Logic Lessons and the Walmart Thief

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by Cowboy Bob Sorensen

Part of this post will be out of date soon, but the principles remain important. Critical thinking skills are not just for debates and academic matters, but apply to many areas of daily life. It is indeed unfortunate that students today are taught what to think, but how to think — not so much.

Crime dramas have detectives saying they cannot have someone arrested because the evidence is only circumstantial; there are no eyewitnesses or other compelling material. They "know" someone is guilty, but they are reasoning from insufficient evidence.

The Cunning Thief / Paul-Charles Chocarne-Moreau, 1931, Wikimedia Commons (PD)
A quick side note that this Creation Cowboy has discussed is how Darwinists, climate fearmongers, and others will ignore and even suppress inconvenient evidence. They have also been known to falsify information to fit an agenda.

People have a tendency to "fill in the blanks" or "connect the dots" to reach a conclusion.

It is a very unpleasant feeling to be accused of something based on circumstances. I remember an incident in school where I was falsely accused of something and I still remember it over fifty years later. There have been other times these things happened, and I've tried to intervene on behalf of others on occasion. It's safe to say that nobody in their right minds likes being falsely accused.

People have complained that the employees at Walmart are busy staring at their phones instead of helping customers. What those who say such things don't realize is that the phones are work tools with the software needed for them to do their jobs.

A story is floating around about someone being filmed at the self-checkout at a Walmart store. He bagged things and didn't pay. People need to step back and think (which is increasingly rare nowadays). Have they even been into a Walmart or one of the other big box stores? Self-checkout has people monitoring and assisting the activity, and plenty of security cameras are all over the store. A thief or looter would most likely make a run for the door, not waste time being observed.

He did nothing wrong! People were making snap judgments based on a little bit of information, but they did not have all the facts. He had already paid electronically with his phone. You can do it, too.

Why so negative? Why assume the worst? Mayhaps it's because people like sensational things, not the truth. Do yourselves and others a favor: Use your think bones. One other favor I ask is that you share this post far and wide for the sake of the man who was falsely accused.

The essence of the video below is very short, and I think it was looped so it wouldn't be too short to post. Consider this: If it turned out that this is fake news, the lesson in thinking would still be valid!