1. Critical thinking is the application of reason and scepticism to one's own and other people's thoughts and behaviour. It's underlying assumption is that in spite of roughly equal neurological equipment in every human skull, we as individualsand as a species seem endlessly prone to ignorance, error, and self-delusion. Critical thinking has given us everything we value in human life, from relative democracy and political freedom to modern medicine and electronic media. But unfortunately it can also be used for destruction and cruelty, such as the hydrogen bomb and methods of torture or lethal injection. Its components include a need to focus on such values as "clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness" (Scriven and Paul 2005). They go on to write that "critical thinking is that mode of thinking - about any subject, content, or problem - in which the thinker improves the quality of his or her thinking by skilfully taking charge of the structures inherent in thinking and imposing intellectual standards upon them".
2. Critical thinking helps your own decision-making by grounding you in reality. It can help detect your own prejudices, unexamined assumptions, ignorance, illogic,
and lack of contact with reality through wishful thinking. In the absence of critical thinking these same traits and tendencies lead you to blunders, preventable disasters,
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