Critical Thinking for Homeland Security Everyone navigates their way through the world using a set of preconceived ideas, stereotypes, notions and beliefs concerning how things work and how others will behave in any given situation. Not surprisingly, many people are surprised and even shocked to learn that some of the things they have firmly believed to be true all of their lives are inaccurate or even false. These frailties of the human condition mean that the search for the truth is ongoing and learning how to find it represents a critical part of the skill set needed in the 21st century. This paper provides a discussion and comparison of "elements of truth" and the "right questions" that should be asked in any given situation to discern the facts, followed by a summary of the research and important findings concerning these issues in the conclusion.

Review and Discussion

Not only does every side have two stories, each side of the story can have countless permutations depending on the individual perspective. Indeed, it is entirely possible for eyewitness accounts of an event by 100 people to be completely truthful, sincere and faithful yet still differ on all important points. These constraints to developing a single "pure truth" concerning events and situations make it important for researchers of all types to recognize the limitations that are involved when evaluating evidence and sources as well as using the right questions to ferret out the facts.

In their book, Asking the Right Questions, Browne...

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By contrast, the "elements of truth" that are related to a given situation include the following:

Purpose: goal, objective

Question at issue: problem, issue

Information: data, facts, observations, experiences

Interpretation and inference: Conclusions, solutions

Concepts: theories, definitions, axioms, laws, principles, models

Assumptions: presupposition, taking for granted

Implications and consequences

Point-of-view, frame of reference, perspective, orientation

The foregoing right questions are compared to the elements of truth in Table 1 below.

Table 1

Comparison of Elements of Truth with the Corresponding Right Questions

Element of Truth

Right Question

Analysis

Question at issue: problem, issue

What are the issues and…