critical-thinking
Critical Thinking
Overview
Critical thinking evaluates a conclusion by explicitly testing it against alternative interpretations — the conclusion that survives the most disconfirmation attempts is the one to act on, not the one with the most confirming examples. Operationalized by Richards J. Heuer Jr. (CIA, 1999) as Analysis of Competing Hypotheses (ACH): a matrix marking each evidence-hypothesis pair as Consistent / Inconsistent / N/A. The hypothesis with the fewest Inconsistencies wins.
Compose: first-principles (surface assumptions) · probabilistic-thinking (calibrate evidence) · inversion (generate alternatives). Critical thinking = evaluation; first-principles = construction; occams = selection; second-order = projection.
When to Use
- High-stakes claim (yours or someone else's) that needs evaluation
- Multiple interpretations of the same evidence are possible
- Motivated reasoning detected — conclusion shaped by what you want to be true
- Team converging on a hypothesis too fast without seriously considering alternatives
- Evaluating an AI capability or AI-hype claim (e.g. "this benchmark proves the model reasons") where the same evidence fits several explanations (contamination, cherry-picking, teaching-to-the-eval)
When NOT to use: trivial/already-validated claim; only one hypothesis imaginable (use first-principles first); time pressure makes 90-min ACH impossible; values question not a facts question.