EveryoneThinks.org: Evaluating the Information

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INFORMATION:

We are constantly bombarded with information.

Everywhere you turn - TV, the internet, books, magazines, people talking, meetings, on and on.

Never before has there been so much information at our fingertips. But much of it isn't accurate information. Much of it isn't significant. Much of it isn't relevant to the issues and problems we face.

Critical thinking can help us weed out bad information and find the truths we need to deal with the complexities we face every day.

Learn About
Evaluating Information

Click Here to further examine information... and learn strategies for critiquing and evaluating media and advertisement.

"If we encountered a man of rare intelligence we should ask him what books he read."

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

The concepts from this page are found in...

From the Bookstore
The Thinker’s Guide to Fallacies: The Art of Mental Trickery

An original approach to the identification of fallacies focusing on their relationship to human self deception, mental trickery, and manipulation. Introduces the concept of fallacies and details... Read More

Thinking with Information
It is impossible to reason without using some set of facts, data, or experiences as a part of one's thinking. Use the following guidelines in dealing with information:

Make sure the information you use is relevant to the question at issue.

Make sure the information is accurate.

Make sure you have sufficient information to solve your problem.

Make sure you haven't distorted the information or ignored information you don't want to see.

Ask Questions that Target Information
Here are some questions you can ask of yourself and others as you think critically about information:

What information do I need to answer this question?
What data are relevant to this problem?
Do we need to gather more information?
Is this information relevant to our purpose or goal?
On what information are you basing that comment?
What experience convinced you of this? Could your experience be distorted?
How do we know this information (data, testimony) is accurate?
Have we left out any important information that we need to consider?

Be aware of missing information, especially information that reveals contradictions, hypocrisy, and self-deception on your part. All of us sometimes seek only that information that supports what we already believe.