"To my dearest daughter,
Now that you are ten, I want to write to you about something that is important to me. Have you ever wondered how we know the things that we know? How do we know, for instance, that the stars, which look like tiny pinpricks in the sky, are really huge balls of fire like the Sun and very far away? And how do we know that the Earth is a smaller ball whirling round one of those stars, the Sun?The answer to these questions is ‘evidence’."
Above is an extract from the wonderfully thoughtful letter that Richard Dawkins wrote to his daughter on her 10th birthday. Within the letter, he talks to her about the importance of critical thinking and offers a superb definition of science. He then goes on to talk about the three bad reasons to believe in anything: “tradition,” “authority,” and “revelation” . He also deals with the issue of love and the evidence of experience. This letter is proof that it's never too early to start thinking critically.