Principles of critical Thinking

In Class we talked about the principles of critical thinking; the main points are

1. Be skeptic- Don't accept unsupported opinion for fact
2. examine definitions of terms- you have to examine what you mean by those terms 
3. examine the assumptions of argument
4. Be cautious in drawing conclusions from evidence
5. Consider alternative interpretations of research evidence
6. Consider kinds of evidence- opinion is not good scientific evidence
7. Do not over simplify
8. Do not overgeneralize 

In Class we were asked to do a human sexuality research activity using the scienticfic method.  My research question was does tv shows with sexual content play the role in teen pregnancy?  My hypothesis was that these shows do play a role in teen pregnancy.   There would be two ways to test this hypothesis one would be to conduct interviews and surveys the other would be to have a controlled group that wasn't allowed to watch t.v. programs that have sexual content and another group that was and compare the two groups. I believe t.v. programs with sexual content influence teen that to be cool you should be having sex which leads to pregnancy.