How Did Americans Lose Critical Thinking

[erronis]

37. Carl Sagan talked quite a bit about critical thinking and its lack thereof.

From "The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Demon-Haunted_World

What Mack really means when he talks about beings from other
dimensions is that, despite his patients' occasional descriptions of
their experiences as dreams and hallucinations, he hasn't the
foggiest notion of what they are. But, tellingly, when he tries to
describe them, he reaches for physics and mathematics. He wants
it both ways - the language and credibility of science, but without
being bound by its method and rules. He seems not to realize that
the credibility is a consequence of the method.

The main challenge posed by Mack's cases is the old one of
how to teach critical thinking more broadly and more deeply in
a society - conceivably even including Harvard professors of
psychiatry - awash in gullibility. The idea that critical thinking
is the latest western fad is silly. If you're buying a used car in
Singapore or Bangkok, or a used chariot in ancient Susa or
Rome, the same precautions will be useful as in Cambridge,
Massachusetts.

These are all cases of proved or presumptive baloney. A
deception arises, sometimes innocently but collaboratively, some-
times with cynical premeditation. Usually the victim is caught up
in a powerful emotion - wonder, fear, greed, grief. Credulous
acceptance of baloney can cost you money; that's what P.T.
Barnum meant when he said, 'There's a sucker born every
minute'. But it can be much more dangerous than that, and when
governments and societies lose the capacity for critical thinking,
the results can be catastrophic, however sympathetic we may be to
those who have bought the baloney.