Reflective Journals
Entry 1
Thinking critically means to keep your own understanding and judgements before accepting a new
knowledge, to not take something blindly without thinking it over. Personally, thinking critically allows
me to understand where my view stands in a certain situation, and it gives me space to consider
whether the opinions I have now are the ones that I would like to keep. To put it quite plain, thinking
critically is just judging people, but the difference between the two is that the latter lacks sympathy and
rationality, and it is something that’s more emotionally driven. Whereas thinking critically is to calmly
examine something, and to carefully decide whether you accept it.
Entry 2
In the video, the narrator stated that there were no proofs for the globe Earth theory, which was
unconvincing as people used mathematics and other sciences to prove the Earth was a globe, and this
was done multiple times. There was also no evidence to support that USA and Russia fired nuclear
weapons towards the sky after they launched their rockets. As the evidence presented in the videos did
not have valid proofs to back his point, I felt like I was not convinced by the video. However, the narrator
presented his information in such a solemn way, that he seemed so certain, the viewers might be
convinced by his evidence.
Entry 3
The most important question to ask of a source is that whether it is reliable or not. By questioning the
information that we have been presented with, we become aware that this source has a potential of
being deceiving or untrustworthy. The importance of realizing this is that we will not be easily conceived
by potentially wrong information that mislead us to a belief that we perceive as incorrect. Judging our
sources ensures that we only understand the concepts that are right to the general moral. If we
successfully obtain the ability of think critically about the sources, our actions will not be harmful
towards others due to a faulty belief.
Entry 4
Prompt question: Do you think anyone could ever be said to have strong critical thinking skills? Why?
Why not?
I think people can have relatively stronger critical thinking skills than others, but it is impossible to have
skills strong enough to allow absolute critical thinking. The concept of critical thinking is to judge a
statement or opinion presented to us, so we can determine if it is right or not. However, as every person
has a different perception of the concept of being “right”, thinking critically for one might often be
completely contradicting to another. It is impossible to determine the absolute righteousness of one
thing when different “rights” are opposing each other. Also, it is not realistic for a person to think in an
objective point of view, as human beings are very emotion-driven organisms. Therefore, no one could
ever be said to have strong critical thinking skills.
