This article suggests we need less critical thinking and more creative thinking. This may be true if we are interpreting the word “critical” the way it is often used in everyday speech, to mean oppositional, argumentative, closed minded, cynical. But I don’t think that is the intended meaning of critical thinking at all. Critical thinking is about using the powerful analytical tools of reason, logic, induction, provided by fields such as science, engineering, economics, even philosophy. You need analytical tools to decide which options are better than others for solving a given problem or achieving a given goal. But before you can apply the analytical tools, you need creativity to come up with a wide range of possible ways to achieve the desired outcome, ranging from dumb to brilliant. Then you use the analytical tools to separate the dumb from the brilliant. Without creativity, that needle-in-a-haystack brilliant idea will never be in the mix.

To solve tomorrow’s complex problems, we can’t be forcing today’s kids to make a false choice between creative and critical thinking. They have to learn how to combine both, every day. Einstein didn’t make that choice, he was an avid violinist and even credited music as inspiration for his theories. Sherlock Holmes was also an avid violinist. Only he wasn’t real, he was a fictional character, the product of a creative mind, who engaged in highly logical inductive reasoning, in lateral, non-traditional, and very creative ways. It takes some creativity to wrap your head around that one.