mark_johnson's review
4.0
During our lifetime we are all proceeding a huge amount of information, most of it is a just sensory experience that will be forgotten real quick, but some of it will be cared around with us, influencing our decisions. And what is our life but a series of decisions, some of which is a routine, but other is life-changing, often not only for ourselves. The cost of a mistake in that kind of life choices can be high. Imagine believing in doubtful advertising and investing all of your money in the Ponzi scheme and lost or instead of prescripted medication, you choose to treat your disease with homeopathic pills. Or for the majority of the electorate to vote for the incompetent populistic candidate in the presidential election who will probably cause the downfall of civil rights and economy. Not bright perspective, right? That`s why it is important not only to know how to check out information but also how to make the decisions that are evident-based. And the way to do so is to learn the skills of critical thinking.
This book serves as a first step and guidance for everyone who wants to learn such skills. By using understandable explanations and examples from everyday life author walk you through the major components of the process of thinking and decision-making and provides useful algorithms and advises. You`ll learn about how the memory works and how to improve it (which is extremely important for students), how to analyze arguments and build a valid conclusion, how to calculate probabilities, what is the basis of the scientific method and more. Of course, all information here based on psychological research and all references to them provided.
The only thing that this book is lacking is more exercises to practice the new-learn skills, but I think that they`re all gathered in the separate book.
You need to understand, however, that reading of this book will not automatically improve your critical thinking, it takes a lot of practice. The book only provides some tools that can be helpful, but only you can find a use for them. The one should always sustain attitude, readiness to challenge one`s beliefs or new unverified information because without this attitude there is no use of one`s knowledge and skills, and this is the hardest thing about being critical. There`re too many things in regardless of which you should be critical.
This book serves as a first step and guidance for everyone who wants to learn such skills. By using understandable explanations and examples from everyday life author walk you through the major components of the process of thinking and decision-making and provides useful algorithms and advises. You`ll learn about how the memory works and how to improve it (which is extremely important for students), how to analyze arguments and build a valid conclusion, how to calculate probabilities, what is the basis of the scientific method and more. Of course, all information here based on psychological research and all references to them provided.
The only thing that this book is lacking is more exercises to practice the new-learn skills, but I think that they`re all gathered in the separate book.
You need to understand, however, that reading of this book will not automatically improve your critical thinking, it takes a lot of practice. The book only provides some tools that can be helpful, but only you can find a use for them. The one should always sustain attitude, readiness to challenge one`s beliefs or new unverified information because without this attitude there is no use of one`s knowledge and skills, and this is the hardest thing about being critical. There`re too many things in regardless of which you should be critical.
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