User:Kevin Baas

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=Critical thinking= Critical thinking consists of a mental process of analyzing or  evaluating information, particularly statements or propositions that people have offered as true. It forms a process of reflecting upon the meaning of statements, examining the offered evidence and reasoning, and forming judgments about the facts.

Critical thinkers can gather such information from observation, experience, reasoning, and/or communication. Critical thinking has its basis in intellectual values that go beyond subject-matter divisions and which include: clarity, accuracy, precision, evidence, thoroughness and fairness.

The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal awards the Robert P. Balles Annual Prize in Critical Thinking.

Overview
Within the framework of skepticism, the process of critical thinking involves acquiring information and evaluating it to reach a well-justified conclusion or answer. Part of critical thinking comprises informal logic. Given research in cognitive psychology, educators increasingly believe that schools should focus more on teaching their students critical thinking skills than on memorizing facts by rote-learning.

The process of critical thinking responds to many subjects and situations, finding connections between them. It forms, therefore, a system of related modes of thought that cut across fields like science, mathematics, engineering, history, anthropology, economics, moral reasoning and philosophy.

One can regard critical thinking as involving two aspects: Critical thinking does not include simply the acquisition and retention of information, or the possession of a skill-set which one does not use regularly; nor does critical thinking merely exercise skills without acceptance of the results.
 * 1) a set of cognitive skills
 * 2) the ability and intellectual commitment to use those skills to guide behavior.

Methods of critical thinking
Critical thinking has a useful sequence to follow:


 * 1) Itemize opinion(s) from all relevant sides of an issue and collect Logical argument(s) supporting each.
 * 2) Break the arguments into their constituent statements and draw out various additional implication(s) from these statements.
 * 3) Examine these statements and implications for internal contradictions.
 * 4) Locate opposing claims between the various arguments and assign relative weightings to opposing claims.
 * 5) Increase the weighting when the claims have strong support especially distinct chains of reasoning or different news sources, decrease the weighting when the claims have contradictions.
 * 6) Adjust weighting depending on relevance of information to central issue.
 * 7) Require sufficient support to justify any incredible claims; otherwise, ignore these claims when forming a judgment.
 * 8) Assess the weights of the various claims.

Mind maps provide an effective tool for organizing and evaluating this information; in the final stages, one can assign numeric weights to various branches of the mind map.

Critical thinking does not assure that one will reach either the truth or correct conclusions. Firstly, one may not have all the relevant information; indeed, important information may remain undiscovered, or the information may not even be knowable. Second, one's bias(es) may prevent effective gathering and evaluation of the available information.

Overcoming bias
To reduce one's bias, one can take various measures during the process of critical thinking.

Instead of asking "How does this contradict my beliefs?" ask: "What does this mean?"

In the earlier stages of gathering and evaluating information, one should first of all suspend judgement (as one does when reading a novel or watching a movie). Ways of doing this include adopting a perceptive rather than judgmental orientation; that is, avoiding moving from perception to judgment as one applies critical thinking to an issue. In the terminology of Edward De Bono's Six Thinking Hats, use white hat or blue hat thinking and delay black hat thinking for later stages.

One should become aware of one's own fallibility by:
 * 1) accepting that everyone has subconscious biases, and accordingly questioning any reflexive judgments;
 * 2) adopting an egoless and, indeed, humble stance
 * 3) recalling previous beliefs that one once held strongly but now rejects
 * 4) realizing one still has numerous blind spots, despite the foregoing

How does one ever eliminate biases without knowing what the ideal is? A possible answer: by referencing critical thinking against a "concept of man" (see Erich Fromm). Thus we can see that critical thinking and the formation of secure ethical codes form an integral whole, but a whole which remains limited without the backing of a concept of humanity.

Finally, one might use the Socratic method to evaluate an argument, asking open questions, such as the following:
 * What do you mean by_______________?
 * How did you come to that conclusion?
 * Why do you believe that you are right?
 * What is the source of your information?
 * What assumption has led you to that conclusion?
 * What happens if you are wrong?
 * Can you give me two sources who disagree with you and explain why?
 * Why is this significant?
 * How do I know you are telling me the truth?
 * What is an alternate explanation for this phenomenon?

Reaching a conclusion
One useful perspective in critical thinking involves Occam's Razor. Also called the "principle of parsimony," Occam's razor states that one should not make more assumptions than necessary. In other words, "keep it simple". Given the nature of the process, critical thinking is never final. One arrives at a tentative conclusion, given the evidence and based on an evaluation. However, the conclusion must always remain subject to further evaluation if new information comes to hand.

Critical thinking in the classroom
In the UK school system, the syllabus offers Critical thinking as a subject which 17-18 year olds can take as an A-Level. Under the OCR exam board, students can sit two exam papers: "Credibility of Evidence" and "Assessing/Developing Argument". Students often regard the subject as a 'lightweight' or 'bonus' qualification, as they can achieve competence after very little formal teaching.

Quotation
William Graham Sumner offers a useful summary of critical thinking:


 * Critical thinking is the examination and test of propositions of any kind which are offered for acceptance, in order to find out whether they correspond to reality or not. The critical faculty is a product of education and training. It is a mental habit and power. It is a prime condition of human welfare that men and women should be trained in it. It is our only guarantee against delusion, deception, superstition, and misapprehension of ourselves and our earthly circumstances.

cooperating to achieve NPOV
"...Nor am I so arrogant, self-righteous, and logicaly inept as to consider myself neutral, or to consider neutrality a goal that can ever be achieved by an individual. So rest assured, I do not bear the pretention of being neutral, and rest assured, also, that I will work collaboratively towards neutrality, via wikipedia policy, equitable protocols, and critical thinking." - Kevin Baastalk 16:04, 2005 Apr 15 (UTC)

...The point was that noone can be an objective judge of the neutrality of the article, but if we work together and in good faith, using equitable protocols, the article will continue to approach the "mean" of empirical perception - "neutrality" - that neutrality which no individual has direct access to, as it resides in the aggregate, not the individual. This point persists regardless of individual views, indeed, it is a point regarding the interaction of such views. Neutrality cannot be arrived at, but it can be approached via the central limit theorem, in this case more commonly referred to as "synergy" or "emergence". The more agents interacting via equitable protocols, the faster the article converges to "neutrality". This process must be respected in good faith if the goal is neutrality. Kevin Baastalk 04:05, 2005 Apr 10 (UTC)

In regard to whether I think this article is neutral, I have no answer to that question. I don't claim to be Wikipedia's arbiter of neutrality or to have any special insight into this article's NPOV status. It's not up to me, or any single editor, to declare this article neutral or non-neutral; it's up to the community. My goal in editing this article is to do my part, whatever it might be, in making this the best article about George W. Bush we can possibly come up with. I didn't come here to push my personal POV. I came here to do my part, whatever it might be, in making this article the best it can be. Part of that is making sure we always strive toward a neutral point of view. The way we do that is by building consensus by reconciling all our differing points of view until they meet somewhere near neutrality. I love to see Wikipedians with diverging political views working together collaboratively in a spirit of good faith to get as close to NPOV as possible. That's the way we make an article NPOV, not by strongarming it to satisfy one user's personal view of how this article should be. / sɪzlæk ˺/ 05:08, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

=Wikipedia: active version proposal=

active revision voting mechanism
neccessary database fields:   


 * NEW ARTICLE CREATION:
 * article.min_voters=global.min_voters
 * article.null_votes=global.null_votes


 * USER VOTING user u CHANGES vote to v on article a, revision r:
 * update votes set vote=v where article=a and revision=v and user=u
 * update revision set rating = (select sum(vote) / max_of(count(vote)+null_votes,min_voters) from votes, article where article=a and revision=r)
 * update article set active_revision = (select revision from revision where article=a and rating=(select max(rating) from revision where article=a)) where article=a;


 * USER VOTING user u abstains on article a, revision r:
 * delete from votes where article=a and user=u and revision=r;
 * update revision set rating = (select sum(vote) / max_of(count(vote)+null_votes,min_voters) from votes, article where article=a and revision=r)
 * update article set active_revision = (select revision from revision where article=a and rating=(select max(rating) from revision where article=a)) where article=a;


 * USER VOTING user u votes v on article a, revision r:
 * if( (select count(*) from votes where article=a and user=u) = global.votes_per_user_per_article ) {
 * select min(revision) as r2 from votes where article=a and user=u;
 * delete from votes where article=a and user=u and revision=r2;
 * update revision set rating = (select sum(vote) / max_of(count(vote)+null_votes,min_voters) from votes, article where article=a and revision=r2)
 * }
 * insert into votes values (a,r,u,v,sysdate)
 * update revision set rating = (select sum(vote) / max_of(count(vote)+null_votes,min_voters) from votes, article where article=a and revision=r)
 * update article set active_revision = (select revision from revision where article=a and rating=(select max(rating) from revision where article=a)) where article=a;

method 2
neccessary database fields:   


 * USER VOTING user u CHANGES vote to v on article a, revision r:
 * update revision set score = score - (select vote from votes where article=a and revision=r and user=u) + v where article=a and revision=r
 * update votes set vote=v where article=a and revision=v and user=u
 * update article set active_revision = (select max(revision) from revision where article=a and score=(select max(score/voters)*voters from revision where article=a)) where article=a;


 * USER VOTING user u abstains on article a, revision r:
 * update revision set voters=voters-1,score=score-(select vote from votes where article=a and revision=r and user=u) where article=a and revision=r
 * delete from votes where article=a and user=u and revision=r;
 * update article set active_revision = (select max(revision) from revision where article=a and score=(select max(score/voters)*voters from revision where article=a)) where article=a;


 * USER VOTING user u votes v on article a, revision r:
 * if( (select count(*) from votes where article=a and user=u) = global.votes_per_user_per_article ) {
 * select min(revision) as r2 from votes where article=a and user=u;
 * update revision set voters=voters-1,score = score-(select vote from votes where article=a and revision=r2 and user=u) where article=a and revision=r2
 * update votes set revision=r, vote=v where article=a and revision=r2 and user=u
 * update revision set voters=voters+1,score = score+v where article=a and revision=r2
 * } else {
 * insert into votes values (a,r,u,v)
 * update revision set voters=voters+1,score=score+v where article=a and revision=r and user=u
 * }
 * update article set active_revision = (select max(revision) from revision where article=a and score=(select max(score/voters)*voters from revision where article=a)) where article=a;

stability quantifier
neccessary database fields:  


 * NEW ARTICLE CREATION:
 * article.avg_over_x_revisions=global.avg_over_x_revisions


 * NEW REVISION CREATION, article a:
 * update revision set lifespan=sysdate-timestamp where article=a and revision=(select max(revision) from revision where article=a);
 * update revision set age=sysdate-timestamp where article=a;
 * insert into article (new revision, stability=lifespan=age=0)


 * CALCULATE AVG PARAMETERS for article a
 * update article set avg_lifespan=(select avg(lifespan) from(select revision from (select revision from revision where article=a order by 1 desc) where rownum<=(select avg_over_x_revisions from article where article=a));
 * update article set avg_age=(select avg(age) from(select revision from (select revision from revision where article=a order by 1 desc) where rownum<=(select avg_over_x_revisions from article where article=a));


 * CALCULATE STABILITY for article a, revision r
 * update revision set stability=(select lifespan/avg_lifespan-age/avg_age from article,revision where article=a and revision=r) where article=a and revision=r

=About me= My Wiki philosophy type:
 * Moderate eventualism
 * Moderate status-quoism
 * Communityism
 * Anti-authorism
 * Neutrality:Elusive_virtue

You scored as Postmodernist. Postmodernism is the belief in complete open interpretation. You see the universe as a collection of information with varying ways of putting it together. There is no absolute truth for you; even the most hardened facts are open to interpretation. Meaning relies on context and even the language you use to describe things should be subject to analysis.

75%    Cultural Creative     56%     Existentialist     38%     Modernist     31%     Materialist     <font face='Arial' size='1'>25%     <font face='Arial' size='1'>Romanticist     <font face='Arial' size='1'>25%     <font face='Arial' size='1'>Fundamentalist     <font face='Arial' size='1'>13%     <font face='Arial' size='1'>Idealist     <font face='Arial' size='1'>0%

So, apparently I'd sooner be called a fundamentalist than an idealist. Please don't call me a "fundamentalist" - I consider that very offensive.