Critical Thinking Academy

10/07/2024

A comprehensive text book on critical thinking. This text book is a single source for all the knowledge required to become an effective critical thinker. Broadly, the book covers:

Problem solving and decision making: The book introduces readers to a very effective critical thinking framework for decision making and problem solving. This is a framework that has been highly appreciated by hundreds of students and corporate executives over the last ten years.

How to reason: Starting with problem solving and decision making frameworks, it moves on to in-depth coverage of inductive, deductive, causal and moral reasoning. It also provides a simple and effective framework for evaluating and developing strong arguments. In this context, the book also discusses how to analyze case studies and how to write the analysis of a case study.

Persuasive communication: The book provides its readers with a structure for logically persuasive communication - useful for effective communication not only in academics but also at work for any number of modes of communication requiring logical persuasion.

Understanding and overcoming obstacles to critical thinking: The book discusses the major obstacles to critical thinking in the form of fallacies, cognitive biases, rhetorical devices and linguistic barriers. The book covers several all pervasive fallacies and cognitive biases and also provides some guidance on how to mitigate the effects of some of the cognitive biases.

Table of contents : What is critical thinking, Critical thinking framework, Introduction to logical reasoning, Inductive reasoning, Causal reasoning, Deductive reasoning, Moral reasoning, Credibility, Obstacles to critical thinking (Fallacies, Cognitive biases, Rhetorical devices, Linguistic barriers), Persuasive communication.

Educators will get extensive resources including Powerpoint presentations, extensive exercises, caselets, relevant case studies. Educators can also reach out for faculty training on the subject and developing course outlines

The book is available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4cqfnej

Educators can get more details about the book and also request evaluation copies at: https://bit.ly/3RUpXlt

21/10/2023

"Blinded by Our Beliefs: Understanding Confirmation Bias"

https://youtu.be/2V5kOLmknhE

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The confirmation bias is a cognitive bias that systematically leads to poor decisions and judgements.

18/10/2023

The Line Drawing Fallacy

https://youtu.be/KG7Nt1dHeE0

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The line drawing fallacy

27/08/2023

This video is about the hasty generalization fallacy. It is a fallacy that we commit very often in education, at work and in our day to day lives. A fallacy ...

27/08/2023

The hasty generalization fallacy. It is a fallacy that we commit very often in education, at work and in our day to day lives. A fallacy is an error in reasoning that masquerades as good reasoning.

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This video is about the hasty generalization fallacy. It is a fallacy that we commit very often in education, at work and in our day to day lives. A fallacy ...

24/08/2023

This is a video about the hindsight bias. Not only does it explain what it is it offers numerous examples of the hindsight bias in play.Do you ever wonder w...

24/08/2023

The hindsight bias leads to overconfidence in one's own capability, blurs learning from the past, underestimation of uncertainty and several other judgement errors. This video is the first in our series on 'Persuasion traps'

https://youtu.be/URemGyRB1dY

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This is a video about the hindsight bias. Not only does it explain what it is it offers numerous examples of the hindsight bias in play.Do you ever wonder w...

20/07/2023

Central role of Critical thinking in B2B sales: If you are in B2B sales, you may be interested in figuring out the role of critical thinking in your sales processes.

https://lnkd.in/gUaChhuC

Training in critical thinking can help B2B sales professionals perform right through the buying cycle : Awareness, consideration and purchase.

04/07/2023

Do your plans suffer delays frequently ? Have you meticulously crafted a plan or plans accounting for all possible variables , only to find yourself consistently falling behind schedule? Do you ever wonder why it seems like most people's plans, regardless of how diligent they are, tend to experience delays? Discover the planning fallacy, a cognitive bias that impacts individuals and organizations, resulting in consistently underestimated timelines and unmet expectations.

The planning fallacy is a cognitive bias that refers to our tendency to underestimate the time, resources, and effort required to complete a task or project. It leads us to be overly optimistic and make overly ambitious plans, resulting in delays, cost overruns, and unmet expectations. The planning fallacy can occur in various domains, such as personal projects, work tasks, or large-scale construction projects.

Here are some strategies to mitigate the planning fallacy:

Collect and Analyze Relevant Data: Gather data from similar past projects or tasks to get a realistic understanding of the time and resources required. Look for patterns, challenges, and unexpected delays that occurred in those situations.

Break Down the Task: Break down the project or task into smaller, manageable components. Estimate the time required for each subtask separately. By considering the individual steps involved, you can better assess the complexity and potential roadblocks at each stage, leading to more accurate estimations.

Consider Outside Perspectives: Seek input from experts or colleagues who have experience with similar projects. They can provide insights and perspectives that you may have overlooked. Their input can help you identify potential risks, challenges, and realistic timelines based on their past experiences.

Utilize Past Project Analysis: Analyze similar completed projects in terms of size, scope, and complexity to identify trends and patterns and adjust your planning accordingly. This helps counteract the natural optimism and biases associated with the planning fallacy.

Include Buffer Time: Recognize that unexpected delays and unforeseen challenges are likely to occur. Build in a buffer or contingency time to account for these contingencies. Adding extra time to your initial estimates can help mitigate the impact of potential delays and provide a more realistic timeline.

Regularly Review and Update Plans: Continuously monitor and review the progress of your project. Adjust your plans as new information becomes available, and revise your estimations based on the actual time and resources required for completed subtasks. Regularly reassessing and updating your plans can help you adapt to unforeseen circumstances and maintain a more accurate view of the project's timeline.

02/07/2023

Getting ChatGPT to work for you:

Getting intelligent output from ChatGPT is not very difficult. Talk to it as you would to a very intelligent Executive Assistant. If you want something rewritten - put it into quotations so that the program is clear about what needs to be rewritten.

Its a great tool for rewriting, generating alternative headlines. slogans and for generating ideas. You can also use it for writing out completely new articles - you put together the bulleted points you want and ask the program to flesh it out for you. You can generate ideas for presentations, presentation outlines on various subjectes, course outlines, MCQ's, examples and so on. Give it an example - and ask for more of the same kind and it churns out fairly intelligent examples on the same pattern.

Marketing Content writing: Great for content writing if you know the subject, else you can have junk on your hands, or articles that are structured like argumentative essays - which isn't necessarily always the best way for marketing content to be structured. You can use it to generate ideas for articles, article outlines. If you ask it to generate entire articles then it would be wise to recheck all data for accuracy. If you need to cite sources, then you can use a combination of ChatGPT (for generating the content) and Google bard for verifying sources.

Organizing your ChatGPT conversations: Start a new chat for each topic in the tool - that helps you keep your content organized. I don't know if it makes any difference to the quality of content generated by ChatGPT just because you organize it into different chats. I haven't detected any difference in quality of output that I can point out to.

Limitations : ChatGPT doesn't seem to remember more than one level of instructions - at least the free version. So, if you want some task repeated a couple of steps earlier, start from scratch - as if you are giving it instructions for the first time.

Hallucination, junk and fiction- it does turn out junk and hallucinates and makes-up facts (or rather fiction). If you do not have expertise in the domain, Chat GPT is not really for you - unless you want to spend a lot of time rechecking every single fact and thought the program puts out.

Students planning to use ChatGPT for assignments : Be intelligent about it. Great tool for rewriting content, and for idea generation, but not for generating original content. And by the way, there are tools available to detect AI generated content to varying degrees of confidence. Copyleaks is one of them. I am not sure whether turnitin detects AI content yet.
I heard from a school teacher in the US, there are programmers developing web applications for teachers to detect AI generated content and available only to the Profs and teachers (educational instituions)....not sure whether the last part is true, is happening or has already happened. Please feel free to comment, point out errors in my post - and any additional learnings :-)

30/06/2023

Guard Against Manipulation: Familiriazation with the knowledge and concepts from the book "The hidden traps of persuasion" readers can guard themselves against deceptive tactics in various aspects of life, including advertising, politics, and personal interactions. It serves as a powerful tool for building resilience to manipulation and maintaining autonomy in decision-making. Available on all Amazon platforms worldwide.

21/06/2023

Sabotaging good decision making - The Availability Bias

The availability bias refers to a mental shortcut or tendency that people have to rely on information or examples that come readily to mind. It occurs when we judge the likelihood or importance of something based on how easily we can recall or remember relevant instances or examples.

Let's look at a hypothetical context of a team meeting where multiple team members are debating a strategy for a new product launch. In this meeting, various ideas and viewpoints are being discussed, and the team is aiming to make an informed decision collectively.

During the discussion, one team member, Lisa, shares her perspective and proposes a particular marketing approach. Lisa recently attended a conference where a speaker presented a case study about a company that achieved remarkable success using the same marketing approach. The speaker's vivid presentation and the positive outcome of that case study make it highly available in Lisa's mind.

However, the rest of the team members have not been exposed to this specific case study or the conference. As Lisa passionately presents her idea, her availability bias comes into play. She becomes convinced that the approach she learned about is the best solution for their product launch, and she unintentionally discounts other potential strategies or viewpoints.

The availability bias can sabotage the decision-making process of the whole team in several ways. Firstly, Lisa's enthusiasm and confidence in her proposed strategy might influence the other team members. They may hesitate to challenge or question her idea because they assume she possesses valuable insights based on her exposure to the case study. This can suppress diverse perspectives and critical thinking within the team.

Secondly, the availability bias can create a false sense of consensus. If Lisa's idea aligns with the initial thoughts of some team members or if they find it appealing due to its recent availability, they may quickly agree without thoroughly analyzing alternative approaches or potential drawbacks.

Additionally, Lisa's availability bias may cause her to overestimate the effectiveness and applicability of the marketing approach based on a single, potentially biased, instance. This can blind the team to other relevant factors such as their specific target audience, market dynamics, or the unique characteristics of their product.

To ensure a robust decision-making process, it is crucial for the team to recognize and actively address the influence of the availability bias. Read the book below for ideas on how to mitigate this bias.

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Learn about widely prevalent decision and persuasion traps in the book : "THE HIDDEN TRAPS OF PERSUASION" by Prasad A.S. AVAILABLE ON ALL AMAZON PLATFORMS WORLDWIDE.