 Top of the day to you my good friend. It is so nice to see you once again. It is great to see you as well. I hope all is going good. I was speaking with a friend last week and he mentioned something about critical thinking. I kind of have an idea what critical thinking is but I pretended that I understood what he was talking about. In reality I was just nodding my head so I did not appear to be stupid. I am glad I ran into you. So I can ask you what critical thinking actually is. First we have to understand that critical thinking is a skill and not something we are born with so we can all learn to become critical thinkers which will aid us in making better decisions. That much I do understand. What I am not familiar with is the actual skills involved in becoming a critical thinker. You can basically break it down into four different categories, analysis, inference, interpretation and deductive reasoning. During the first analysis stage we are trying to determine the credibility of the evidence. What type of assumptions are introduced and if there is any informal fallacies present. During the second inference stage we need to identify what elements are needed to draw a conclusion. We need to query the evidence and form a hypothesis. The third stage involves interpretation. We can decode and clarify the argument being presented. We can also form an inductive argument based on a generalization of the evidence. The last stage involves the use of deductive reasoning to draw a logical conclusion based on highly scrutinized evidence which is being presented in the argument's premise. I think I am beginning to understand. To become a critical thinker one must be highly skeptical of all information and assumptions. We must be able to distinguish between an argument based on solid logic and an argument based on informal fallacies, false assumptions and misinformation. Yes. If we all take that approach then we are at least ensure ourselves that we have the capacity to form good decisions based on solid logic.