Essay:Uncritical Thought Red Flags

So... critical thought is good. And... uncritical thought is bad. Most of us here are pretty on board with this central conceit. Critical thought is mostly pretty easy to understand. It's when you subject ideas to scrutiny when formulating them. Asking yourself, what are the biases I(or its originator) incorporated into this idea? What are the invalid deductions? What are the assumptions it makes? Especially what are the questionable assumptions? What could go wrong? What precedent exists? Whose interests does it serve? Is there a better way to put it? Is there a way I check the truth of it? Good questions to ask. Generally trying to find fault rather than support for your own ideas.

But what is uncritical thought? Obviously its the absence of these things, duh. But really, how can you spot an uncritical thought when you, or someone you're arguing with, make it? Once you've already got the words out. There's no way to know for sure how much thought has been put into... well, a thought, but there's some damn good heuristics.

Broad red flags
Everything in this list is so broad as to be useless for spot checking. But they're still things to watch out for.
 * Logical fallacies, while I detest their overuse in internet debate, they're still very real ways people think uncritically. If you're arguing something similar to a fallacy, spot check it for reasonableness.  "97% of climate scientists agree global warming is happening and human caused" can technically be both a band wagon and an appeal to authority, so if you're using it, make sure that you're using it as a supporting fact to establish the reality of scientific consensus, not as a generic steamroll for all arguments.
 * Moving the goalposts, as much as you can, if you find yourself asking someone to establish evidence of their position for you, try ever so hard to establish in your head if not on paper, a standard that actually satisfies you that they're making a reasonable point. Try to accept it if they rise to that level
 * Pedantry over irrelevant, or barely relevant, details. If you find yourself devoting your entire rebuttal to subclause C of paragraph 6 of a position someone asserts, ask yourself "is this point I'm refuting central to what they're saying?  Could it still stand without it?"   Especially if you think, while you're formulating that reply, that their central point is also wrong.  It should suggest to you that you're seeking not meaningful insight, but an excuse to why they're wrong.

Keywords
This is the section I intended to write when I started writing this article. Just things that crop up more often when you're being uncritical.
 * "Point[ing/ed] out" Have you noticed that the other side never merely supplies innocuous information that merely supplements the discussion and is then treated unfairly?  That's because you don't either.  When you say the phrase "When I pointed out X, So and so did Y" you've established a framing in your head that isn't really representative of what's happening.
 * "Logical", oh this poor, poor whipping boy. You are not being logical.  None of you are free from bias.  Me neither.  There's a 99% chance that argument you just called "logical" consisted of zero formal logic.  If you're invoking logic for why your position is true, you're almost certainly thinking uncritically.  Even 100% sound logic doesn't prove you right, if there's a legitimate disagreement about your assumptions.