My Exit Card

After critical Thinking workshop. I had many thoughts on where I apply CT or where I think I apply but I actually don’t. All these thoughts had to be put to rest or atleast penned down for future reference. So Thank God for the blog!

Did I say God?

My takeaway from the workshop is that critical thinking does not really ask us to “not believe” in what we want, it just requires us to think before we blindly give ourselves to our instincts. (Which according to the “Rosie Project” are stronger than reason)

Taking an example of Homeopathy or Therapeutic healing which works for some people and raises questions in the minds of others.

The enlightening Placebo effect states :

“a beneficial effect produced by a placebo drug or treatment, which cannot be attributed to the properties of the placebo itself, and must therefore be due to the patient’s belief in that treatment.”

The human will is extremely strong and has the power to fight diseases, mental, physical etc. However, sometimes due to external validating demotivations (eg: Migraine treatment not working) It needs something to sort of retrieve its faith. Therefore, when we believe that Homeopathy or therapeutic healing  is working, its not really the drug but our will which has found support in the promising narrative.

One of the underlying statement of pseudo science is that “there are no side effects”. So logically as a protective parent, I would choose something that will cure without any side effects than choose something that might work adversely on the immunity of my child if given frequently.

If we do not think critically and believe in the unknown/ unseen then one day we might become slaves of something that works purely on belief and not on evidence. In which case emotions will overtake (Eg: blaming god for all that has gone wrong in our lives) and it will then be difficult to gather oneself and fight back.

Having said this, I guess there are moments in which the instinct is so strong that there is just no time to reason out. So which means that Critical thinking is an effort that has to be made till it becomes a habit.

I guess it will just make us identify tough spots and deal with them.