Today I was impressed with a question posed by my colleague. She asked me how analytical I am. This is a very good question, which I have no answer to that. But that triggered me to write out how my thinking process works. Therefore I started this post.
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Consider the following statement - Smokers have at least 3x the chance of getting cancer. While, drinkers have only 2x the chance of getting cancer.
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What can you comment about the statement above? Come on! Be creative! Take a pen and a piece of paper and write down what come across your mind.
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Here I go. I believe most smartalecs wannabe, would straightaway ask the questions - how large is your sample size? Is it representative of the population? Did you sample everyone and anyone? How significant is 2x? The list goes on.......
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Though, these are very valid questions, they are merely scratching the surface. Think deeper and longer, there are many other dimensions to the statement, which I stumble upon. Hereby I categorize as below:
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The Black Hole Effect
The black hole effect is termed by me but there are people who call it the salience effect. Let's say 1 out of 100 healthy normal being contract cancer. So the probability of a normal person contracting cancer is 1%. The probability for smokers is 3x more, so 3%. While the probability for drinkers is 2%. Let's say there are 100,000 smokers and 200,000 drinkers. In absolute no, only 2000 people got cancer due to smoking, while there is 3000 people who got cancer due to drinking! Which is more damaging now?
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The Time Trap
This is my favourite. Just love to use this to make some smartalecs shut up! Now, how long is the observation period? Let's say the survey only observe people who have been smoking or drinking for 20 yrs. Then the question is, what will be happen in 30 yrs!?! 40 yrs!?! 50 yrs!?! The conclusion maybe different.
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The Causal Relationship
The statements above cannot affirm that smoking or drinking causes cancer. It can't prove there is a causal relationship. Maybe there is a 3rd element that cause beings to contract cancer and beings contracted cancer are more likely to smoke or drink. If I want to go up to the top, I can even bullshit that this 3rd element will make people smoke and drink 20 / 30 / 50 yrs before the 1st symptom of cancer surfaces. Can you prove me wrong? If this cannot be proven wrong, then there is no conclusion that can be drawn.
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Anyway, there are more examples I can put up. But the more I write, the more I feel these are nothing but thrashes. Why thrashes? What I have done above, while I still hold that they are valid considerations, they are largely ineffective. I am a fan of quantum physics now (I mean the application part. Not the calculation!!!). Researchers of the 21st century, based on quantum physics, have come out with a new field of study called the Science of Oneness. To put it simply, scientist / researchers / philopshopers have one thing in common. They are in pursuance of ultimate knowledge albeit different method. As claimed by these researchers, Science of Oneness is the ultimate knowledge. Indeed, the Science of Oneness is the hallmark, where science and philosophy converges. What the Science of Oneness says is that, for facts or incidents or phenomena to exist, they are a lot of conditions to fulfil, the fulfillment of these conditions also depends on the 2nd set of underlying conditions, so on and so forth. If it is not mind boggling enough, according to these researchers, these conditions that shape the facts or phenomena are INTERDEPENDENT or INTERCONNECTED. That's why it is called the Science of Oneness. You will be surprised, this is the essence of Buddhism. In Buddhism, it is known as Dependent Arising, (in sanskrit ~ pratityasamupada). You will also be surprised, this is also the essence of Tao Te Ching.
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So, what I did above is just playing with the conditions i.e. given these conditions, this is true but given that conditions, this is not true etc etc. It is really nothing great. In fact it can be harmful and ineffective at times. For example, if you are presented some data finding, and you apply The Causal Relationship to question the validity of the data. What good does it make? You can't really articulate or negate the effect of causal relationship. The Science of Oneness says that all conditions are interdependent but they can't prove how it is dependent. Therefore, what you can get out of it, is basically making the presenter annoyed.
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However, such thinking process can also be helpful at times. Most people call such thinking process as critical thinking. Why critical thinking? It is named so because behaviorists believe that beings always think on a default mode. When they think on the default mode, they hit a lot of blind spots, some of those I mentioned above. Therefore, behaviorists claim that we have to think critically if we want to be effective. I readily agreed to that.
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At this juncture, you probably want to say I am fickled-minded. Sometimes I said being critical is useless but other times I agreed being critical is helpful. Well, again as taught by the Science of Oneness, every fact or phenomenon existence depends on a varieties of conditions. You can't practice generalization. It is useless when it is used on certain basis and it is helpful when it is used on another basis. As a conclusion, if our intention of being critical is just to show that we know a lot, then we are degrading critical thinking. It becomes useless because it has the aptitude of making the people beating around the bush without a final agreed action. However, it becomes a good tool if our intention of being critical is to be aware of the unknown and make our decisions conciously based on that.
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Therefore, to conclude being critical or analytical is not equivalent to being smart or intelligent. Being smart or intelligent is to be aware when to be critical or analytical, therefore yield the effectiveness of critical or analytical thinking. So the next time before opening your mouth to be smartalecs, better ask yourself what you are going to say whether is going to help or not.
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The above is written without any cross-reference and only based on my two pence worth of thoughts. Therefore, my understanding on certain topic may not be proficient enough. Thus, do read with caution. If any of the topics, arouse your interest, I will be glad to provide you some recommended readings.
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