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“For example, in the example with Terry and Chester, a person who was just beginning to meet the two could come up with the conclusion based on those two axioms, which a friend revealed to him/her. The person might try to come up with a solution to Terry’s hatred of Chester’s voice, and decide to teach the two characters American Sign Language, so Chester wouldn’t have to speak, but the person might later on discover that Terry seems to be functioning normally when Chester talks during casual, everyday conversations. It’s not that the person’s logic was incorrect; the conclusion was logically valid and logically followed the two axioms. It’s just that the axioms were accepted and assumed to be true. In reality, when the friend of Terry and Chester was referring to Chester’s “voice,â€� the friend was talking about Chester’s singing voice, not Chester’s actual voice, and the phrase “Terry hates everything Chester likesâ€� could have been used hyperbolically, meaning that Terry does not literally hate everything Chester likes. The person came up with a logical conclusion, but the axioms were just immediately accepted as true; the person was not evaluating or verifying the information, nor was the person analyzing the multiple meanings behind the axioms.

With critical thinking, however, there are a few stages that are required before making a conclusion: there is remember and understand, so to understand information, a person would need to see if the information makes sense or is plausible. For example, if a person was learning about the properties of matter, he/she should be able to understand that it makes sense for liquid to have faster moving molecules than solid matter, because it does not have a definite shape unless it is put into some container, or he/she might try to scroll through multiple sources of information to fill any gaps in understanding and confirm information. Unlike logic, which immediately accepts axioms as true to create a conclusion, a person must look at information with a critical eye in order to truly understand it in critical thinking.

In addition, I think there is more skill and effectiveness behind deeply thinking about information (critical thinking) than trying to discover information (logic.) When it comes to thinking about the information (critical thinking), a person would have to understand the information’s real-world application (apply), the components of the information (analyze), the significance of the information (evaluate), and what can be made out with that information (synthesize.) Logic is an objective approach to trying to discover valid information, and it is highly important, but there is that lack of deep thinking when it comes to logic alone. A person would need critical thinking to verify the axioms and see the significance of the conclusion. Logic itself cannot view the significance of the conclusion Terry hates Chester’s voice, because it is meant to discover information based on axioms, not evaluate and make something out of information.

With this, I do find that critical thinking is more important and has a higher range of skill than logic.”