Critical thinking

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FallibilisticCriticalThinkingforSocialWorkStudentsedited5-8-19.pptm

Critical Rational Thinking

Developed by:

Dr. Tomi Gomory & Dr. Jeffrey Lacasse,

Florida State University College of Social Work

Adapted from Gomory, T. (2008), Critical Rational Thinking for Social Workers, and including material from:

Swann, J. and Pratt, J. (1999), Improving Education: Realist Approaches to Method and Research

Perkinson, H. J. (1984), Learning from Our Mistakes

Perkinson, H. J. (1993), Teachers Without Goals/Students Without Purposes

Perkinson, H. J. (2002), Flight From Fallibility

Gibbs, L. and Gambrill, E, (1999), Critical Thinking for Social Workers

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What is the purpose of thinking about policy or practice-

related questions?

If our purpose is to gain understanding and knowledge or help others by ameliorating “problems”, then we must carefully and self critically consider our beliefs and actions. Critical thinking involves the use of standards (such as clarity, accuracy, relevance, reliability and validity) to evaluate our efforts. It requires above all else severe testing of all potential explanations and evidence.

Critical thinkers make honest efforts to even handedly

examine all views, both those preferred (generally their own) and those not preferred (generally those of others).

Critical thinkers value accuracy and rigor in pursuit of truth over "winning" or social approval.

Purpose

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Questions

Questions that arise when you think critically include:

How do I know a claim is true?

Are the presented facts reliable and valid? Have any facts been omitted?

Have there been any critical empirical tests of this claim?

Are there other plausible explanations?

How rigorous a debate has taken place in the scholarly literature about these alternate explanations?

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Importance

Does critical thinking matter? Are clients likely to receive better services if social workers and policymakers use critical-thinking skills? These are some of the errors that may occur if incomplete or inaccurate perspectives are accepted:

Ignoring clients’ beliefs, desires and perspectives

Misclassifying clients through poor “diagnostic” procedures and invalid measurement instruments

Selecting weak or erroneous helping methods (e.g., offering talk therapy when clients need material resources)

Increasing client dependence on worker

Overlooking client assets

Causing harm where none may have been intended

The cost of “helping” may be under or overstated

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Danger: Federal Drug Policy

A lack of critical thinking in practice and policy can lead to iatrogenic (helper-induced) harm. For example, consider the history of disproportional sentencing practices for crack versus powder cocaine:

About 14,000 of the 90,000 inmates in American federal prisons were serving time for crack cocaine offenses in 1993. 88.3% of crack offenders sentenced in 1993 were black, 7.1% Hispanic, and 4.1% white (U.S. Sentencing Commission).

“There is no physiological evidence from any clinical trials … that the pharmacological or chemical properties of crack are more inherently addictive than those of cocaine powder (Research Center of NIDA, 1998).

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Danger: Mezzo-level Policy

In the 1970s, concerns about the elderly in the Cleveland area led to the implementation of an intensive social casework program. Clients were randomized to either an intensive casework group or to a control group that received no special services.

Casework patients received a wide range of both material resources and psychosocial services, including aggressive relocation (close case manager scrutiny led to more intervention leading to more harmful client outcomes.

After one year, a program evaluation found:

34% of the casework group was institutionalized, compared to 20% of the control group

25% of the casework group died, compared to 18% of the control group (institutionalization creates more mortality)

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The Advancement of Knowledge

Human beings make mistakes, commit errors, and perform tasks imperfectly. We are all fallible; we can never be certain that our ideas are true, or our actions are correct. If we could be certain about what we say and what we do then we would never make mistakes, never act incorrectly. But we all do!

Importantly, even thoughtful, well educated human beings suffer from confirmatory bias and other logical errors in thinking. When we examine evidence, the natural tendency is to look for reassuring data which justifies our pre-existing beliefs and to ignore or minimize counterevidence. An effective methodology for knowledge advancement must acknowledge and account for these fallible human tendencies.

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The Advancement of Knowledge

It is logically impossible to attain certainty about any empirical

matter.

If we attempt to give a reason R to justify that a statement

is true, or that an act is correct, we then face the challenge of

providing a reason R1 why R is true or correct.

And any reason R1 we give to justify R will confront the same

challenge: provide a reason (R2) why R1 is true. And so it goes

forever. Thus all attempts to justify our knowledge, or our

actions, lead to what philosophers call an “infinite regress.”

Every reason we give must itself be justified by a further reason, so justification (absolute justification) is logically impossible. It must end arbitrarily by invoking an all powerful authority such as a deity or an appropriate civilian alternative (highly fallible government experts or scientists or in our circumstances, professors).

Although we cannot provide final proof we can offer ongoing criticism and thus improve conjectural knowledge.

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Sir Karl Popper (1902-1994)

Formula for Critical Rational Thinking (CRT)

P1 TT(TS)EEP2

P1=Initial Problem

TT(TS)=Tentative Theory or Solution

EE=Error Elimination

P2= Revised Problem

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CRT Formula Applied – Clinical Problem

P1 TT(TS)EEP2

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P1: Severe Depression

Possible DSM-5 diagnosis Major Depressive Disorder (MDD)

TT(TS): MDD is caused by low serotonin which may be remedied through drugs

EE: Randomized Clinical Trials find less than a 10% difference between inactive placebo (sugar pills) and antidepressants which impact serotonin

P2: Thus, depression is a more complex mood state than our original theory proposed and unlikely to be caused by low serotonin

Scientific Inquiry in Social Policy Analysis

“Science requires a disputatious community of ‘truth seekers.’ The ideology for the scientific revolution agrees with Popper’s epistemological sociology of science. The norms of science are explicitly anti-authoritarian, anti-traditional, anti-revelational, and pro-individualistic. Truth is yet to be discovered. Old beliefs are to be systematically doubted…the community of scientists is to stay together in focused disputation, attending to each other’s arguments and illustration, mutually monitoring and ‘keeping each other honest’… if pure or applied social sciences are to merit the term scientific, their problem areas will have to be ‘colonized’ from the successful sciences.”

(Campbell, 1988, p. 290).

Donald T. Campbell

The Steps For Protecting Human Freedom Dignity and Autonomy

De Omnibus Dubitandum: Doubt everything

Primum Non Nocere: First and foremost, do no harm

Always ask: Cui Bono? For whose benefit? For what purpose?

Carpe Diem: “Seize the Day” by enjoying and engaging in problem solving, about and in the present world, and not in planning for future Utopias.

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