Applying Critical Thinking to Asimovs Fact and Fancy

The role of critical thinking, as far as the university is concerned, is to encourage an openness to inquiry and to giving new ideas due diligence. This does not mean that you have to accept or agree with every idea that you encounter. Far from it. Instead, critical thinking asks that you not necessarily accept ideas at face value or whether you agree with them or not. Serious critical thinking allows you to be skeptical of what you are reading and make an informed, thoughtful, clear, and logical distinction about the ideas with which you are engaging. For example, presume thatin relation to the Randall Kennedy essay You Cant Judge a Crook by His Coloryou generally disagree with his argument that we should not endorse racial profiling, even if it is shown to be a statistical advantage in policing society. Our first hunch is to stick with what we know, think, or believe. The goal of critical thinking is to resist our first hunches and dig deep into Kennedys ideas to see if we find that he has a cogent argument that might be reasonable. It is certainly possible that one may stick to their original hunch and disagree with his overall point, but if we cannot clearly discuss, both verbally and in writing, the argument that is being made and how it is being made then our critiques of the argument hold no water. Please use the list of elements from pp. 2 3 of the Elements and Guidelines for Critical Thinking document. In addition to applying elements a f from those two pages, I want you to consider one final question: how clearly can we make a distinction between fact and opinion?