Characteristics of Critical and Uncritical Thinkers

Critical Thinkers

Are honest with themselves, acknowledging what they do not know, recognizing their limitations, and being watchful of their own errors.

Regard problems and controversial issues as exciting challenges.

Strive for understanding, keep curiosity alive, remain patient with complexity and ready to invest time to overcome confusion.

Set aside personal preferences and base judgments on evidence, deferring judgment whenever evidence is insufficient. They revise judgments when new evidence reveals error.

Are interested in other people's ideas, so are willing to read and listen attentively, even when they tend to disagree with the other person.

Recognize that extreme views (whether conservative or liberal) are seldom correct*, so they avoid them, practice fair-mindedness, and seek a balanced view.

Practice restraint, controlling their feelings rather than being controlled by them, and thinking before acting.


Uncritical Thinkers


Pretend they know more than they do, ignore their limitations, and assume their views are error-free.

Regard problems and controversial issues as nuisances or threats to their ego.

Are impatient with complexity and thus would rather remain confused than make the effort to understand.

Base judgments on first impressions and gut reactions. They are unconcerned about the amount or quality of evidence and cling to earlier views steadfastly.

Are preoccupied with self and their own opinions, and so are unwilling to pay attention to others' views. At the first sign of disagreement they tend to think, "How can I refute this?"

Ignore the need for balance and give preference to views that support their established views.

Tend to follow their feelings and act impulsively.

--Vincent Ryan Ruggiero

*are extreme views usually correct?




edit: I don't mean to suggest that all of us fall into one of the two categories at all times.
These categories are just as valid and useful as mean people and nice people or altruistic people and selfish people. These are functional generalizations, not black and white compartments.

I believe all of us want to be critical, unfortunatly, at times, I believe we can be uncritical, some more than others.

"I know what I believe and I believe what I believe is right."

I don't recall the exact words, but it comes down to the same thing. It's in the BBC docu "The power of nightmares".

Aside from the first item in the description of critical thinkers - they know that they don't know, as Socrates would have it - the rest of this is merely a guide to etiquette, a list of personality traits and behaviors the author considers good or bad. It has little to do with thinking or method in argument, but is designed to promote a politically correct, middle-class perspective on how to act while arguing: be friendly, be harmless.

One tip-off is what you've footnoted, "Recognize that extreme views are seldom correct..." This has nothing to do with critical thinking, which strives to understand truth regardless of whether it seems mild or "extreme" (subjective value judgements).

An example: in the 15th C. debate between the extreme view that the Earth is fixed with the sun and the firmament revolving around it, and the extreme view that the Earth is actually in orbit around the sun, the truth did not "lie somewhere in between."

Furthermore, the correct position was also the far less "complex" one, contradicting this essay's assertion that complexity is a sign of critical thinking.

If Galileo had drooled, screamed and treated his Ptolemaic antagonists with open scorn, that would have been bad diplomacy, atrocious behavior and a disservice to his cause politically;* but it would not in any way have made him inferior as a critical thinker.

(* It would have also gotten him burned at the stake.)

It is not "How to Think Critically Following the Rules of Logic and Have Polite Debates". With that in mind...



"Recognize that extreme views are seldom correct, so they avoid them, practice fair-mindedness, and seek a balanced view." is not a directive or advice. It is correctly read "Critical thinkers recognize that extreme views are seldom correct, so they avoid them, practice fair-mindedness, and seek a balanced view." It is a self-referencing characteristic, not a suggestion on how to filter and/or ignore others' opinions. The statement is paired with, and should be seen in contrast to, "(Uncritical thinkers)Ignore the need for balance and give preference to views that support their established views."
Furthermore, unless it's true that extreme views are usually correct or even correct a substantial minority of the time, the statement remains generally accurate, doesn't it? Again, it is not a suggestion to disregard out of hand the extreme views of others.




In that case, it was critical thinkers who were open to the truth because they did not "give preference to views that supported their established views" as the uncritical thinkers were doing, right?




There is absolutely no assertion that "complexity is a sign of critical thinking".
The statement is: "Critical thinkers remain patient with complexity and ready to invest time to overcome confusion." The counterpart is uncritical thinkers who tend to be "impatient with complexity and thus would rather remain confused" like gw bush for example, as the link in the OP shows.

The original presentation of this essay has the opposing characterics in two columns - Crit on the left, Uncrit on the right. The vertical presentation in the OP has caused misunderstandings in the past, sorry about that.

nformation.

I had left out number 6 from this post.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=70192&mesg_id=71864

but I see you've dealt with it in the one I reply to.

Below I number the defining points for uncritcal thinking to create some small divisions in psychology and motive.

In the 9-11 world, number 1 may be shared by a large segment of America and number 2 seems to be something that the uncritical might impose upon others while it enable by providing an excuse, the dismissal of information or what appears as number 3.
Number 4 is closer to a genuine neurosis to an extent where facts are ignored and the opposite is embraced, all of which can be seen as number 5. NOTE: Faking uncritical thinking can look innocent and be a more effective way to conduct disinformation.

Uncritical Thinkers

thanks for the reminder.

Thanks for kicking the thread.

Kick & Barf. How do you feel about self serving hypocrites?

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The comment was simply stating the theory that the administration is trying to sell.

Are you calling the administration racist?

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nor "They are too stupid to pull it off" in the post.

It sounds to me, it is you that has those thoughts.

Does that help you remember?

Where have we heard that before?

THE ADMINSTRATION!

Where were you right after September 11, 2001? The media was saying that very thing 24/7.

Are you saying that Afghanistan isn't one of the most primitive countries on this planet?

Are you also saying that the wanton boy did not say he was "gonna smoke OBL outta his cave"?

And that the attacks weren't planned from inside a cave.

Stop talking that way about Texas!

and we have an example here. Are you denying that as a result of a decade of war in a country that was already one of the world's most undeveloped that Afghanistan was primitive at the time of 9/11? Or that that is racist?

Are you saying it is racist to note that the military resources of the Taliban and the US Department of Defense are mismatched is racist?

Your post is one of the most bizarre and illogical that I have read in a long time.

I agree...."Your post is one of the most bizarre and illogical that I have read in a long time."


Maybe he needs to read his original post a bit closer...??

Uncritical Thinkers

"Are preoccupied with self and their own opinions, and so are unwilling to pay attention to others' views. At the first sign of disagreement they tend to think, "How can I refute this?""

Ignore the need for balance and give preference to views that support their established views.

:shrug:

while it was fresh in your memory.

But then some posts are just not worth the memory they use up either.

to your empty and yet false accusation.

A country with 7000 schools can't be considered the most primitive on earth.

My position is not that Afghanistan was a model of civilization and infrastructure, only that it sure as hell isn't the most primitive country on earth.

"Are you saying it is racist to note that the military resources of the Taliban and the US Department of Defense are mismatched is racist?"

No, I'm saying it's racist(or at least culture-centric) to believe that the attacks were planned from a cave.

you are agreeing that what the administration has been trying to sell the world, is indeed extreme thinking and is false?

like Tora Bora? It's not that they are cave men, but that they had their operational headquarters in caves.

Noting that is racist?

I'll use "engineered underground facilities" instead.
Because it's more accurate and doesn't have the same implications as "caves".

One of the reasons Osama became famous is that he built underground facilities (aka "caves" - during the Soviet-Afghan War) and lived in them for some time. Indeed, of all the underground facility (aka "cave") builders who have ever lived, he is probably the most famous. Hamden Rice was merely referring to this fact. Osama is a Saudi of Yemeni extraction. AFAIK neither Saudis nor Yemenis are reputed to live in caves, so I really fail to see how this could be racist or culture-centric.

As far as concerns 7,000 schools, the number in itself is meaningless:
(1) Let's see a link;
(2) Google "Afghanistan population";
(3) Work out the school age population;
(4) Tell us what percentage of the school age population that was actually in school before 9/11;
(5) If you can find 9 countries that had a smaller portion of the school age population in school, then maybe Hamden Rice will consider changing his statement to "one of the 10 most primitice countries in the world".

primitive country on earth, as that was the original statement I saw a problem with.
To be clear and put it back in context, the statement that Afghanistan was the most primitive country on earth was "extreme". Search in Africa, South America, then Asia, and it should become clear in no time that Afghanistan was far from the most primitive country on earth on 9/11.
I don't like the connotations of "primitive" as used my many people in our culture, so I
regret using the yardstick of schools in my reply because it's a culturally biased yard stick. Thousands of cultures since the dawn of Homo Sapiens Sapiens were successful without having our idea of schools.

Maybe Co2 emissions would be a better gauge of "primitive", but if we use literacy Afghanistan is clearly not the most primitive.

If we assume that the literacy rate in Afghanistan was 36% in 1999:
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0107264.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghanistan

then there are at least 6 other countries that are less literate:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_rate with Burkina Faso coming in last at 12.8.

This is from a study completed in 1997:
"Nevertheless, pre-war trends when the literacy rate was estimated at 11.4 percent ( 18.7 percent male; 2.8 female), persist and provide useful patterns reflected in the present. Then, as now, economic, regional and gender bias was very noticeable. Urban-rural and regional disparities are still valid. In urban settings 25.9 percent (35.5 percent male; 14.8 percent female) of the population six years old and over were literate, but in rural areas literate accounted for only 8.8. percent (15.7 percent male; 0.6 percent female, in some provinces 0.1 percent)."
http://countrystudies.us/afghanistan/72.htm

The argument is that Afghanistan was primitive not because of any innate backwardness of the various groups that inhabit it, but because it was at war for 22 years before 9/11. I fail to see how that is culture-centric.

You seem to be arguing that Hamden Rice was out by 6 places (he said most primitive, whereas you seem to be arguing for 7th most primitive). Given the number of countries in the list, that's an error of just over 3%, hardly what I'd call an "exterme" error. If only all figures on this forum were that accurate.

HR asked if the view qualified as an extreme one, and I said "yes".

So, in your opinion, would the statement that "Niger is the most primitive country on earth" also be extreme, even though Niger is the second most primitive country judging by the criterion you suggested?

Might I suggest a better definition of a critical thinker:
A critical thinker actually looks at the nuts and bolts of an argument.

Hamden Rice advanced the oft-repeated claim that Al Qaeda can't have done 9/11 alone. Instead of dealing with the substance of this claim, you simply accused him of racism.

because of the connotations of the word.
The statement "the most primitive" qualifies as hyperbole.
In my eyes, it isn't even possible to figure what the most primitive country on earth is.
I never said that literacy or schools were the perfect yardsticks to figure the degree of "primitive".

"Hamden Rice advanced the oft-repeated claim that Al Qaeda can't have done 9/11 alone. Instead of dealing with the substance of this claim, you simply accused him of racism."

The nuts and bolts substance of the claim was that it's unfathomable that Arabs from their caves in the most primitive country on earth were capable of hijacking aircraft with boxcutters and flying them into huge buildings. In hindsight, I should have alerted the post instead of replying to it. There's a reason it was deleted. I don't think that HamdemRice is a racist. I do think we all have some racial bias whether we want to or not, and it's a good thing to be on the lookout for "unconscious" racial and cultural bias.

And neither is Saeed Sheikh, but never mind. I take it you don't actually want to discuss whether Al Qaeda was capable of doing it alone or not then?

How about if he said "the least developed"?

most primitive country on earth.

"I take it you don't actually want to discuss whether Al Qaeda was capable of doing it alone or not then?"

That would be an unwarranted conclusion.

How was Al Qaeda able to disrupt communications between the the US military and its acting commander General Myers (vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) to such an extent that he was kept in the dark about the attacks for over an hour? Did they steal his cell phone and all records of where he was so he couldn't be reached? Did they jam the signal to his cell phone electronically? Did they delete his cell phone number from the Pentagon database "People to Call During Attack on CONUS"? And how, having managed this somehow, did they implant a false memory in the mind of Counter-terrorism tsar Richard Clarke, who later falsely (at least according to Myers' account) said that Myers was in a video conference half an hour before the Pentagon was hit?

Remember we are "kafir" "infidels", how could we judge? We only see a part of what exists and then deny the rest because it can't be photographed.

And this, after we put the Taliban in power.

Redirecting the argument to a personal accusation irrelevant to the question is an ad hominem fallacy.

And the inevitable protest ("how is it irrelevant") is a red herring.

I was at least careful enough to say the opinion was racist, not the person I was replying to.
They asked if a particular view was extreme and escribed that view using the following phrase

"...a guy in a cave in the most primitive country on earth could direct 19 Arabs..."

I don't think it's extreme to identify the racism and cultural arrogance in that statement.
The same sort of racism exists at the heart of theories that Egyptians couldn't build pyramids without help from aliens.

Check your inbox.

i won't say that I think you post applies to me, either way. I see many other place here where it could be applied. And as credit to most of the posters here, eventually, if they are NOT engaging critical thinking in the beginning, they basically do so later on. Often grudgingly, with conditions, but the illogical nonsense ends, which is important.

I will outline conditions where this list of generally correct factors defining critical thinking are erroneous to apply. I'll number the points to make adressing them easier.

Number 7, 4, 3 and 1 are always correct while 2 is not necessarily so. Number 5 is entirely dominated by specifity and basically outlines our need for guidelines to establish basic criteria to conduct preliminary evaluations that are generally acceptable to all. Number 5 is a feel good kind of thing that is generally theraputic, but mostly unproductive.

For example: The WTC nuke theory.

No radiation, nukes cannot be delayed, regulated. They happen all at once, 2 were supposed to go off. Sorry, time spent on this is not productive unless the farmer never plants and waters, only spending time clearing weeds.

The best for finding the truth here is to not clog up the environment of sharing with unreasonable assertions. And when they are seen and shown to be unreasonable, REMEMBERED and banned from serious discussion. Raw evidence MUST rule because authority is totally in question, all authority. Aspects of evidence supporting logical explanations for events must always remain present no matter how difficult. Over time, with attrition, the impossibilities will fall away and the possible will remain. It will be very close to something we can use to know the truth.

The truth is not necessarily a fact, it is also the meaning of the fact to a person. Hence we can have our own truths but facts can reasonably vary some.

Sorry for being so critical.





Posted by greyl

"I don't mean to suggest that all of us fall into one of the two categories at all times."

I think the "characteristics" are valuable things to keep in mind, that's all.
Don't forget that the "characteristics" were paired with an article on conservatives.
The intention was to establish a baseline of agreement among those who believe that progressives are "better than" conservatives.

It's not lost on me that nobody argued with the bbc article (among the 1 person who even mentioned it), and that the predominant instinct was to argue with a call for critical thought.

of a DU poster who is famous for counter critical thinking intentionally directed at creating confusion.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=49321&mesg_id=50155

It doesn't stop there, scholars are taking objection to this and publicizing it. There is a link to the above post from this page.

http://www.scholarsfor911truth.org/

In the end, she was wrong. LARED's original equation was correct for it's intended purpose.

To be honest, I never thought janedoe was a Professor of Engineering, or even an engineer for that matter, but maybe she is after all - I doubt if anyone else would actually link to that thread.

Nevertheless, that link you posted is not really an example of debunking by her - although the picture is pretty.

That was an entertaining thread - I kinda miss her. She hardly ever comes around anymore, and when she does, she doesn't seem to say very much.

- Make7

Then she might come back.

Off topic: if I understand you (and LARED) correctly (although I don't understand algebra and calculus sounds even more daunting - I gave up with maths when they took the numbers out), then you're arguing that the collapses were caused by:
(1) The impact damage plus the fires;
(2) Although no fire floor was generally overwhelmed by the weight of the building above it, some weak point gave way on one of the fire floors (for example the angle clips or the beams linking the core and perimeter) and this initiated a general collapse;
(3) The weight of the building above the collapsing fire floor was applied essentially as a block and was sufficient to crush the floor under the impact floor that collapsed first;
(4) The weight of the building continued to be applied essentially as a block all the way to the bottom.
Is that right or am I misrepresenting you?

Again off topic: what do you want us to Make7 of?

I can't just start being nice to people. How would that look?


Basically the argument concerned some equations that LARED posted to give a rough estimate of how much the collapse time of one of the towers would increase if 1/3 of the potential energy of the building was converted to work energy used to break apart the building. It was not a detailed model of the collapses - just a crude energy balance to show how the potential energy might have been dissipated while still falling within the observed collapse times.

The entire weight of the building being used as a block is a misinterpretation by janedoe of what was being demonstrated by the equations.

I believe that both LARED and myself think the impact damage and subsequent fires from the planes caused a progressive collapse of the Towers.

The description of the seismograms doesn't add up.
If you compare the peaks in "amplitude" of the plane impacts and the collapse, notice that the pre-impact peaks are much higher than the pre-collapse peaks. This most likely means that what the grams show about the impact and collapse isn't comparable. It's as though they are at different vertical zoom levels.
(What does "nm/s" mean?)

In any case, they still show a lack of evidence for explosions preceding the collapses.

To answer the question "It appears to take longer for the signal to settle out. Why do you think that tells us about the collapse?", Ahh, the power of suggestion.
It only appears that way at first glance because of the zoom level. Compare the end of the wav form with the beginning. There's no difference in amplitude.

The nm/s is nanometers per second, so you are correct that the graphs have different vertical zoom levels.

In one of my responses in that thread, I pointed out that she was implying that the times for the seismic events were representative of the actual collapse times, yet she had claimed elsewhere that the collapse time for WTC7 was 6.5 seconds although the seismic event for that collapse was 18 seconds long. She seemed unwilling to discuss that point. For some reason....

- Make7

Yeah, nautical miles per second didn't quite make sense.

"She seemed unwilling to discuss that point. For some reason...."

We can only speculate...that it's because she was full of shit.

Although you have inadvertantly contributed on several occasions, so your presence is appreciated.

Recently I've seen a difference, more integrity to reason with rational uses of information. Keep up the good work.

I was worried for a while that my contributions might have been deliberate, but I'm relieved to know that they were merely inadvertant. Nevertheless, it is nice to know that my presense has not been unappreciated.

- Make7

LARED's debunking took a lot of work. Meaning even though he failed at making his bogus point, he did waste alot of Jane Does time, which of course was his real goal.

Yours will be much easier.

ME waaayyy to much. Couple this with the fantasy that I've be debunked, and it's a recipe for disaster.

janedoe was wrong. She did not debunk LARED's equations. At least read this post:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=49321&mesg_id=52426


Also compare the equations presented by LARED to the one's used in this paper:

http://www.saunalahti.fi/wtc2001/WTC7_collapse_examination.pdf

- Make7

The strawman




http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=125x74140

You are simply incorrect when you say that she has debunked LARED. I am merely pointing that out.

If you did not wish to discuss the issue, you should not have made a post concerning it in the first place.

- Make7

One of the reasons you do the strawman is just to waste the time of legitimate truth seekers, and I try not to waste my time.



Discuss it with LARED.

... in post #35 is an example of using a "strawman".

You are simply not making any sense. You posted what you thought was an example of "solid debunking", and I replied that it was not in fact an example of debunking at all. Instead of discussing whether or not janedoe's debunking is in error, you bring up this whole "strawman" nonsense.

Why don't you just discuss janedoe's analysis of the equations that were presented by LARED? That is the example of debunking that you posted. If you do not wish to discuss it, why are you still replying?

You said I was next. Why don't you start by showing how janedoe's "debunking" is correct and my debunking of her was in error?

Or would you rather continue to pretend that I am the one avoiding the very issue that you brought up in the first place?

- Make7

website. So if you think it's lacking in credibility, perhaps you should take it up with
Dr. Jones and Dr. Griffin.

http://janedoe0911.tripod.com/BilliardBalls.html

There's also a link (on the front page!) on http://www.scholarsfor911truth.org/ to the DU thread
"LARED's giant "trash compactor" model".

janedoe's claim that she was a professor of Mechanical Engineering is true.

The thread is still available for your viewing pleasure. This post would be a good place to start.

If you have comments to make, perhaps you should take it up with the appropriate participant of that thread. (Or just reply to the post that you wish to discuss.)



It may be true - but I still find it more than a little surprising.

- Make7

Perhaps that is your reason for bringing it up. (Perhaps it is not.) I believe this would be a good place to start.

Let me know if you actually have any ideas concerning my objections to anything that she has posted - other than suggesting that I should discuss it with someone else.

- Make7

reasons.

1. Once it came out that the collapse time was 16 seconds instead of 10, it seems the point was
moot

2. I wasn't sure that anybody was recognizing that while the structure would offer resistance to
the collapsing mass in the early stages of the collapse, the debris mass would very soon reach
proportions that overcame all resistance quickly. It's the difference between a few logs washing down a flooded stream and a broken logjam washing down a flooded stream.

It seemed the game wasn't worth the candle.

Christophera brought up http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=49321&mesg_id=50155">LARED's giant "trash compactor" model found on www.scholarsfor911truth.org as an example of "solid" debunking. I promptly pointed out that it is not an example of debunking at all.

You entered the discussion by stating that her http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=49321&mesg_id=50155">LARED's giant "trash compactor" model link is on the www.scholarsfor911truth.org website, and if I had an issue with its credibility, I should take it up with Dr. Jones and Dr. Griffith.

I don't know why on earth you would think I would be concerned about the credibility of information presented by anyone affiliated with the Scholars for 9/11 Truth organization. In fact, I doubt if you actually believe that I am concerned. I think it was your way of making the implication that her analysis is correct because her work is featured on that site. And also because she is apparently a Professor of Engineering.

When janedoe posted her "trash compactor" model, as well as her "billiard ball" scenarios, I clearly stated at the time why I thought she was incorrect in what she posted.

Both you and Christophera seem to think she is correct for no other reason than she has a link on the front page of www.scholarsfor911truth.org. Neither one of you seems willing to actually discuss what she has written or my objections, to which I have provided links.

If you did not wish to discuss the matter, perhaps you should have refrained from entering the discussion.

- Make7

intentionally directed at creating confusion.

It's not nice to talk about JaneDoe like that.

it was really interesting and the poster you are referring to was posting in the same manner. I have a feeling there are several people who post using that author's name.

on earth could direct 19 Arabs from "engineered underground facilities" in caves to circumvent the trillion dollar air defenses of the world's superpower is an "extreme view" that is not likely to be correct?

Like most debunkers, you use a variety of rhetorical devices and misdirection in order to avoid any credible criticism of the official conspiracy theory -- or even addressing the substantive issue that others raise.

So as modified by your suggestions, do you agree that believing that in the official conspiracy theory is an "extreme view" that is not likely to be correct?

BTW, as someone who has travelled and lived in extremely underdeveloped countries, such as Liberia, Sierra Leone, Swaziland, Zimbabwe and Botswana, I would say that although I've never been to Afghanistan, in my opinion, Afghanistan appears to rank lower in the human development than similarly situated countries. According to 2001 Human Development Index, there were virtually no statistics available, presumably because of its theocratic government; the only available stat was that during its brief peace time under the Taliban, over 1/4 children died before age 5, which puts it way out of line with other poor countries, including war torn African countries

http://hdrc.undp.org.in/APRI/hds/hdfct/Afghanistan.htm

and was actually higher than Liberia's during Liberia's war.

http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:Wj_5lVU7-ocJ:earthtrends.wri.org/pdf_library/country_profiles/pop_cou_430.pdf+infant+mortality+Liberia+age+five&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=3

As even the World Bank has indicated, many of the poorest African countries are poor as a result of military conflict, disastrous development policies and AIDS; but they remain essentially "open societies," receptive to economic and scientific information from outside. As Esther Boserup, the mother of the "women and development" school of economic anthropology, noted several decades ago, sub-Saharan African countries, though poor, engage their women in economics and education in ways that make the lived experience of poverty marginally better than countries of similar poverty in other parts of the world -- an insight that has been confirmed by Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen in his famous essay "Gender and Cooperative Conflict". So even accepting Afghanistan is only the 7th worst off country, I suspect that Afghanistan under the Taliban, where women were secluded and beaten for appearing in public without a male, prevented from working or going to school, was probably the most miserable place on earth at the time of the 9/11 attacks.

on 9/11 support your conspiracy theories? I think it's totally irrelevant.

a spectacular attack on the US: China or Sierra Leone?

You apparently believe that technological and infrastructural capacity have nothing to do with the answer to that question.

BTW, miraculously, you continue to fail to answer the question of whether the official conspiracy theory is an extreme view that is therefore not likely to be correct.

Why am I not surprised?

I wonder when you will run out of distracting issues and just ignore the question completely?

"BTW, miraculously, you continue to fail to answer the question of whether the official conspiracy theory is an extreme view that is therefore not likely to be correct."

No, I began by saying that your hyperbolic version of the official conspiracy theory of what happened was extreme.

There is a wealth of evidence that Al Queda was planning to attack the US by flying airplanes into buildings, therefore, it isn't extreme to believe that it actually happened.
There is zero evidence that our government was planning to orchestrate an attack/and or demolition, "another Pearl Harbor" in PNAC notwithstanding, so relative to a terrorist attack, that theory is clearly more extreme.

You have proven you're just trying to run conversation in pointless, evasive circles. How many times does that make you haven't answered the question?

Asked to choose between Sierra Leone and China, you choose Saudi Arabia? "No soap, radio".

"Zero evidence"? That just proves you haven't read the evidence or what you have read cannot penetrate the helmet you have on that won't let any facts in.

My answer was "more true" to the subject at hand than one of your 2 hypothetical choices.

Giving you the benefit of the doubt, I'd bet you know that, but are unwilling to admit it.

You've been posting as though the OP stated "extreme views are never correct".
Read the OP again.

"How many times does that make you haven't answered the question?"

I haven't answered the question an infinite number of times, but I have answered the question more than once.
If you think that last statement is false, please ask "the question" again.

I'd like to think that the government was subject to the same rational rules of investigation that anyone else is.

Posted by greyl


True enough, but immediately following there was all the following behavior.

No air defense, removal of evidence, absent building plans, extensive reports that create more questions than they answer.

All those things justify a high degree of suspicion. If I observed an individual acting in such a way, in such conditions, over time, I would reason that maybe I had been fully deceived as to what they were actually intending and doing before they may have done what happened. Others would too, the event now becomes secondary to the behaviors that created it, if a desire to prevent such events exists.

We should learn from the erroneous Finnish officer that theorizes that nukes were used in the WTC. Why? Because he is absolutely right about a few really important things.

1.His evaluation of the magnitude of the demolition and the secrecy surrounding it and that only government could have completed it as it must have been done.

2.His analysis of exactly what it would take to demolish the tower defined by the WTC report, and how likely that is to have been done in secrecy.

The magnitude was incredible, fully manifesting Gohering's design for the ultimate lie, deception, manipulation to move the masses with fear as did the reichstag. What we saw was basically impossible outside of a VERY narrow set of circumstances, dominant facts. Working backwards from that is what will work.

It is very much implied here that to place the lack of obvious complicity before hand by a the most enabled entity or allow it higher priority, directing investigation is to enable further by not fully defining the act.

Did you expect our "leaders" to police and gather evidence that can be either; A. self incriminating, and/or B. Politically disastrous?

How can it NOT be our government or a faction of our government? They have the means, motive and opportunity. The “government was involved” hypothesis becomes even more plausible once you research the company that handled WTC security. Look up Stratesec to see what I mean.

I believe they MIHOP based on the factual evidence and witnesses of NY.

Never forget.

a bi-THINKER

which includes:

"Ignore the need for balance and give preference to views that support their established views.

Tend to follow their feelings and act impulsively."

i admit to these two faults--at times it is true of the way i behave. i admit--that would make me a bi-thinker



(not a conservative!....but i know you were only kidding. right?)

Critical thinkers understand that every individual needs to be analyzed on his or her own merits and every situation needs to be analyzed using both common sense and the preponderance of available evidence.

Yea, ............... worse than useless generalizations, disruptive, confusing and distracting distortions. Here is a list of them as developed by behavioral psychologists.

Next time you are confronted with a confusing, erroneous post, try comparing the questionable statements to this list for matching qualities. You will be surprised as you see how adept the human mind is at constructing artifice with the below, as methods.

COGNITIVE DISTORTIONS
1. All or nothing thinking: Things are placed in black or white categories.
2. Over generalization: Single event is viewed as continuous.
3. Mental filter: Details in life (positive or negative) are amplified in importance while opposite is rejected.
4. Minimizing: Perceiving one or opposite experiences (positive or negative) as absolute and maintaining singularity of belief to one or the other.
5. Mind reading: One absolutely concludes that others are reacting positively or negatively without investigating reality.
6. Fortune Telling: Based on previous 5 distortions, anticipation of negative or positive outcome of situations is established fact.
7. Catastrophizing: Exaggerated importance of specific failures of others and successes of self.
8. Emotional reasoning: One feels as though emotional state IS reality of situation.
9. "Should" statements: Self imposed rules about behavior creating guilt at self inability to adhere and anger at others in their inability to conform to self's rules.
10. Labeling: Instead of understanding errors over generalization is applied.
11. Personalization: Thinking that the actions or statements of others are a reaction to you.
12. Entitlement: Believing that you deserve things you have not earned.

Where did it come from? It sounds like a combination of personality disorder traits.

Based on your other uses of that list or parts of it, I'm not sure you use it properly.

ns deserve this kind of flexibility to define the many manipulations we see. Not just uncritical, but pretending to be uncritical.

See the comment I make here,

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=70192&mesg_id=72152

I'm using it and it works which makes it proper. Really, ......... our mind is the final frontier. If something helps to explain, for instance, gwb sitting and reading the goat story, should we use it? Just kidding!!

Seriously, I have used it over and over here as a tool to thwart confuser, distractor, dissmissor; and done so very effectively knowing that I was logically interpreting their intended communication with regard to their intended manipulation of the readers attitude or perception. Their intention could be unconscious.

The cognitive therapist applied the distortion to a person who was using a distortedpossibility to justify, cognitively, their own behaviors. I use it within the dynamics of our semantical relations, or choices of words within them, to show how they invitem and tailor the reader to distort along with them, encouraging effective cognitive dissonance and eventual dissociation of the information. 86'ed.

I could probably find some threads where I'd done it for you if you doubt that I'd actually done as I say. Numbers 5 and 12 rarely apply.

COGNITIVE DISTORTIONS
1. All or nothing thinking: Things are placed in black or white categories.
2. Over generalization: Single event is viewed as continuous.
3. Mental filter: Details in life (positive or negative) are amplified in importance while opposite is rejected.
4. Minimizing: Perceiving one or opposite experiences (positive or negative) as absolute and maintaining singularity of belief to one or the other.
5. Mind reading: One absolutely concludes that others are reacting positively or negatively without investigating reality.
6. Fortune Telling: Based on previous 5 distortions, anticipation of negative or positive outcome of situations is established fact.
7. Catastrophizing: Exaggerated importance of specific failures of others and successes of self.
8. Emotional reasoning: One feels as though emotional state IS reality of situation.
9. "Should" statements: Self imposed rules about behavior creating guilt at self inability to adhere and anger at others in their inability to conform to self's rules.
10. Labeling: Instead of understanding errors over generalization is applied.
11. Personalization: Thinking that the actions or statements of others are a reaction to you.
12. Entitlement: Believing that you deserve things you have not earned.

tion.

A favorite generalization applied by the uncritical in my struggle to illuminate 9-11 truth is that the below doesn't look like concrete because there is too much smoke and dust. Well, ......... common sense says that it looks a lot more like concrete than structural steel and the towers did have a core, so it must be concrete.



Then the preponderance. What can that dead space between the stairs and interior box columns be?



The uncritical apply a genaralization, "It's too blurry." Actually, I think it is a rather sharp photo considering it's zoomed quite a bit. No steel core columns are seen but curious tight coils of what must be steel rebar (too small for anything else) are seen with a vertical portion pointing near the center of the massive block of what must be concrete.

The preponderance continues but so do the generalizations, the "too blurry" generalization is usually applied. Of course, the fact no core columns are ever seen is "generally" not an issue. HAH!

I think I can sum up what "greyl" is actually trying to say, without all that smug, pious, self-serving petit-bourgeois formalist claptrap:

"..let us not tolerate conspiracy theories.."
- George Bush
(in a speech to the UN justifying the carpet-bombing of Afghanistan)

Now THERE'S a "critical thinker" !

Looks like we know what camp "greyl" sleeps in.

Let us not tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories concerning the attacks of September the 11th -malicious lies that attempt to shift the blame away from the terrorists themselves, away from the guilty." George Bush, 2001




~Some theories have ground and consistency, unlike the official story.