I agree. There is this belief on CC that “critical thinking” is an “exclusive” domain of the “liberal arts”, and that pre-professional programs somehow fail to sprinkle their students with the magic dust.
I have been looking for some sort of evidence that this is true. The closest I can come up with would be the CLA project:
What they have found thus far do not fit that stereotype at all- some liberal arts and some pre-professional programs seem to do a better job of inculcating “critical thinking” than others.
While the work is still ongoing and far from being conclusive, I suspect we are confusing intuition or “braining storming” with critical thinking.