[Republished here by permission of the authors from their “Lifestyle Tips For Over 50s”]
Socrates said: “Whatever authority I may have rested solely on knowing how little I know.” The statement reflected the fact that he had contempt for the knowledge displayed by authorities. He recognised 2,500 years ago that mindless subservience to authority did not serve people well. It appears that Socrates detected a lack of critical thinking on the part of many individuals. Fast forward to today, and we have to acknowledge that many are devoid of logic.
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| “The Thinker,” by August Rodin |
Those of us who remember the 50’s and 60’s know that authority figures such as teachers, researchers, and reporters played it reasonably straight down the middle. They reported events, not their perception of events. Facts mattered, and they were presented without vitriolic fervour. The only time I remember a newscaster displaying any real emotion was when Walter Cronkite, the famous CBS icon, reported the news that President John Kennedy had died as the result of an assassin’s bullet. So in those decades, we trusted the veracity of those individuals.
Today, the news is reported with tremendous bias and inaccuracy. This is what is commonly called fake, and the online world has exacerbated the situation. Unfortunately, many just absorb the headline without investigating any further. To make matters worse, these can often be propagated through the various news site. Many times rationality and logic are lost on those who disseminate information.
When we went to school, science and history were taught according to what was documented in the literature and the research. Today, professors and school teachers often interject their worldview on their students. Strange as it may seem, some professionals even deny that there was a Nazi holocaust. Impressionable young students often accept this line of thinking. The evidence is so overwhelming that there was a holocaust, in which millions were exterminated, and yet, a significant number of young people don’t accept it. They don’t use critical thinking to assess the truthfulness of what they are told.
It appears that emotion has replaced analysis. I remember about 15 years ago an individual who was seeking a seat as a member of the Green Party approached me, seeking support. I appreciated that he was quite passionate about his cause. I asked him to send me details about his platform. When I read the material, it was filled with so many inaccuracies that I could not support him, and I let him know why. The claims he made were that the frequency of severe storms such as tornadoes and cyclones were increasing over time. Since we are avid storm chasers, I knew he was way off base. Since 2000, the number of twisters has decreased despite more people with mobile phones available to take images of them.
To be sure, I checked back on the meteorological records dating to the early 1900’s for book th hurricanes and tornadoes. What I found was that hurricanes have not increased at all over a period of 100 years. Attention to detail and facts were apparently not in the literature promoted by the prospective politician.
Both in the medical and research fields, many times there is a lack of critical thinking which at times leads to pseudoscience. So often one research paper contradicts another on the same subject. It’s well known that research bias can creep into investigations.
As Socrates stated, we should not always accept the wisdom of authority figures. We live in an age of great societal polarisation which in itself can be very dangerous. It behooves us to question people and hold them accountable for what they promote. Our lives and health depend on it.
| Copyright © 2018 by Dr. Ely Lazar & Dr. Adele Thomas |
Well said, Ely. And much needed in these days. ANY days, for that matter.
ReplyDeleteAs we are dealing with facts. I would like to know the number of increase or decrease of hurricanes that hit the US main land as the number that go out to sea mean little to us. Also, the damage that is done,I believe has increased but it could be due to the fact that more people live in the path these days. While that young man was wrong in his statement, I will be willing to bet his subject was Climate Change, which is very real and factual. To think critically one needs the facts, such as what country was this young man standing in when he asked for your support? I guess if I really wanted to know the answer to these questions I could look up the facts myself and we could have a critical debate or not about them. Your article did make me think and that is never a bad thing.
ReplyDeleteI had a reservation myself, Ed, about withholding support from a party for that single issue. Single-issue voting is a risky maneuver. As voters we need to look at a larger picture and decide which candidate or party is likely to mean a better overall outcome for the whole community.
DeleteI dismissed that one concern of mine on the assumption that the authors had to stretch to come up with an example, and the example they came up with turned out to be a bit misleading because of the election angle, with its larger issues. But, of course, in theory, it is possible to apply critical thinking to larger issues as well.