Critical Thinking (eBook)

Donald Maxwell Brunette, PhD (Medical Biophysics), is a professor in the Department of Oral Biological and Medical Sciences and a former associate dean of Research and Graduate Studies in the Faculty of Dentistry, University of British Columbia. A founding member of the Medical Research Council (Canada) Group in periodontal physiology directed by Prof A.H. Melcher at the University of Toronto, Prof Brunette has published more than 90 articles in refereed journals and has won awards from the International Association of Dental Research, Association of Canadian Faculties of Dentistry (W.W. Wood Award for Excellence in Dental Education), and the American Medical Writers Association (for the first edition of Critical Thinking). His research encompasses several fields, including citation analysis and clinical studies of breath odor, but mainly concerns cell-biomaterial interactions. He serves as a consultant to three biomaterials-related journals as well as the American Dental Association's Council on Scientific Affairs, and he has been a member, chair, or scientific officer of grant evaluation committees of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research as well as the National Science Foundation (USA). 

Reasons for Studying Critical Thinking • Scientific Method and the Behavior of Scientists • The Components of a Scientific Paper • Rhetoric • Searching the Dental Literature • Logic: The Basics • Introduction to Abductive and Inductive Logic: Analogy, Models, and Authority • Causation • Quacks, Cranks, and Abuses of Logic • Elements of Probability and Statistics, Part 1: Discrete Variables • Elements of Probability and Statistics, Part 2: Continuous Variables • The Importance of Measurement in Dentistry • Errors of Measurement • Presentation of Results • Diagnostic Tools and Testing • Research Strategies and Threats to Validity • Observation • Correlation and Association • Experimentation • Experiment Design • Statistics As an Inductive Argument and Other Statistical Concepts • Judgment • Introduction to Clinical Decision Making • Exercises in Critical Thinking