Can Critical Thinking Be Taught?

What was your answer to this question? If you said yes, give yourself a pat on the back!
Your text gives these strategies:

• Be willing to say, "I don't know'
  • Sometimes thinking takes time! Suspend your judgment
  • Even the best theories in science are the current "best guess" waiting to be altered by new information
• Define your terms
  • Make sure everyone is speaking the same language-specify the meaning of words and terms
• Be Tolerant
  • Don't let your opinions be so close to you that you become defensive
• Understand before criticizing
  • Listen! Hear! Understand the other side
  • Don't be judgmental
  • Celebrate diversity
• Watch for hot spots
  • What topics give you the heebie-jeebies?
  • Seek the whole of the topic; read things that will challenge your ideas
  • Be in a debate, and debate on the side opposite to your own
  • Separate people from their ideas; fight the idea not the person!
• Consider the source
  • Is it an authority?
  • Is the person being paid to say what she/he is saying? Does the person have any other vested interest?
• Seek alternative views
  • There is never just one view; look at the different sides
• Ask Questions
  • What's the main point? What details? Is it true? What of it?
• Look for more than one answer
  • Things are seldom black or white; more often answers lie in the gray or maybe even the purple!
• Be ready to change
  • Keep an open mind; new information could come in
• Out with it
  • Be like a scientist; put your ideas out on the table for examination
• Examine the problem from different points of view
• Write about it
• Accept that you may change your point of view