Good critical analysis is not instinctive!

Q: Is it instinct to do analyzing?

Krishna: Instinct is the fact or quality of possessing innate behaviour patterns.

Instinct is a natural tendency to behave in a particular way.

Analysis is the act of studying or examining something in detail, in order to discover or understand more about it.

Image source: Freepic

Not everybody can analyse everything brought to their notice and even if they do it, when not managed well, this can lead to bias and incomplete or overly simplistic thinking.

You have to have some prior knowledge to do the analysis correctly.

Everyone thinks; it is human nature to do so. But much of our thinking, left to itself, is biased, distorted, partial, uninformed, or down-right prejudiced. Yet the quality of our life and that of what we produce, make, or build depend precisely on the quality of our thought. Shoddy thinking is detrimental to special subjects like science. It also affects the standard of our living (1).

You just need to commit yourself to remaining rigorous, clear-headed and honest in your analysis, especially while conducting important things like science.

Critical thinking and analysis is highly disciplined, knowledge oriented, analytical, well directed ( informed by genuine evidence and data), monitored and a corrective process. It follows rigorous standards of excellence.

You have to free yourself from cognitive biases and fallacies that try to influence your thought processes. Cognitive-distortions are bothersome too while doing the highest form of thinking. These are simply ways that our mind convinces us of something that isn’t really true.

You have to try to be completely neutral and highly rational. Only real scientific facts, genuine data and evidence should help you in this process and nothing else.

“Critical thinking/analysis is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to action.”

Keen observation, acquiring full knowledge on the subject, analysis, interpretation, reflection, thorough evaluation, inference, explanation, problem solving, and decision making are the vital stages of critical thinking. (1)

Some people don’t even analyse, they simply listen to others or read what they write and blindly follow it. Others see a few things and immediately accept them as they are!

If analysis is innate, most mentally stable people should at least take time to consider things in a critical way.

So until and unless one is trained to do the process and do it correctly (acquired?, learnt?), I don’t think analysis is innate.

We get training during our research practice to do the critical analysis correctly. It stays with us 24x365x100. Once trained or learned, this process should be with us 24X365X100 influencing our every thought, action and move in our whole life. There shouldn't be any exceptions. It should sink into our body, enter each cell, mind and become a part of us. If this state of mind is reached, we become a true scientist (1).

But let me also tell you all scientists cannot reach this state. That is a big tragedy.

Some people learn this critical analysis on their own. Though not innate, they practice it and although this may not be perfect, they attain reasonably good standards.

No, correct critical analysis is not instinctive!

Footnotes:

1. Some questions people asked on science and my replies to them - critical thinking