"Imagine a future without critical thinkers"

(Main image created by Midjourney AI)

Way back at the end of the second world war, societies and their governments had a weighty subject to consider. Having seen the mass destruction nuclear weapons could inflict, should we ever use them again? The answer then was a collective no.

Was that decision born of critical thinkers? If you view critical thinking as the ability to analyze both sides of a question, objectively review the evidence for and against, and come to a conclusion that results in a logical outcome—in this case, do we accept that nuclear weapons have the power to destroy life as we know it? Then the answer is yes.

Remember the last scene in the movie Wargames? The software plays a game that replicates thermonuclear war. We watch as simulated missiles fly from one nation to another blowing up everything; every country, city, and territory the world over. The game ends with the words, ”Strange Game; the only winning move is not to play.”

Critical thinking is at the abyss

Higher education still purports to teach students “how to think.” But if you consider canceling speakers with viewpoints that are unpopular with students, canceling free speech on social media platforms, enabling violence to even a social score, or condoning violence from one group and locking up others without due process, you can’t help but notice we are not producing critical thinkers—not if logic, lack of bias, and a belief in free speech motivates our thinking.

Here‘s how the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines it:

Critical thinking is the process of thinking about ideas or situations in order to understand them fully, identify their implications, make a judgment, and guide decision making. Critical thinking includes skills such as questioning, predicting, analyzing, synthesizing, examining opinions, identifying values and issues, detecting bias, and distinguishing between alternatives. Students who are taught these skills can move beyond superficial conclusions to a deeper understanding of the issues they examine.

Here’s what the latest research has to say:

A global critical thinking survey of 1,000 educators found that 85% say their students do not have the critical thinking skills required to qualify for the jobs of the future. Over 90% of teachers believe that critical thinking skills are essential, but only 17% said they had received any coaching on teaching these skills. This quote should be a wake-up call: “Everybody thinks they have been teaching critical thinking in class, but very few people understand what it really means and, most importantly, how to make it happen.”

How critical thinking is taught

I have friends who went to law school, and I was impressed with the rigor they had to endure in their efforts to earn a degree. One told me this: “We were given a case to argue. We had to review the evidence, interview witnesses, come up with a thesis, and argue the case in favor of the accused. Then, the professor turned the table on us. We had to walk away from making the case in favor of the accused and take on the role of the prosecutor.”

The lesson? At the heart of critical thinking is logic…not emotion.

What does critical thinking mean to business?

Everything. Just ask someone who worked on Wall Street in 2008. My recent experience includes higher education clients. I’ve done SME ‘thought leadership’ content for a member of the Ivy League—blogs and website content for their master’s programs. One assignment focused on enterprise risk management. I needed to gather insights from people who had completed their degrees in this specialty.

It seemed as though everyone I interviewed had worked for a major Wall Street firm during the crash of 2008. These were highly educated and successful professionals. I asked them all the same question: “Why weren’t there any warning signals from the industry about what was about to happen?” They all said the same thing. ”People knew; the predictive models were out there. You could see what was coming,” they said, “But nobody raised the alarm.”

Incredible! People knew, but there was no collective effort to stop the inevitable. And 10 years later, while talking with these people, it felt as though the collapse barely caused a ripple in their lives. They moved on, got master’s degrees, and were now practicing enterprise risk management — often for high profile financial institutions. Can anyone say irony?

Here’s the real irony: it’s 15 years hence and what are we seeing? The sudden exposure of a Ponzi scheme that crashed the cryptocurrency market. Huge banking systems falling like dominos. A war that threatens to spread globally and, once again, discussion of nuclear weapons. AI and ML advances in chatbots that spit out essays, take tests, write code, and basically remove the need for humans. Where are the critical thinkers able to analyze, predict, and design a better outcome in light of the potential seismic consequences?

I’ll leave you with these thoughts. Futurist Alvin Toffler said recently, “the illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write. It will be those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.” And this gem: If the goal is to prepare future generations to solve problems the likes of which we have not seen, use technologies not yet created, in career fields that do not yet exist, we should take a page from Elon Musk and his contemporaries who suggest putting a “halt” on AI “until we can make it more accurate, safe, interpretable, transparent, robust, aligned, trustworthy, and loyal.”

Sounds like a job for critical thinkers.