Critical Thinking Articles

All Logic and No Data: Critical Thinking Red Flags Part 5

Andrew Badham - 2023-07-11 15:07:14

Making sense is a crucial part of any argument. If you’re listening to someone’s advice and the pieces of their logical puzzle don’t match up, that’s probably a good sign that their ideas are misguided. However, just because something makes sense doesn’t mean it is true. When we believe things are true just because it makes sense, we are effectively using deductive reasoning. Deductive vs Inductive Reasoning There are two ways we can make sense of information, t... Read more

Overcomplicating Simple Things: Critical Thinking Red Flags Part 4

Andrew Badham - 2023-05-30 11:41:41

In the last installment of our misinformation identification series, we looked at the red flag of making complicated things seem too simple. In this article, we’re going to be looking at the exact opposite, people who overcomplicate simple things. In our previous article, we mentioned that, in almost every subject, there is an overwhelming depth of complexity. So, it feels slightly contradictory to now say that you can overcomplicate anything. But hear me out; both ideas can be true at... Read more

Making Complicated Things Seem Simple: Critical Thinking Red Flags Part 3

Andrew Badham - 2023-05-16 16:58:40

In part 1 of our series, we looked at people who make things seem too good to be true and then spoke about the opposite: people who make things seem too bad to be true. We have a similar dichotomy for this next subject: there are people who make complicated things sound simple, and there are those that make simple things overly complicated. Both should be red flags, but let’s start with the former: making complicated things seem too simple. Life is complicated A good starting point for... Read more

Too Bad To Be True: Red Flags for Critical Thinking Part 2

Andrew Badham - 2023-05-09 10:39:45

We’re continuing our series on Critical Thinking Red Flags, where we look at ways you can more easily spot dodgy content. In Part, we looked at people who make something seem too good to be true, so – fittingly, we’re going to dive into things that seem too bad to be true. Fearmongering Making something appear too bad to be true can be summed up by a single word, fearmongering. The speaker is trying to create as much fear in her audience as possible to get as much attention... Read more

Critical Thinking Red Flags Part 1: Too Good to Be True

Andrew Badham - 2023-05-02 15:47:42

One of the simplest but most underrated skills in critical thinking is knowing when to switch on your scepticism. When we hear information that sounds false or misleading, our scepticism kicks into gear and we question what we’re hearing. That way, we can check to see whether this information is credible. The trouble is, our scepticism doesn’t always switch on when it needs to and we can’t have it running all the time; that’s just too tiring and inefficient. What we nee... Read more

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