What would it get you to change your mind?

I’ve written a lot here about critical thinking, and how we seem to have lost that facility in our society. Or maybe not lost completely, but it sure seems to be in pretty short supply. It seems to me that I hear lots of opinions related as fact. People seem willing to restate what they’ve heard without thinking it through; without stopping to see if it makes sense. I know I’ve done that. Of course sometimes it’s benign or trivial, but other times this lack of critical thinking can cause significant problems.

A prime example is illustrated in our just-past election. I heard lots of people talk about how they hated Clinton, but when I asked exactly why it got murky. “She’s the most corrupt politician EVER!” was one I heard fairly often. When I asked what evidence they had sometimes I got “Everyone knows it.” Which of course is both nonsense and a gross exaggeration. I’d say “No, seriously. I want to know specifics.” It would usually degenerate into emotion and opinion very rapidly. The fact is that she has been subjected to intense scrutiny by some very hostile groups for 30 years, and literally nothing has come of it. Oh sure, you could take issue with her judgement, and I’m certainly not going to try to convince people of her likability, but that’s not the issue. Lots and LOTS of people have reached the conclusion that she must be corrupt because so many people say she is. Hardly an example of a well thought-out position.

So what is critical thinking, anyhow?

There are lots of different ways of defining it; dictionary.com says it is “disciplined thinking that is clear, rational, open-minded, and informed by evidence.” There is a Foundation for Critical Thinking with a more detailed and nuanced definition (and lots of resources for anyone interested in learning more); a Google search for free online courses on critical thinking just now got me something over 12 million hits, including what looks like a pretty comprehensive treatment from Oxford University (and it’s free!)

Most of the definitions boil down in one way or another to a process for evaluating information that is based on facts and evidence, and free of emotion. It is not meant to be confrontational or argumentative; in fact for the most part it can be done silently, inside your head.

I found one site (unfortunately it’s a pay site, so you’ll only see a teaser of the whole course) that included a very helpful description that pointed out the importance of humility in this process. This goes to the heart of my thinking for this blog entry: we all have ideas that are near and dear to us; our views on religion, politics, family relationships and the like come to mind, but we should be asking ourselves “What would it take for us to change our mind about something?” I think this captures at least part of the core of critical thinking:  if facts conflict with our preconceived notions or beliefs, are we willing to modify our positions, or will we deny the facts and stick to our beliefs? It takes real humility to be able to change a strongly-held belief.

There’s a fair amount of evidence that indicates people today will dig in their heels if confronted with facts, and the more facts they are presented with, the stronger they dig in.

So back to my leading question: “What would it take to change your mind?” I think it’s a valuable exercise to think about those things that I “know” to be true, and what would happen if I were confronted with clear evidence that those are not true.

I hope I would go with the facts.