Thinking as opposed to memorizing may be divided into three parts. The first is observing and deciding what is evidence of what. The second is collecting the observations and forming a generalization that may be combined with other generalizations to form a hypotheses. The third is testing the hypotheses. Great thinkers frequently focus on one small part of one of these areas. An artist might focus on beauty by studying what is thought to be beautiful and then creating something they think will be beautiful. Logicians such as Goedel study how to combine predicates to prove other predicates. Statisticians study how to generalize observations and when such generalizations are relevant. Politicians attempt to apply knowledge to achieve positive outcomes. (Knowledge are the generalizations and the positive outcomes are hypothesizes) Sometimes there are controls and usually there are not. Thus the social sciences can be very difficult to test hypotheses.
A person does not have time enough to learn much knowledge by observation, generalization, and testing. Most knowledge is either genetic (such as sucking) or is taught to us. Observation and generalization do not necessarily lead to correct conclusions. Simple observation leads to the conclusion the earth is flat and that the sun goes around the earth. Only by looking at contradictory observations and trying to form a hypothesis that accounts for them do we realize the earth is round, rotates on an axis, and revolves around the sun.
Teaching is often thought to just be about regurgitation and not about the underlying observations, how these observations were generalized, and the testing of the hypothesizes formed. For example, causation, is a powerful principle. Man has caused many things, from simple tools to pyramids. Causation is frequently called creation. If a thinking being causes something that thing is created. The idea that complexity is caused and the more complex something is the greater the likelihood is that it was created by a thinking entity. Hence, God the creator, as described in Genesis is a natural generalization/hypothesis. Once taught as fact, just as that fire burns is taught as fact, such hypotheses are difficult for one to turn away from as myth.
Everything needs to be constantly considered and reconsidered. The problem with conservatism is that conservatives (with some notable exceptions such as Bill Buckly) do not want to sonsider and reconsider everything. They are unwilling to look at contradictory evidence and form new hypotheses. This holds not just for conservatives, but for most people, even many scientists.
The impact of this is people fight against changing beliefs with a fury seldom seen in other endeavors. This can be seen in economics (the belief that the only path is monetarism) to the belief that democracy is the best form of government. (I believe constitutional representational democracy with checks and balances is better than strict majority rule).
Now comes the hard part. How, do we convince people to look beyond the beliefs learned, to look at how those beliefs came to be and what the contradictory evidence is.
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