The topic we discussed in class definitely affected my views on critical thinking. I never thought about how many mistakes I made in my own thinking. The two topics we discussed that affected my thinking the most were the Dunning-Kruger affect, and confirmation bias. The Dunning-Kruger affect really surprised me because it felt like there was no way to avoid it. If we try to be neutral are we just thinking we are neutral about a situation or do the Dunning-Kruger principles apply to our own ability towards neutrality in a situation? I found this to be something that I couldn't wrap my brain around. The second topic that we talked about that really fascinated me was confirmation bias. Looking for information that supports your own bias views is something we do all the time. I never thought of how it could really affect other people until we talked out scenarios in class. My group and I had "the boss." He/She could easily look for information from other employees to fire someone who maybe didn't deserve to be fired. Confirmation bias and Dunning-Kruger happened to all of us on a daily basis we just don't always realize we do it.
These lessons about the follies of human rationality definitely affect my view on my thinking hero. It changes that way I perceive him and what he contributed to society. Jonas Salk was a pioneer in medicine to fight polio that helps all people around the world, even today. He was a researcher and doctor in the 1950's. This week I have learned that even the most brilliant of minds are not immune to the follies of human rationality. As a researcher, Jonas Salk was constantly looking for information to support his theories. This is participating in confirmation bias. I think he would also be very susceptible to irrational decision making because he was working on this project for so long and he wanted the final outcome to be great after so many years of hard work. I think Jonas Salk is still a thinking hero. He was a hero in the sense that he did great things for human society, like finding a cure for polio and starting the conversation about vaccinations world wide. Although by human nature he would have participated in confirmation bias, argumentation, irrational decision making, and the Dunning-Kruger effect, he still was able to do something successful in the world that changed human society. His thinking has helped all of us today and that is a great quality for a distinguished critical thinker.
