Critical Thinking

Critical Thinking

Understanding and Evaluating Dental Research

The Internet has given us access to an unprecedented amount of information, but this development also facilitates the spread of misinformation if we do not think critically and evaluate what we read. The third edition of this classic textbook has been revised based on developments in biomedical research practices over the past decade to provide readers with the most up-to-date resource for navigating the ever-expanding world of dental literature. The book covers rhetoric and logic, the scientific method, components of scientific papers, research strategies, probability and statistics, diagnostic tools and testing, and experiment design. The chapter about searching the dental literature has been updated with the most current resources and search techniques available. A new chapter about clinical decision making uses a decision tree analysis with worked-out calculations to show how critical thinking skills can be used to select the most appropriate treatment decision in a clinical scenario; this is followed by a whole chapter of exercises in critical thinking. This book emphasizes how readers can practically apply critical thinking skills to evaluate scientific literature and thereby make the most informed decisions for their patients and themselves.

Contents
Chapter 01. Reasons for Studying Critical Thinking
Chapter 02. Scientific Method and the Behavior of Scientists
Chapter 03. The Components of a Scientific Paper
Chapter 04. Rhetoric
Chapter 05. Searching the Dental Literature
Chapter 06. Logic: The Basics
Chapter 07. Introduction to Abductive and Inductive Logic: Analogy, Models, and Authority
Chapter 08. Causation
Chapter 09. Quacks, Cranks, and Abuses of Logic
Chapter 10. Elements of Probability and Statistics, Part 1: Discrete Variables
Chapter 11. Elements of Probability and Statistics, Part 2: Continuous Variables
Chapter 12. The Importance of Measurement in Dentistry
Chapter 13. Errors of Measurement
Chapter 14. Presentation of Results
Chapter 15. Diagnostic Tools and Testing
Chapter 16. Research Strategies and Threats to Validity
Chapter 17. Observation
Chapter 18. Correlation and Association
Chapter 19. Experimentation
Chapter 20. Experiment Design
Chapter 21. Statistics As an Inductive Argument and Other Statistical Concepts
Chapter 22. Judgment
Chapter 23. Introduction to Clinical Decision Making
Chapter 24. Exercises in Critical Thinking