The Power of Critical Thinking

Distinguished scientist David Roush explains the value of critical thinking skills and why Northwestern's Master of Biotechnology program (MBP) puts an emphasis on soft skills.

David Roush is a Distinguished Scientist at Merck Research Labs in Kenilworth, New Jersey, where he has worked for the past 25 years. There are a lot of ways to describe what he does, but the simple way Roush opts for is that he solves problems that have a direct positive impact on human health.

"I collaborate with other scientists — both academic and industrial — to create and develop processes to produce medicine for life-saving therapies," Roush said.

Roush is also an Industrial Advisory Board (IAB) member for Northwestern's Master of Biotechnology program (MBP), and during the course of his career, he's seen the importance of critical thinking time and time again. Roush recently took time to talk about why thinking critically is so important in daily life and how MBP prepares students to excel at critical thinking and communications.

In your eyes, what does "critical thinking" mean?

Critical thinking is the ability to leverage a logical, systematic process to deconstruct a problem into tangible components, challenge assumptions, or propose experiments while resolving potential paradoxes. Critical thinking allows you to create a cogent result or solution backed by logical arguments that effectively remove subjectivity from the process, or at least places it into context.

How does critical thinking play a role in day-to-day life?

Many aspects of daily life — both personal and professional — are exceptionally complex, and there is a tendency to provide a rapid response to a question with the first potential response you conceive. This pressure to respond to inquiries like email in a rapid manner can also amplify unconscious bias when assessing situations. Critical thinking approaches, such as evaluation, analysis of options, or argument creation, particularly need to be applied when making high-impact decisions where there is potential for subjectivity, be it making a large purchase or deciding on whether to admit an applicant to a university.

Why do you think critical thinking skills are so important within academic or industrial research?

Critical thinking skills are an essential component in all facets of research. One specific example is the conundrum of correlation without causation or multivariate interactions with a zero sum gain. The latter is a great example where multiple parameters are varied in an experiment (both explicitly and implicitly) and the measured outcome of the experiment is the same result as the control experiment. Effectively the change imparted by one parameter is canceled out by the opposite change in another parameter.

Without a critical assessment of the complexity of the outcome, or better yet, critical thinking applied to the initial design of the experiment, you could errantly conclude that the varied parameter or parameters did not impact the measured result. There is a potential for a parameter to have a large and measurable impact of an outcome but fall short of statistical significance. Critical thinking allows you to assess the next steps for experimentation as opposed to dismissing the result as not significant.

MBP places a major emphasis on both critical thinking and communications development. What do you think that says about MBP as a whole?

Critical thinking and communication skills are essential life skills, not just for success in research but in all aspects of life. As your amount of knowledge increases, there is an increasing need to place information and data into context in a succinct way that can be communicated and rapidly distributed to a wide range of stakeholders without losing context. The courses offered as part of the curriculum at MBP afford the students the opportunity to develop, practice and hone these skills that ultimately enable them to be successful in their respective careers, independent of the field of study.

The significance that MBP applies to these two areas of development emphasizes the commitment to the career development of the students in both hard (analytical) and soft (communications) skills. A synthesis and balance of the two skills are essential for career success. Mastery of only one of these skills or over-emphasis of one of the aspects could lead to challenges.

What would you say to a prospective student who is considering applying to MBP?

MBP provides a diverse curriculum that emphasizes a combination of strong scientific and career skills that can be tailored to the specific interests of the student. The curriculum is challenging by design but produces a graduate with a unique set of skills who will succeed in their prospective career goals.

McCormick News Article