This week’s announcement of the Nobel prize for economics to Professors Sims and Sargent for their work on how economies function highlights the importance of Critical Thinking in dealing with complex issues. Too often, pronouncements on what should be done to solve economic problems are given as simple remedies. As Professor Sims explained, getting economies back on track is not a question of simple prescriptions but ‘a lot of slow work looking at data’. This links well with Critical Thinking which centrally is about asking questions about the significance of claims (including data).
In his new book (‘Rationality: What it is. Why it seems scarce. Why it matters’), the Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker has argued in favour of