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JimFoxvog wrote: ↑Fri Jan 30, 2026 8:41 am

JohnL wrote: ↑Thu Jan 29, 2026 8:49 pm We’ve been saying for years that public education really doesn’t teach students critical thinking skills.

But is this true? In my AP History classes in the 1970s reading reproductions of original documents and making arguements from them was the central activity. One of my sons dropped out of homeschooling to do public high school. He also had a history teacher who encouraged critical thinking.

Maybe it depends on the school and teacher. My school was in a rich suburb, my son's was in a poorer small town, but we had similar experiences in this way.

What do we actually mean by critical thinking skills? How can I spot them in action?

What is the opposite of using critical thinking skills?

I think start is to honestly evaluate the opponents position to understand why they hold the position they do.
Rather than distorting, whatever they say, and not for the intent to understand so you can tear it apart better, but to try to come to an understanding of how someone of a rational mind can hold the position they do.


Evaluating a position, you don’t agree with to understand how someone can believe it is a very important critical thinking skill.

Soloist wrote: ↑Fri Jan 30, 2026 11:29 am I think start is to honestly evaluate the opponents position to understand why they hold the position they do.
Rather than distorting, whatever they say, and not for the intent to understand so you can tear it apart better, but to try to come to an understanding of how someone of a rational mind can hold the position they do.

Evaluating a position, you don’t agree with to understand how someone can believe it is a very important critical thinking skill.

Calling someone "the opponent" already positions this as a fight. It brings in winning and losing, it prepares us to fight, not to think critically. In general, I think discussion is more helpful.

"Someone of a rational mind" implies that most people's positions are driven by a rational process. People are not only rational. They are often motivated by a good story, hyped up fears, and whatever goes viral. The Algorithm does not amplify what is rational. It amplifies whatever gets strong reactions, and that's often quite ugly, playing on our darkest emotions. And I think it has shaped the way many people interact online.

Traditional critical thinking skills address the logical argument someone has made, but they don’t always address the heart-level forces at work—fear, belonging, identity, or the desire to win. When those forces are doing most of the driving, focusing only on facts and logic often misses where the real leverage is.

There’s also an added difficulty online: the most reactive voices often insist that they are the most “logical” and “fact-based,” while providing little that can actually be examined. Arrogance, volume, and repetition take the place of evidence or argument. In those cases, there isn’t much for critical thinking to evaluate.

So I think:

1. We need more than critical thinking. Christian discernment is about much more than logic, and
2. Critical thinking works best when there is a logical argument, with facts to be evaluated.

When you are examining a logical argument, critical thinking asks what is being claimed, what reasons or evidence are offered in support, what assumptions are being made, and whether the conclusions follow coherently. But before we get to that point, discernment has to help us decide whether there actually is an argument to examine, and whether the conversation is being driven by truth-seeking or by fear, identity, and the need to win.