© Elliot Essman 2005. All rights reserved.

These pages contain the complete text of Human Action, public speaking trainer Elliot Essman's philosophy of human achievement.

Elliot Essman Public Speaking Training
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This is not to say that critical thinking is the be-all and end-all in knowledge gathering. You can be a critical thinker and still get your direction wrong if you are too confident or are simply looking for the wrong information. Critical thinking is no substitute for judgment.

Critical thinking is the process of determining the authenticity, accuracy, and value of information. This doesn't give you guaranteed results, but it allows you to sift through information so you get to a state where you can unleash your Trans-Biological Imperative and build beliefs you can act upon.

A critical thinker will ask four major questions. First, how reliable is the source of the information? Second, is it fact, or is it opinion? Third, are there any hidden assumptions? Fourth, are items of information included that are irrelevant, biased or illogical?

How reliable is the source? If someone comes to us with a hot stock tip, we'll almost always ask where the information came from. We might even try to find out the original source before we take any action on the “information.” But in many other cases we tend to accept reported information as fact. Say you're looking for a job. Does the college placement office or your respected Uncle Harry really have the latest information on careers? Does a particular career book have reliable information, or is it based on yesterday's realities and assumptions?

Television, radio and the press carry a lot of clout. People tend not to question them closely. But this broad group is made up of thousands of individual units, each with different information gathering methods and standards. Reader's Digest, for example, is well known for its high standards of accuracy. Most other periodicals are not so careful. A large portion of news, especially features and fillers, is publicity generated. That means that professional public relations people send information to the media in the form of press releases, hoping to get into print or on the air with minimal alteration or fact checking. When I received a good deal of publicity a few years ago, I was never once asked to give proof of my statements. And I was interviewed over two hundred times.

If the American Widget Foundation puts out a press release stating that forty-five percent of all Americans take widgets to bed with them every night, and the story is picked up by a major wire service chain and printed in seven hundred newspapers, do you think anyone calls to verify the quality of the Foundation's research, or even the source of its data? Not on your life—how could you question a foundation? And if the newspapers believe it so readily, what about all those readers who turn to the newspapers for “facts?” The next time you read one of those definitive magazine articles, note how many times the author resorts to quoting experts and other authorities. How do these experts get their information? What portion is fact, and what portion is opinion? Can you tell the difference? Does the periodical or the reporter go to any trouble to advise you of the difference?

Also, is the information relevant? Is it useful? Quality of information is as important as its quantity. Consider information tainted if it reflects bias, if its logic seems to rest on an unsound foundation, if it doesn't treat the question at hand. In the financial field, for example, almost every “expert” has some kind of axe to grind or something to sell. Beware of the traps to effective information gathering.

Exercise: Critical Thinking

On a day-to-day basis, get into the habit (without being obnoxious or obstructive) of doing a double-take when presented with information. You always want to know:

• How reliable is the source of the information (beware of “authority”)?

• Is the information fact or opinion?

• Are there any hidden assumptions?

• Are items of information included that are irrelevant, biased or illogical?