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Hello readers, writers, teachers, and thinkers! If you’d like to read the thought-piece prequel to this newsletter, please visit my Substack. There, I share thought pieces more freely, drawing on my knowledge, education, and life experiences. Click here: Navigating Information Overload: A Case for Critical Thinking and Subjective Validity Let’s get into today’s Trio of Thoughts… THOUGHT ONE: AN APHORISM In CT work, complicated ideas communicated through a few short words (quote) can profoundly encourage deep reflective CT. “Knowledge is not a fixed state but a dynamic process—what we seek to know depends entirely on what we need to understand.”
– Jerome Bruner
This quote exactly illustrates why we see a clash of ideas online. Too much exposure to too many unnecessary people and ideas all of the time. Jerome Bruner (1915–2016) was an influential American psychologist and educational theorist. He is best known for his work in cognitive psychology and learning theory. THOUGHT 2: ASSESSING THE VALIDITY OF AN IDEA Logically, validity is subjective. Meaningfully, it should be based on what sustains you physically, psychologically, and socially. That is it. Unless specified, on a regular day, there is no other reason to engage with information. Across countries, societies, communities, families, homes, minds, and cultures across the world set their own rules for assessing what is valid. Of course, we need to have some formal processes to establish some form of robust “truth” to solve some important problems. Though, ultimately, we each have a value system guiding how we engage with information. What comes into it is our history of knowledge, our current motivations, and our future needs. We reject information that threatens what is important to us—our values, the values of the family we love, and those of the community we belong to and want to remain part of. Our personal principles shape how we interact, see, and respond to information. We either perceive the information as a threat or an aid. Assessing validity will always be subjective, as it reflects an individual's attempt to make sense of information. I teach critical thinking for one primary reason: to apply information in ways that support mental health. There are two categories when assessing “validity”: Scientific Validity: To understand data and information scientifically to help us understand more and solve problems. Validity of Ideas and Opinions: The process of evaluating non-scientific ideas—everyday thoughts and opinions shared by others—where subjective validity is acknowledged but determined by the idea's capacity to be communicated logically. Both require different approaches as they often serve different purposes but sometimes overlap. I do not teach critical thinking to win an argument. However, if you practice logical reasoning and emotional intelligence and get good at it, you may notice something remarkable: people begin sitting up straighter, speak less, and actually listen to what you have to say. Scientific Validity Journal subscriptions Before I get into the steps you need to know about access and exposure. To “see” all the scientific information published, you need to have a subscription to databases. Usually, students or employees of universities or other institutions have access as their affiliated organsiations pay for it. A regular Google search will not bring up ALL the available literature on any given topic. It will only bring up the papers we call “open access.” Open access is expensive often $4000-5000 or more per article. Universities “pay” for open access for their staff because these academics bring grant money in. Many important, quality and recent papers are not “viewable” by the general public and will never be known to even exist. For example, I recently had an article published. I am a fellow not an employee of my affiliated university. This means I do not bring in any grants. They will not fund my open-access fees. If I want to continue writing, I either need to self-fund or publish to the journal behind the subscription paywall. Strengths and weaknesses All scientific papers have strengths and weaknesses. With scientific training, we know that any ideas written in published articles can be added to, evolved, changed, or extended with the right arguments. Reading one article as unwavering truth is WRONG. When we write a scientific article, we go through a series of steps to assess validity and critique its strengths and weaknesses. They are just ideas. How logical they are comes down to a sophisticated analysis. People who take an article and state it as fact have not been trained in scientific thinking or are not interested in science and truth; they are interested in power and winning. Here is your checklist: Step 1: What is the journal quartile ranking? This is VERY important. It quickly tells you the quality of the paper. For example, in Q1 journals, it is not easy to get published as they have very long, rigorous, and in-depth peer review processes. It took me 12–18 months to get my last article published in a Q1 journal. It was reviewed multiple times with many edits so that the final report is thoroughly high-quality and reviewed by multiple peers in the field. It was hard. Some of the lower-ranked journals have very poor peer review and quality-checking processes. This means you may be reading something you believe is widely accepted scientifically, but in fact, it holds much bias and problems not carefully assessed through a rigorous peer review process. How journals are ranked: Q1: Top 25% of journals in the field (highest impact) Q2: 25%–50% of journals in the field Q3: 50%–75% of journals in the field Q4: Bottom 25% of journals in the field (lowest impact)
You can check a journal ranking on this site: https://www.scimagojr.com/ Step 2: Who wrote it? Look at names and affiliations of authors. Are they from reputable institutions? Are there potential conflicts of interest? Which university are they from, what are their disciplines, and what might this mean?
Look up the authors online. Learn about them so you can get an idea about who they are and what their motivations may be. Step 3: Who funded the research? There is always a grant section usually at the bottom. Think about this deeply. A good paper and ethical author should declare potential conflicts. Think about these conflicts and how this bias affects the veracity of the results. Step 4: What are the dates? Some papers are seminal, meaning the information in them can withstand time and is important no matter how much time passes. When assessing relevance, the more confident you are about broader knowledge bases, the better you will be at assessing information against current political, social, cultural, and knowledge climates. This is not easy, as no one can know everything, this is why we listen to people who study in the field, as they spend time and focus reading broadly about a topic. Interdisciplinary knowledge (this is just knowledge diversity) When I worked in a hospital in Australia for ten years within an interdisciplinary team. Disciplines worked together, bringing their knowledge and we overlapped and intersected what we knew. For the patient, we were stronger together. The more knowledgeable and open you are about broader interdisciplinary contributions, the more quality your assessment, analysis, and understanding will be. Sometimes information is no longer relevant and sometimes it is very relevant. Watch your biases closely, as they are trying to do the assessing before your critical second-order mind is. For example, I meet people all the time right now in the Anglophone West who say things like “social sciences” are the best sciences. This is a political statement, not an intellectual critical thinking statement. Step 5: Look at the methods. Now, without scientific training, this one is a little hard. Most lay (untrained/unpracticed) people don’t look at the methods. It’s boring and confusing without knowing what you are looking at. Often you only read the introduction and skip to the discussion. If you do this, you’re missing a great deal of important detail that tells you about the potential validity of the study. For a proper assessment, you need to look at the methods used to collect the evidence which was analysed. Like: How was the research conducted? Was it interviews, focus groups, surveys, or experiments? Are there potential problems/conflicts? How many participants were involved? Are there too few participants? Too many? Who are the participants? Does it match well with the study aims/objectives? How does this study compare to other similar studies? Strengths, weaknesses, etc.
Compare and contrast the findings and recommendations to how the data was collected. You also have to do a lot more than just look at one study and come to a knowledge-conclusion (which is what most untrained eyes are doing in today’s information climate). Connect all the information to other parts of your analysis and assessment. Think about whether the authors have made any assumptions that could have been flawed due to the methods they used. Step 6: Does it provide a fair and BALANCED DISCUSSION and adhere to the principles of critical thinking? A credible paper discusses and acknowledges its strengths and limitations. If the discussion section doesn’t address potential weaknesses or unanswered questions, the authors may lack scientific rigour. Most of the time, reading one paper does not replace another paper. Your biases and the way your brain works will recall the most recent information you read, superficially inflating its importance. We use information in a paper to broaden, depend, and extend our understanding—we do not use it as a socio-political weapon. Summary In this section, I taught you how to critically analyse a scientific paper. Now, as you may not be an expert in the field, there WILL be knowledge gaps you hold. Experts have knowledge gaps. But they are more likely to be honest about it. So, while you have learnt some basic critical analysis here, remember it is just a small piece of information you read about on one small topic. In the grand scheme of knowledge out there, it should not be taken so seriously. How you use the data and information you find in scientific papers will depend on what you need it for. This is how we are and will always be biased. Information needs to be relevant to your own life for you to be able to store it and recall it easily. These are the principles of adult learning. Validity of Ideas or Opinions Now let’s remind you again…this one should always be based on what will sustain you psychically, psychologically, and socially. People are at different stages of life and knowledge. What is valid to them may not be valid to you. This may mean you need to move away from them for a while or perhaps you can improve on your tolerance. YOU need to assess this fairly. Non-scientific ideas are the main type of information we will engage with if you are part of a family, friendship circle, or non-scientific community. Sociologically, we are witnessing the biggest mass-scale Dunning-Kruger effect in history, where generations now have access to more knowledge and more “therapy” than ever before. We are more disenfranchised from our older and diverse generations and communities in the Anglophone West than ever before. There is a mass knowledge-ego in effect. This does not mean we tolerate toxic family members and friends, but it does mean you need to be aware of any unfair expectations you have of people who are not as knowledgeable as you might be on a topic. There are some steps in determining validity. Step 1: Who is the person? How we will interact with a stranger or person on the internet is different from the tolerance and time we will invest in a conversation or interaction with someone we care about or who is linked to someone we care about. The chance of friction increases if we have no reason to protect the relationship with the person we are talking to. Depending on the importance of the relationship, you will automatically pose questions that are more carefully considered. This will help prime the scenario to increase the chance of ascertaining validity. Step 2: Credibility of the person You need to acknowledge the credibility of a person. Credibility is a difficult one, as people THINK you need to be a qualified formal expert to discuss a topic or have credibility. NO. A person has a right to discuss anything, but credibility often lies in HOW logically and reasonably they communicate the ideas. Are they fair? Are they balanced? Are they discussing a field or topic they know something about or have some experience in? (that is do they have lived experience) Are they open and flexible? Are they logical and reasonable? Are they knowledgeable? Do they identify knowledge gaps? Are they aware of their biases? Are they aggressive?
If it’s someone you don’t know personally but perhaps follow online or are engaging with, it’s up to you to evaluate the validity of their statements based on how credible you think they are. If it’s a person in your family or friendship circle, you need to consider their knowledge base. For example, if they are a parent talking about parenting, they have some credibility through their experience. If you are also a parent be careful, your biases will be flaring. As a parent, they are knowledgeable about parenting to the extent of their experiences. I always say the best approach when discussing a topic where both people have similar experiences, and levels of knowledge—yet their views are oppositional—is to ask questions and adopt an open, curious, and flexible stance. Step 3: Assessing the validity of any idea or opinion The highest chance to come to a place of mutual understanding about a topic is to ask questions about why the person thinks their idea is valid (in a non-threatening way). This is the only way to have a healthy critical, intelligent, discussion. Why do you think this way? How did you learn this? Did something happen for you to come to this conclusion? Did you always think this way? Or was there a time you did
not think this way? Why does thinking like this help you?
Reflective (critical analysis) questions for you to do quietly: What might this person’s motivation be to think this way? What elements of their history have contributed to this
thinking? How might this thinking benefit them? What would be their reason not to change their thought
process? Are there other biological, psychological, and social factors that contribute? (gender, sex, personality type, education, childhood attachments, brain development, injuries, trauma, economic, stress etc, etc, etc there are too many for you to know! these are your knowledge gaps!).
THOUGHT 3: CT ACTIVITIES Try looking up a study on a topic you are interested in and go through the checklist I mentioned. Or during a discussion (extra points if they have a differing opinion from you). Use the tools I have given you. If that makes you uncomfortable, you’re doing human right. Remember two important things during discussions: If the intention was NOT to offend you but you feel offended, try very hard not to react emotionally/intuitively/automatically. Take a moment. Breathe. Activate your second-order critical thinking. If the person’s intention was aimed to upset you or if someone directly insults you, then you defend yourself.
Okay, that’s it from me for today! As always, email me any comments, ideas, recommendations, requests, epiphanies, stories, or feedback, OR please send mail to say hello as I love to hear that you are out there! Esha. CRITICAL THINKING TEST IS READY NOW! Want to know how much critical thinking you are activating during your everyday interactions? I have created an evidence-based CT test specifically to understand how many CT skills you use during your daily social interactions. It costs 9.99USD for a detailed self-assessment and report on 6 CT domains. It takes about 20 minutes. Make sure you’re cognitively rested before you take it. CLICK HERE FOR CT TEST
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