Albert Rutherford

inherent skill needed for critical thinking—asking questions. We need to be able to ask questions, sometimes very difficult ones that cause the personal evaluation of values

Thinking and knowing are not the same things.

The goal of an argumentative debate should always be to find any underlying fallacies or faulty premises, not to destroy the other side

Everyone is a bit of a conspiracy theorist at heart. People love the idea that broad organizations are what is keeping them from achieving their goals, instead of their own flaws and mistakes. This is because humans developed pattern-recognition traits as an evolutionary tool to aid in survival;

However, history is full of strange events—this is how the world works. There are coincidences all the time! This is part of something called "the law of large numbers," where the number of events and circumstances happening in the world every day is so large that strange things are bound to happen.

As a species, we feel a deep psychological need for meaning in our lives.

There is another type of intelligence called "emotional intelligence." This is where you're aware of your emotions, know what they are, and are able to control them enough that you can actually use them to help you solve problems. This means that you can healthily process your own emotions and understand and empathize with other people.

Having awareness of how your thoughts work is the first step toward developing critical thinking skills.

Emotions and "gut instincts" tend to guide us to conclusions that

part of critical thinking is being able to hold a well-reasoned, calm, intellectual debate.