Critical thinking is one of those things we all over-estimate how good we are at it but only because the base-line for it is so low. It wasn't until I really spent time learning it, as well as doing 'Think-Again' free 12 week course on critical thinking from Duke Uni [it's on the coursera site] that I started to see how easy it is to get it wrong.

A personal message I keep at the forefront of my mind always is 'the easiest person to fool is ourselves'.

Have you heard of Polya Patterns? They really speak to how easily people can be persuaded to believe something or find something to be true, and it has less to do with accuracy and more to do with inference and association.

I too think the world would be a better place if more people learned and cultivated better critical thinking skills; and it's something I use to help the people I work with especially with certain beliefs they have that they've never even considered challenging.