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Becoming a Critical Thinker: A Guide for the New Millennium, Second Edition (Paperback)

by Robert Todd Carroll (Author)

3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

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Product Description
Becoming a Critical Thinker: A Guide for the New Millennium, 2/E is intended as an introductory text in logic or critical thinking. As we enter a new millennium, a kind of madness in the media and the marketplace caters to our uncritical desire for more exciting and mysterious entertainment. The need for critical thinking skills has never been greater, as the power of the mass media to influence us has never been greater. Our television and films get wilder in their speculation and claims. Becoming a critical thinker in the new millennium will require the development of some fundamental skills, as it has in every age. However, the skills needed for our particular time must focus on the kinds of issues and obstacles peculiar to our age. Thus, much of the book aims at honing skills useful for separating the probable from the improbable in the daily barrage of claims hurled at us from our newspapers, magazines, televisions, our movie screens, our radios and CD players, and of course, from our computers. The entry of the Internet into our lives means there is one more source we must be skilled at critically evaluating.

Product Details

Paperback: 244 pages
Publisher: Pearson Custom Publishing; 2 edition (November 3, 2004)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0536859345
ISBN-13: 978-0536859341
Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.3 x 0.6 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #574,863 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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	67% buy the item featured on this page: Becoming a Critical Thinker: A Guide for the New Millennium, Second Edition 3.5 out of 5 stars (4) $41.04
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92 of 96 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Highly recommended, April 4, 2002

By	James Axsom (San Antonio, TX) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Becoming a Critical Thinker - A Guide for the New Millennium (Paperback)

I have read this book and combed through it many times because of the many gold nuggets of information. Dr. Carroll writes an execellent book teaching you to think critically by educating you to decipher the difference between logical thought and non sense, tricky language, bias, selective thinking, and much more.

Dr. Carroll covers diagramming complex arguements, syllogisms, common fallacies such as begging the question, slippery slope, the gamblers fallacy, ad hominem, poison the well, irrelevant appeal to authority, ad poplum and much more.

Dr. Carroll also covers a great section on science and pseudoscience which teaches you to determine what is actually scientific or someone's dream of wishful thinking that one just won't let go, such as parapsychology.

The book starts you out with basics and then gradually introduces more material into the topic. In each chapter there are excercises to pratice your new learned skills. There are answers in the back of the book for those marked questions to see if you got the answers right.

A must buy for those seeking clarity of thought.

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23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Valuable content, uninviting presentation, February 15, 2006

By	karenski - See all my reviews

This review is from: Becoming a Critical Thinker - A Guide for the New Millennium (Paperback)

Here are the chapters...

1. Critical Thinking
2. Language and Critical Thinking
3. Sources
4. Identifying Arguments
5. Evaluating Arguments
6. Evaluating Extended Arguments
7. Sampling
8. Analogical and Causal Reasoning
9. Science and Pseudoscience
_ Answers to Selected Exercises
_ Glossary

If you're looking for someone to spoonfeed you, then this book is NOT for you. Robert Todd Carroll points the reader in the direction of critical thinking and gives them a thorough introduction. He covers related areas such as: begging the question, confirmation bias, fallacies, non sequiteur, random sample, self-deception, straw man, worldview, etc, etc. Dr Carroll's case studies are presented in such a way that if you try to agree with him too soon (wanting to be spoonfed), you will soon find the author shaking you off his tail. He succeeded in getting this reader to think for herself before jumping to conclusions. I also learnt the value of examining ALL the details at the same time as taking in the context of the wider picture - in as unbiased a way as possible.

Interestingly, two other critical thinking books get more than a handful of glowing reviews. "How We Know What Isn't So" by Gilovich, and "Asking the Right Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking" by Browne & Keeley. While I've not read them, after reading this book, I believe I have gained a thorough and practical introduction to critical thinking; so I don't feel the need at this point in time to look into the other two. I made this purchase on the strength of Robert Todd Carroll's "Skeptics Dictionary", which seemed to me to be well researched.

So why aren't there currently more reviews for "Becoming a Critical Thinker"? It's into its second edition, late 2004. The "Skeptics Dictionary" has 33 reviews so far, and that was released in 2003. I don't know what the other author's qualifications are, but my guess is it would be daunting to put up a review for a book on critical thinking by someone with a doctorate in philosophy. He has a website at skepdic.com by the way (note the spelling), where you can currently download chapter one of the revised edition of this book.

Presentation for this first edition is, however, uninviting. Apparently the manuscript was presented camera ready by the author. And it shows. The type is fuzzy, of the cheap printer quality kind, and the lines do waver a little. Also, font choices don't make reading easy on the eye. Having two columns per page would have prevented losing place when reading from the end of one line to the the beginning of the next. Layout takes some getting used to. There are no pictures, only a few diagrams. Absence of chapter titles at the header of pages mean - when you open the book you don't immediately know which chapter you're at. Note too: there's no index, there is a glossary. This book is a nice size that sits open well on a desk.

A pleasant surprise was that I was able give some reason for my poor mathematical skills. I've little aptitiude for formal logic and much prefer informal logic. This knowledge will help focus me in my career decisions, and even book buying ones! A useful book to the point of being valuable, just a shame to have to strain somewhat to read the print.

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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Valuable Book, March 9, 2007

By	F. Carroll (MD) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

First, let me say that the "Legally English is Axiomatic" reviewer is incoherent. He also, sort of, wrote in English; and his comments are meaningless. The three people who considered his review valuable must be slightly insane.

This is a valuable book. However, it does contain some flaws. It uses recent political examples where frequently the settled facts are not clear. It seems ironic that a book teaching critical thinking should require its readers to already be critical thinkers when it comes to sortin out the authors political opinion. Furthermore, as a classroom text, these examples could spark debate that could distract the class from understanding the concept being taught. The book also has not been properly proof-read. There are occassional minor lapses in grammar and spelling: This can become mildly annoying. The books preface praising "Socrates" as he is found in Plato is also distressing. I am not certain that Socrates is the model critical thinker given that many of the claims of Platonism are explicitly anti-empirical. Last, the book should treat the relationship between epistemology and metaphysics to logic more deeply. For this see David Kelly's and H.W.B Joeseph's books.

The book does have many virtues though. Topics of rhetoric like evaluating sources and being aware of weasal words are covered in this book: These topics are rarely taught and certainly should be taught along with the other parts of logic. This is a major virtue. The excercises are well constructed and force the reader to apply his new found understanding to the world; his knowledge is not allowed to remain unconnected to his everyday thinking.

This is a very good book with some minor flaws.

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