[cvick]

This is absolutely true. Critical Thinking does discourage ideas - namely, poorly thought out and stupid ones. There's absolutely nothing wrong with using creativity to solve problems, however, at some point, you have to think critically about those solutions if you ever have any hope of actually solving problems. But, Why stop there? If we're going to get rid of critical thinking, why not just throw out the whole of the scientific method as well? We'll all find ourselves in the middle of a new Dark Age at the wrong end of a dowsing rod .