Critical Thinking or Analysis: Importance for Education, Media and Empowered Citizens

Throughout the world, especially now with social media, the digital volume of information and velocity, all citizens need skills of critical analysis, especially through the education system, community and media.

While newsrooms cut costs, headcounts and resources, many journalists or reporters now have less time and fewer resources to produce more news content.  However, this comes with the commensurate risk of media being gamed by corporate and political forces of the right, due to media using heuristic shortcuts on any issue and inherently biassed towards parties of the right.

Gaming media is done in various ways including using think tanks masquerading as academic or research institutes. In fact too often they are PR or lobbying groups, staffed by pseudo intellectuals producing ‘research’ reports which are promoted in media, for adoption or approval by both voters and the politicians or government; avoiding commentary or analysis that actually conducts analysis and may preclude policy initiatives?

However, they are never publicly subjected or exposed to expert analysis, including claims of non-scientists linked to fossil fuels who dismiss climate science, with neither informed challenge nor expert input.

What can journalists or media and citizens do? 

Acquire skills or understanding of critical thinking and related through informed analysis e.g. science or research process, statistics 101, demography, history, language and geography. 

Following on, allowing media and society to function versus receiving content including science, data or opinions that too often go unchallenged, while media not on the right is subject to constant challenges, intimidation and constraints?

Two articles first from the University of Tennessee and the second from Rasmussen University:

Basic Elements of Critical Thinking

A set of information and beliefs, generating and processing skills, and the habit of using those skills to guide behaviour.

Critical thinkers:

• Ask questions
• Gather relevant information
• Think through solutions and conclusions 
• Consider alternative systems of thought
• Communicate effectively

They’re willing to admit when they’re wrong or when they don’t know the answer, rather than digging into a gut reaction or emotional point of view.

Truth-Seeking – Ask questions and follow the evidence

Judicious – Able to make judgements amid uncertainty

Inquisitive – Strive to be well-informed on a wide range of topics

Confident in Reasoning – Trustful of own skills to make good judgements

Systematic – Organized and thoughtful problem solving

Analytical – Identify potential consequences of decisions

Open-Minded – Tolerant of different views and sensitive to own biases

6 Critical Thinking Skills You Need to Master Now

No matter what walk of life you come from, what industry you’re interested in pursuing or how much experience you’ve already garnered, we’ve all seen firsthand the importance of critical thinking skills. In fact, lacking such skills can truly make or break a person’s career, as the consequences of one’s inability to process and analyze information effectively can be massive.

What is critical thinking?

Even if you want to be a better critical thinker, it’s hard to improve upon something you can’t define. Critical thinking is the analysis of an issue or situation and the facts, data or evidence related to it. Ideally, critical thinking is to be done objectively—meaning without influence from personal feelings, opinions or biases—and it focuses solely on factual information.

Critical thinking is a skill that allows you to make logical and informed decisions to the best of your ability. For example, a child who has not yet developed such skills might believe the Tooth Fairy left money under their pillow based on stories their parents told them. A critical thinker, however, can quickly conclude that the existence of such a thing is probably unlikely—even if there are a few bucks under their pillow.

6 Crucial critical thinking skills (and how you can improve them)

While there’s no universal standard for what skills are included in the critical thinking process, we’ve boiled it down to the following six. Focusing on these can put you on the path to becoming an exceptional critical thinker.

1. Identification

The first step in the critical thinking process is to identify the situation or problem as well as the factors that may influence it. Once you have a clear picture of the situation and the people, groups or factors that may be influenced, you can then begin to dive deeper into an issue and its potential solutions.

How to improve: When facing any new situation, question or scenario, stop to take a mental inventory of the state of affairs and ask the following questions:

• Who is doing what?
• What seems to be the reason for this happening?
• What are the end results, and how could they change?

2. Research

When comparing arguments about an issue, independent research ability is key. Arguments are meant to be persuasive—that means the facts and figures presented in their favor might be lacking in context or come from questionable sources. The best way to combat this is independent verification; find the source of the information and evaluate.

How to improve: It can be helpful to develop an eye for unsourced claims. Does the person posing the argument offer where they got this information from? If you ask or try to find it yourself and there’s no clear answer, that should be considered a red flag. It’s also important to know that not all sources are equally valid—take the time to learn the difference between popular and scholarly articles.

3. Identifying biases

This skill can be exceedingly difficult, as even the smartest among us can fail to recognize biases. Strong critical thinkers do their best to evaluate information objectively. Think of yourself as a judge in that you want to evaluate the claims of both sides of an argument, but you’ll also need to keep in mind the biases each side may possess.

First and foremost, you must be aware that bias exists. When evaluating information or an argument, ask yourself the following:

• Who does this benefit?
• Does the source of this information appear to have an agenda?
• Is the source overlooking, ignoring or leaving out information that doesn’t support its beliefs or claims?
• Is this source using unnecessary language to sway an audience’s perception of a fact?

4. Inference

The ability to infer and draw conclusions based on the information presented to you is another important skill for mastering critical thinking. Information doesn’t always come with a summary that spells out what it means. You’ll often need to assess the information given and draw conclusions based upon raw data.

The ability to infer allows you to extrapolate and discover potential outcomes when assessing a scenario. It is also important to note that not all inferences will be correct. For example, if you read that someone weighs 260 pounds, you might infer they are overweight or unhealthy. Other data points like height and body composition, however, may alter that conclusion.

How to improve: An inference is an educated guess, and your ability to infer correctly can be polished by making a conscious effort to gather as much information as possible before jumping to conclusions. When faced with a new scenario or situation to evaluate, first try skimming for clues—things like headlines, images and prominently featured statistics—and then make a point to ask yourself what you think is going on.

5. Determining relevance

One of the most challenging parts of thinking critically during a challenging scenario is figuring out what information is the most important for your consideration. In many scenarios, you’ll be presented with information that may seem important, but it may pan out to be only a minor data point to consider.

How to improve: The best way to get better at determining relevance is by establishing a clear direction in what you’re trying to figure out. Are you tasked with finding a solution? Should you be identifying a trend? If you figure out your end goal, you can use this to inform your judgement of what is relevant.

6. Curiosity

It’s incredibly easy to sit back and take everything presented to you at face value, but that can also be a recipe for disaster when faced with a scenario that requires critical thinking. It’s true that we’re all naturally curious—just ask any parent who has faced an onslaught of “Why?” questions from their child. As we get older, it can be easier to get in the habit of keeping that impulse to ask questions at bay. But that’s not a winning approach for critical thinking.

How to improve: While it might seem like a curious mind is just something you’re born with, you can still train yourself to foster that curiosity productively. All it takes is a conscious effort to ask open-ended questions about the things you see in your everyday life, and you can then invest the time to follow up on these questions.

“Being able to ask open-ended questions is an important skill to develop—and bonus points for being able to probe,” Potrafka says.

Become a better critical thinker

Thinking critically is vital for anyone looking to have a successful college career and a fruitful professional life upon graduation. Your ability to objectively analyse and evaluate complex subjects and situations will always be useful. Unlock your potential by practising and refining the six critical thinking skills above.

Most professionals credit their time in college as having been crucial in the development of their critical thinking abilities. If you’re looking to improve your skills in a way that can impact your life and career moving forward, higher education is a fantastic venue through which to achieve that.

Other Blog, Articles and Links on Adult Learning, Business Communication, CPD Continuing Professional Development, Critical Thinking, Digital Literacy, Media, Science Literacy, Soft Skills and Statistical Analysis click through below:

Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center and the Carnegie-Knight Initiative, The Journalist’s Resource

Gapminder Foundation Resources

Covid Misinformation – Gut Instinct & Beliefs vs. Science & Critical Thinking

Skills of Critical Thinking

Radical Libertarian Disinformation Machine – Koch Network by Nancy MacLean

Libertarian Curricula – Science and Culture Wars vs. University Maths Teacher Training

Media on China and Wuhan Virus – Critical Analysis or Political PR?

Covid-19 Climate Science Vaccination Misinformation PR and Astro Turfing

Language, Discourse Analysis, PR and Communication in Politics

Climate Confusion, Astroturfing, Pseudo-Science, Population Movement and Radical Right Libertarians

With COP26, the environment and net zero being in the news, the following Guardian article ‘Meet the ‘inactivists’, tangling up the climate crisis in culture wars‘ is relevant overview on those confusing the science round climate and measures to ameliorate e.g. Net Zero Watch formerly GWPG the Global Warming Policy Foundation linked to Lord Lawson (situated at 55 Tufton Street, London).

However, this modus operandi or strategy including misinformation, astroturfing, lobbying, accessing media, deflecting from fossil fuels and/or carbon mitigation measures also fits with the old ideology of the many corporate leaders, oligarchs and conservative politicians; radical right libertarian socio economic ideology and eugenics but, both are unpalatable to most voters.

Population Movement, Eugenics, Fossil Fuels & the Environment

The ‘science of eugenics’ went quiet after WWII for obvious reasons but reemerged in the US under the guise of ‘population control’, Population Council (Rockefeller) and the UN Population Division (UNPD).  Meanwhile ZPG Zero Population Growth was founded in the ‘70s with support of Rockefeller Bros. (Standard Oil/Exxon), Ford and Carnegie Foundations with directors being Paul ‘Population Bomb’ Ehrlich and deceased white nationalist and anti-semite John ‘passive eugenics’ Tanton.

This was later replicated in the UK with now Population Matters (Ehrlich is a patron) and in Australia, SPA Sustainable Population Australia, in liaison with both Ehrlich and Tanton.  In Australia their role is transparent, i.e. producing ‘demographic research’ that is used for dog whistling post white Australia immigration through the supposed environmental prism of ‘population growth’ portraying immigrants as an environmental ‘hygiene issue’; ‘greenwashing’ racism.

Further, Tanton can also be linked to UK’s Migration Watch, an anti-immigrant lobby group claiming e.g. there is demographic and/or immigration crisis, for media consumption, then negative headlines for tabloids.

It’s the ‘libertarain trap’ as focus upon immigrants and/or population growth then allows both dog whistling and deflecting from fossil fuels etc. and stymying any attempt at robust regulation of carbon and the environment.

Radical Right Libertarian Socio Economic Ideology

There is a network of Koch linked think tanks across the globe in the Atlas Network promoting low taxes, small government, reduced regulation, fewer public services and nobbling education.  In the USA this includes Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, Heartland and American Enterprise Institute, the UK it’s Taxpayers’ Alliance, IEA Institute of Economic Affairs etc. and in Australia it’s the IPA Institute of Public Affairs, CIS Centre for Independent Studies and Taxpayers’ Alliance.

They also can be linked back to the white nationalists etc. round the population movement, including the ‘great replacement’ as Tanton had been active in having IRLI involved with the Koch linked and corporate donor supported Congressional lobbying ‘bill mill’ ALEC.  IRLI is part of another Tanton offshoot, FAIR Federation of Americans for Immigration Reform, like CIS Center for Immigration Studies and NumbersUSA which informed the Trump White House, Miller, Sessions and Bannon; while nowadays still being deferred to by US media for expert commentary on immigration.

Common interest in antipathy towards empowered immigrants and citizens, discouraging science or ‘experts, versus more gut instinct and religious belief, underpinned by eugenics?

These seemingly disparate elements in different nations seem to orbit in the same system, though publicly dissociated from each other; global warming, climate, environmental regulation and eugenics is the common strand or theme that is shared.

A stark example exists in London, i.e. 55 Tufton Street, coincidentally houses the following groups within the Koch orbit i.e. IEA, Taxpayers’ Alliance and Lord Lawson’s Net Zero Watch, but the surprise is having the Tanton linked Migration Watch sharing the same building; libertarians, climate and/or science denial, immigration restrictions or eugenics aka 18th or 19th century?

The following Guardian article of Jack Shenker unwittingly stumbles across some of these links which are taken at face value but represent a ‘long game’ (identified by Nancy Maclean regarding radical right libertarians) of anti climate science and pro big business or ‘Big Oil’ to influence policy, regulation, MPs and voters, but it’s neither democratic nor transparent.

Also according to DeSmog, there are also links across to Covid science denial, ‘freedom & liberty’ from sensible constraints and with support from Koch linked networks.  Again, similar has been witnessed round the world but especially US, UK and Australia where nativist and/or conservative libertarians appear compelled to reinforce and maintain concepts of freedom & liberty, scepticism of science, avoidance of regulation and strangling government through ever lower taxes, with assistance of the radical right aka Capitol Hill and street demonstrations against Covid restrictions.

Meet the ‘inactivists’, tangling up the climate crisis in culture wars

As climate science has gone mainstream, outright denialism has been pushed to the fringes. Now a new tactic of dismissing green policies as elitist is on the rise, and has zoned in on a bitter row over a disused airport in Kent.

by Jack Shenker

In May 2020, as the world was convulsed by the coronavirus pandemic and global infections topped 4 million, a strange video began appearing in the feeds of some Facebook users. “Climate alarm is reaching untold levels of exaggeration and hysteria,” said an unseen narrator, over a montage of environmental protests and clips of a tearful Greta Thunberg. “There is no doubt about it, climate change has become a cult,” it continued, to the kind of pounding beat you might hear on the soundtrack of a Hollywood blockbuster. “Carbon dioxide emissions have become the wages of sin.”

The video’s reach was relatively small: according to Facebook data, it was viewed somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000 times. But over the following weeks more videos came, each one experimenting with slightly different scripts and visuals. All focused on the supposed irrationality and hypocrisy of climate campaigners, and the hardship they wanted to inflict upon society’s most impoverished communities…..

At one stage, users hovering over the logo of that advertiser – a UK organisation called The Global Warming Policy Forum, or GWPF – were informed by Facebook that it was a “Science Site”. The GWPF is not a science website: it is the campaigning arm of a well-funded foundation accused by opponents of being one of Britain’s biggest sources of climate science denial.

The videos being tested by the GWPF in the spring and summer of 2020 were part of a strategic pivot away from explicit climate crisis denialism, and towards something subtler – a move being pursued by similar campaigners across the world. Welcome to a new age of what the atmospheric scientist and environmental author Michael E Mann has labelled climate “inactivism”: an epic struggle to convince you not so much to doubt the reality of climate crisis, but rather to dampen your enthusiasm for any attempts at dealing with it…..

Mackinlay, who has described Britain’s net-zero aspirations as a “social calamity” and insisted that “sooner or later, the public will rebel against this madness”, was not alone in framing decarbonisation through the lens of cultural division and class privilege…. 

Steve Baker, another Conservative parliamentarian and a close ally of Mackinlay, has dismissed the Committee on Climate Change, which advises the government, as “unelected and unaccountable”. Earlier this year, Baker declared that “In net zero, as with Brexit, the political class has in a very, almost smug and self-satisfied way, built a consensus which is not going to survive contact with the public.” Instead, he predicted, “there’s going to be an enormous political explosion.”….

Popular anger at the economic insecurities that are synonymous with 21st-century capitalism – which in the UK have included soaring housing costs, the casualisation of employment and sustained falls in wages – has provided an opening for any political forces presenting themselves as radical outsiders, fighting on behalf of the voiceless masses (Ed. they promote the former to justify the latter). On the right, these grievances have been fused with a cultural resentment towards highfalutin virtue-signalling and liberal elites…

In the run-up to Cop26, more than 30 leading organisations came together to develop a new set of tools capable both of monitoring the online spread of inactivist messaging, and anticipating the next Texas blackout campaign before it takes off. The ongoing project is being led by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, or ISD, a thinktank better known for its work tackling hate and extremism. So far it has yielded valuable insights into the shape of climate debates across Europe, such as the “national sovereignty” arguments being used to defend coal mining in Poland, and the entwining of anti-EU sentiments with inactivist climate messaging in Hungary. It has also led to a major report exploring the global spread of “climate lockdown” alarmism, in which hard-right activists and Covid denialists have found common cause in driving fear of pandemic-type lockdowns that they claim will soon be imposed by tyrannical governments at the behest of environmentalists.

It was back in May this year that DeSmog – a journalism platform that aims to expose and eliminate the “PR pollution” around climate breakdown, and one of the project’s partners – first noticed a newly trending Twitter hashtag: #CostOfNetZero. It was being pushed by Steve Baker, the Tory MP for Wycombe and the former chair of the Brexit-supporting European Research Group, as well as a newly appointed GWPF trustee…..

In the months that followed, however, disquiet over the net zero transition began ramping up in sections of the UK press – initially in outlets such as Spiked Online and GB News, but eventually creeping into the pages of major newspapers such as the Daily Telegraph and the Sun, too. In August, the Spectator magazine printed an image of banknotes tumbling into a void on its cover, with the headline “The cost of net zero”; by September, right-leaning media commentators were homing in on the government’s aim of gradually phasing out gas boilers as part of the decarbonisation plan, and replacing them with air- or ground-source heat pumps instead. The far greater economic costs of inaction on climate crisis were rarely mentioned in these reports, but again and again, efforts to reduce our collective carbon emissions were framed as an elitist power-grab….

By the autumn – as a growing cost-of-living crisis began to dominate the news agenda – the GWPF had rebranded itself as Net Zero Watch, a new parliamentary grouping called the Net Zero Scrutiny Group led by Craig Mackinlay had been formed,….

The idea that decarbonisation is inherently elitist is a myth, peddled largely by political figures who have shown little concern for deprived communities in any other context, and who ignore the fact that without a net zero transition it is the very poorest – globally and domestically – who will suffer most severely. But like all effective myths, it is founded on a kernel of truth: namely that under successive governments, political decision-making has felt remote and unaccountable, the rich have got richer, and life for a great many of the rest of us has grown harder.’

For more blogs and articles click through below:

Dumbing Down and Gaming of Anglosphere Media, Science, Society and Democracy

Anglosphere Triangle – Immigration – Environment – Population Growth – Radical Right Libertarians 

Koch Industries: How to Influence Politics, Avoid Fossil Fuel Emission Control and Environmental Protections 

Trump’s White House Immigration Policies and White Nationalist John Tanton

White Nationalist Extremism – Mainstreamed by Politicians and Media

Tactics Against Bipartisan Climate Change Policy in Australia – Limits to Growth?

Conspiracy of Denial – COVID-19 and Climate Science