Becoming a Critical Thinker: A Guide for the New Millennium, 2/E is intended as an introductory text in logic or critical thinking. As we enter a new millennium, a kind of madness in the media and the marketplace caters to our uncritical desire for more exciting and mysterious entertainment. The need for critical thinking skills has never been greater, as the power of the mass media to influence us has never been greater. Our television and films get wilder in their speculation and claims.

Becoming a critical thinker in the new millennium will require the development of some fundamental skills, as it has in every age. However, the skills needed for our particular time must focus on the kinds of issues and obstacles peculiar to our age.

Thus, much of the book aims at honing skills useful for separating the probable from the improbable in the daily barrage of claims hurled at us from our newspapers, magazines, televisions, our movie screens, our radios and CD players, and of course, from our computers. The entry of the Internet into our lives means there is one more source we must be skilled at critically evaluating.