I don’t know about y’all, but if I grew up in a country that never has the news criticizing its leaders, I’d be very skepical and deduce that there is censorshop going on and the offical news could be exaggerated or entirely falsified. Do people in authoritarian countries actually just eat the propaganda? To what extent do they believe the propaganda?
All of that can be done, badly. Which is how people do it. See the discourse around any popular drama, people have the skills, they just use them in service of their own pre conceived notions.
Then they arent using critical thinking skills, they just think they are. With proper use of critical thinking, the conclusion arises from the evidence, it doesnt confirm “pre conceived notions.”
We have all sorts of evidence for conflicting conclusions. Most of us do not have the time or resources get a lock on which evidence is truly trustworthy.
If you talk to a flat earther, or a dedicated follower of the oppossing political team, you will see they understand faulty sources, chains of logic, and deductive reasoning, they just only apply them in support of their position.
You can teach a person about bias in research or media and they will use that knowledge to discredit positions they don’t agree with.
You can say “that’s not critical thinking” and on one hand I agree, but teaching more thourough critical thinking skills won’t have the result we want: for people to make evidence based decisions about their life and society.
In my experience, Getting people to change their minds requires engaging their emotions. Decisions are made on the basis or shame, fear, anger, and more rarely, love, hope, and empathy.
The evidence needs to be there to support the emotion, but nobody ever changes their behavior on the strength of the evidence alone.