A vital critical thinking skill is being able to understand a baseline fact or idea and keep it separate from exceptions that may exist.
Here’s an example of a baseline idea: Food is good for you, and you should eat it.
Now, can you picture things you shouldn’t eat? Of course. Can you imagine a way to obtain food that is immoral? No doubt. Can you think of a scenario in which it would be a bad idea for you to eat? Absolutely. Just off the top of my head, I can think of a half-dozen examples of each.
Absolutely none of those examples disprove the basic idea that “food is good for you, and you should eat it.” Caveats and addendums exist; few rules are absolute. But if you can’t think past those exceptions to understand the base rule, then that is a major flaw in your thinker.
The Opportunity Machine 