:
Situation 1: There is a trolley coming down the tracks and ahead, there are five people tied to the tracks who are unable to move. The trolley will continue coming and will kill the five people. There is nothing you can do to rescue the five people except that there is a lever.
If you pull the lever, the train will be directed to another track, which has only one person tied to it. You have two choices:

1. Do nothing and the five people will die
2. Pull the lever and save the five people, but let one person die.

Did you make your choice? Consider this similar situation:
Situation 2: There is a trolley coming down the tracks and ahead, there are five people tied to the tracks who are unable to move. The trolley will continue coming and will kill the five people. However, in this situation, you are standing on a bridge above the train tracks and you can see the train coming.
There is a man standing next to you, who is so enormous and heavy that if he places himself in front of the oncoming train, it will hit and kill him but the train will stop. So you have two choices

1. Do nothing and the five people will die.
2. Push the big guy down the bridge. He will be killed but will stop the trolley and save the five people.