Chapter 12 Summary

Critical thinking is an important aspect of public speaking, particularly given the rate at which untruthful information spreads. It is important to build speeches with well supported and researched claims. The process of being a critical thinking public speaker is called skepticism, which is the critical thinking process of inquiry that evaluates the evidence and reasoning of claims. Skepticism means acquiring beliefs, but changing them when warranted. True belief, on the other hand, is a willingness to accept claims without good evidence or reasoning. Also different from skepticism is cynicism, which is focused on fault-finding instead of earnest evaluation. True belief has several dangers, including dangers to individual well-being, monetary losses, and threats to our democratic society. True beliefs may be about any topic, but they have a number of commonalities, like a confirmation bias, rationalization of disconfirmation, and shifting the burden of proof.

The process of skepticism begins with the probability model, looking at possibility, plausibility, and probability, but not certainty as that is a position of a true believer not a skeptic. Though skeptics avoid claims of certainty, that does not mean that anything is possible. Skepticism requires self-correction or erroneous beliefs. In order to become a skeptic as a speaker, you should rely on high probability for your claims, avoid claims on possibility along and avoid claims of certainty, be open-minded, avoid confirmation bias in research, and remember that it is your burden to support your claim. To practice skepticism as a listener, you should beware of confirmation bias, avoid rationalization of disconfirmation, remember the implications of the Law of Truly Large Numbers, be open-minded without listening to bigotry or nonsense, and engage in self-correction.