Critical Thinking

 I'm wondering about how to teach critical thinking skill in the humanities.  A lot of our thinking is riddled with confirmation bias of the most elemental sort. 

I'd start out with this.  The problem is that I am not statistician. Even if I knew this stuff at a technical non-metaphorical level, I couldn't expect my grad students to learn it. What I am suggesting is a kind of translation of these principles into valid principles for thinking about research in general.  I'm comforted that one of Andrew's favorite metaphors comes from a Borges story!  

For example, we could have principle that, just because there are two books about something, that does not mean that those are solid books. 

What are some principles we might want to look at?  

For example:  "Cada loco con su tema."  The tendency of everyone to overestimate the importance of what is important to them.  

The unquestioning use of one trope as a default.  "Anxiety about..."  

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We almost never use "representative samples" of something in the humanities. What we study is something that is atypical by definition.  We start with a canon, works judged to be better than others. Then we try to question the canon by finding works by women, ethnic minorities excluded from the canon. But won't those be the best works by women?  These people will be even more exceptional than the men, because they will not only have produced great works of literature, but done so under adverse circumstances. 

Of course, we can go further than that and study anonymous diaries of ordinary people.  Now we are using some other criterion of value, like lack of privilege. We're likely to change our perspective and no longer be asking the questions about literary greatness. That fine, but let's admit what we are doing.