Ask almost any university educator about the purpose of a\ncollege education, and you will hear about critical thinking. Higher education involves\nmuch more than learning facts and concepts. It\u2019s about learning how to think\nclearly, assemble facts, and make judgments. Our society today suffers from a\nshortage of critical thinking. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Consider the ongoing racial unrest. George Floyd\u2019s death\nwas a tragedy but continues to be poorly understood and misrepresented. Video\naccounts of an incident are at best limited and at worst misleading. They\nignore everything before a recorded incident, cover a limited visual angle, and\ndo not tell us what the participants were thinking. In the case of George\nFloyd, we know that Officer Chauvin\u2019s knee was on Floyd\u2019s neck when he died.\nWithout any additional evidence, scores of political leaders and prominent\nmedia anchors concluded that Chauvin acted irrationally and intended to kill him.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Floyd\u2019s \u201cmurder\u201d was touted as more evidence that police\nprey on minorities in a country entrenched in systemic racism. Statues must\ncome down, the police must be defunded, and violence in the streets must be\nunderstood. Somehow a disturbing video raised serious questions about the\nnation\u2019s legitimacy. Anyone who points out the logical flaws in this analysis\nor dares to question the political agenda of Black Lives Matter<\/em> is a\nracist. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The widely accepted interpretation of Floyd\u2019s death\nraised many questions. For example:<\/p>\n\n\n\n