Coaching practices for Probe Evidence Critical Thinking

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Probe Evidence Critical Thinking, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• Someone stated something with total confidence and I just nodded and built on it
• I’m holding a belief tightly and I want to test it honestly, but I know that the second I go looking I’ll find whatever confirms it
• A flimsy study that confirms what I want I’ll wave straight through, but a solid one that contradicts me I’ll pick apart for hours
• I start "researching" a question but I notice I’m really just typing in searches that hand me the answer I already wanted
• My mind keeps stacking up every reason I’m right that this went badly, and I can’t seem to see anything that points the other way

Practices that may help

1. Probe for evidence behind claims
   Ask "what evidence supports that?" before accepting any factual or evaluative claim.
   Socratic Questioning
2. Specify what would falsify your belief before you look at evidence
   Write down what evidence would prove you wrong before you go looking.
   Falsification Thinking
3. Apply the same evidence standard regardless of whether you like the conclusion
   Grade the evidence before you know which conclusion it supports.
   Motivated Reasoning
4. Structure the analysis before searching for evidence
   Define what you’re looking for and what would count as evidence before starting your search.
   Confirmation Bias: Seeing What You Expect to See
5. Examine the evidence for and against
   Systematically list what supports your interpretation and what doesn’t — like a fair-minded lawyer, not a prosecutor.
   Check the Facts, Made Practical
6. Examine the evidence for and against the hot thought
   List what genuinely supports the thought and what genuinely contradicts it — as if building a case in court.
   The Thought Record: CBT’s Core Self-Examination Tool
7. Socratic Questioning
   Socratic questioning is a disciplined method of asking probing questions to expose the foundations, assumptions, evidence, and implications of a claim — rather than asserting a counter-position. Richard Paul’s taxonomy provides the most practical framework for applying it. The method’s value is demonstrated by centuries of philosophical use and its adoption in clinical and educational practice; large-scale experimental evidence is limited.
8. Falsification Thinking
   Karl Popper argued that a claim is scientific — and useful — only if it can in principle be proven wrong. Falsification thinking applies this to everyday reasoning: instead of looking for evidence that confirms your view, ask what evidence would refute it. This is a well-regarded normative principle in philosophy of science; applying it in practice reduces confirmation bias and sharpens the precision of your beliefs.
9. Evaluate evidence by its likelihood ratio, not by how it makes you feel
   Ask how much more likely this evidence would be if you’re right versus if you’re wrong.
   Bayesian Thinking: How to Update Beliefs Rationally
10. State your prior probability before seeing the evidence
    Before looking at any data, commit to a numerical estimate of how likely something is.
    Bayesian Thinking: How to Update Beliefs Rationally

Describe your situation in your own words to search the complete practice library.