Noman Baig
PHL/458 -
07/06/2013
TRACY COLCORD
There are number of situations that come to mind where critical and creative thought could have been used for a better outcome. And major disaster could have been prevented from happening just by using the critical thinking process in decision making. According to "Critical Thinking Community" (2012), "Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action.” (Critical thinking...the awakening of the intellect to the study of itself.). The best ( or the worst) example of the absence of …show more content…
• Number of crew that was operating the ship was way below the number of crew required to perform those operations. The reason for that was probably to save money.
• Due to the small number of crew the work load was way too much for the people operating the ship That is probably the reason why the Captain was sleeping deck below and a untrained crew member was at the wheel asleep controlling the ship.
• Collision avoidance system which could have prevent the accident was not available on the ship.
This horrible situation could have easily been prevented from happening if the authorized personals had used the critical thinking skills while making the decisions. If the crew members of the Exxon Valdez had adopted critical thinking, they could have prevented the accident from taking place. Similarly, if the procedures were followed and the equipments were issued and properly maintained with the appropriate crew size on board, the accident would never have taken