Critical Thinking

Critical Thinking

TYPECognitive skill / methodological framework

FIELDPhilosophy, psychology, education

ALSO KNOWN ASAnalytical reasoning

NOTABLE CASE(S)Carl Sagan's "baloney detection kit" (The Demon-Haunted World, 1995)

STATUSFoundational to scientific and sceptical methodology

Critical thinking is the disciplined process of actively analysing, evaluating, and synthesising information gathered from observation, reasoning, or communication as a guide to belief and action. On The Vault, critical thinking underlies both the Evidence Rating System and the wider How We Evaluate Claims framework used to assess paranormal and unexplained claims, alongside the closely related scientific method and scientific skepticism.

Origins

The practice of systematically questioning assumptions and testing claims through reasoned dialogue traces to the Socratic method of ancient Greek philosophy. The modern educational field is often traced to psychologist Edward Glaser's 1941 dissertation, An Experiment in the Development of Critical Thinking, which proposed that the skill could be deliberately taught rather than simply acquired. A widely cited modern reference point is the American Philosophical Association's 1990 "Delphi Report," led by philosopher Peter Facione, which produced an expert consensus definition of critical thinking now used broadly across education.

Core skills

The Delphi Report identified six core cognitive skills associated with critical thinking:

• Interpretation — understanding and expressing the meaning of information.
• Analysis — identifying the relationships between statements, claims, and evidence.
• Evaluation — assessing the credibility and logical strength of claims.
• Inference — drawing reasonable conclusions from available evidence.
• Explanation — clearly stating the reasoning behind a conclusion.
• Self-regulation — monitoring and correcting one's own reasoning process.

Relationship to scepticism and the scientific method

Critical thinking is a general cognitive skillset applicable across everyday reasoning, not limited to science or paranormal claims specifically. Scientific skepticism can be understood as the deliberate application of critical thinking, combined with the scientific method, specifically to extraordinary or paranormal claims.

A widely cited practical toolkit is astronomer Carl Sagan's "baloney detection kit," outlined in his 1995 book The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. Sagan's kit included principles such as seeking independent confirmation of claimed facts, encouraging substantive debate among proponents of competing views, avoiding excessive reliance on authority alone, considering multiple competing hypotheses rather than favouring one prematurely, avoiding undue attachment to a hypothesis simply because it is one's own, quantifying claims wherever possible, ensuring every link in a chain of argument holds, and applying Occam's razor to prefer simpler explanations when consistent with the evidence.

Common obstacles

Critical thinking is regularly undermined by well-documented cognitive biases, including:

• Confirmation bias — favouring information that supports existing beliefs while discounting contradictory evidence.
• Motivated reasoning — unconsciously reasoning toward a conclusion one wants to be true, rather than following the evidence neutrally.
• Availability heuristic — overestimating the likelihood of events that are more easily recalled, such as vivid or widely reported claims.
• Anchoring — over-relying on the first piece of information encountered when evaluating a claim.

Both believers in, and sceptics of, paranormal claims can be affected by these biases, which is part of why The Vault's assessment framework emphasises documenting both supporting and contradictory evidence for every case.

Relevance to The Vault

Critical thinking principles directly underpin The Vault's editorial framework, described in TheVault:Evidence Rating System and TheVault:How We Evaluate Claims. Investigators documented elsewhere on The Vault who are closely associated with applying these principles to paranormal claims include Joe Nickell, James Randi, and Ray Hyman.

See also

• Skepticism
• TheVault:Scientific Method
• TheVault:Evidence Rating System
• TheVault:How We Evaluate Claims
• Carl Sagan