Critical Thinking Is To Think Like A Child

 Critical Thinking Is To Think Like A Child 

M. Bakri Musa

Excerpt #17 from my book Qur’an, Hadith, And Hikayat:  Exercises In Critical Thinking

 

Simplistically but not inaccurately put, to think critically is to think like a child, and to have a child’s inquisitiveness. Tell a child something and you would receive endless “Why?”, “What,” “How,” and the “Why-not?” The child is not satisfied with the first answer.

 

         Critical thinking would have us ask many questions and ponder many possibilities before accepting or drawing a conclusion. The exercise includes examining past judgements for possible errors or making them better. Critical thinking is a positive endeavor.

 

         My profession has regular Morbidity and Mortality (M&M) Conferences. All Departments of Surgery worthy of the name have such meetings where, as the name suggests, deaths and complications are reviewed. These sessions can be dyspeptic and uncomfortable in the extreme to those concerned but in the end we all learn. During my training that was the one exercise I found most useful.

 

         The old communists too have their own versions, their “self-criticism cells.” Comrades would sit around and ask each other questions, or more accurately, question each other. Is that also an exercise in critical thinking, and if not, what is the difference?

 

         For one, those communist self-criticism cells have clear and never-to-be-challenged assumptions, as with not criticizing the party or its objectives. Often that means the leaders too. Do that and you would not be able to ever criticize again! Trotsky found that out with Stalin.

 

         Malaysia may not be a communist country or run by a dictator, but she has many “sensitive” topics. One is to never criticize leaders, in particular, sultans. Malaysia has many sultans, real as well as pretenders. There are also intrusive rules like the dreaded Internal Security Act (ISA) where you could be jailed without trial. Many have been snared by it.

 

         The good news is that there is as yet no instrument to detect your inner thoughts and thinking. Do it in silence to arrive at a wise decision without anyone or the world knowing.

 

         The ISA and the many “sensitive” topics notwithstanding, there are other factors that inhibit Malaysians from exercising their critical faculties. One, the still dominant feudalism of our culture, and with that the misguided notion of “respect” as well as “honor.” This is well captured in Kassim Ahmad’s Characterization In Hikayat Hang Tuah. He had Hang Jebat as the hero and the eponymous Tuah, the rogue. Our culture has yet to recover from that!

 

         Critical thinking is never more acute today with the ready access to the massive amount of news, information, and opinions literally at the palm of one’s hand. With that ease comes another problem. Even photographs and videos can be doctored with great sophistication; what more documents and voice recordings! The emergence of Artificial Intelligence and Chat-GPT has only made the challenge more acute as well as complex.

 

         Simple software to detect their students’ plagiarism notwithstanding, the problem is now much more complicated. Nonetheless, fraud would eventually be exposed as more than a few academic luminaries have recently found out.

 

         Early in my career I was in full time experimental transplantation research. As I submitted my thesis, a “blue copy” (early, pre-published) of a forthcoming paper from a major northeastern academic center was released where the researcher using exactly the same model and experimental animals as I did, produced spectacular successes. As a result, I was forced to reevaluate my data. Tried as hard as I did with the help of my statistician colleague, I still could not justify changing my conclusion except to add the usual proviso “more studies needed.” That was the only way to get my thesis accepted.

         

         As my research was well funded, my supervisor suggested that I spend a few months at that esteemed northeastern center to see what they did right. Instead, I chose to return to clinical surgery.

 

         Had I taken my supervisor’s advice, I would have uncovered what later be described by the New York Times as a “Medical Watergate,” more popularly known as the Summerlin Affair or “Painting the mice” scandal.

 

         We have to be circumspect even when statements and “facts” are uttered by “renowned” and “accomplished” personalities even if they had been vetted by various gatekeepers as editors, pundits, and peer scholars. Discerning the genuine from the fraudulent can be difficult if not impossible at times; hence the need for critical judgement or else suffer the consequences.

 

Next:  The Psychology of Learning