Dealing with the literal mind: the third enemy of skepticism

People are, generally, good. The human mind is a pretty amazing example of evolution's power, if not its forethought. We are sentient and we have the ability to ponder our motivations. That's a very important thing.
As I wrote in the last post, however, there are tendencies within the human mind that are not perfect and that can hamper the critical faculties. One of the worst is credulity, especially when it is blind and willful. The other is the backfire effect. The third, is literal mindedness.
True, psychologists will tell you that there is nothing inherently wrong with being literal. It gives us the ability to be matter-of-fact when problem solving. But when it comes to being able to discern which sorts of ideologies are good or bad, or perhaps natural or dangerous, the literal minded person cannot be bothered to do more than to take the (often) proffered ideology at face value.

Children's literature character Amelia Bedelia
struggled with idiomatic speech and was very literal.

Literal mindedness may be, like credulity and the backfire effect, necessary aspects of human development, but when it is paired with credulity and bad ideology, it can be lethal to the critical faculties.
Let's take for example the person who thinks that the world is only five thousand years old. They've read the Genesis accounts and they've accepted them as is, with not a jot of questioning.
I'm not poking the hornet's nest for a religious shake down, but there are people out there who actually believe this as a literal fact.
The problem with this mindset isn't necessarily that people are unimaginative when it comes to issues like this but that they are unwilling to break away from them, when there is evidence presented contrary to their strongly held beliefs. That's when the backfire effect kicks in.
So how do you challenge literal thinking? By encouraging skepticism.
A practiced skeptic will feel that it is necessary to ask where the proof beyond the Scriptures is for the age of the earth. With one swoop, skepticism can lead us to the true claim that the earth is far older.
Credulity (the willingness to believe without question), the backfire effect (which causes us to hold our strongly-held beliefs even more tightly when challenged) and the tendency toward literal-mindedness (a willingness to take information at face value) are all dangerous to free-thinking humans.
This is why the critical skeptic must work to challenge these and other psychological tendencies in their fellow humans. By working to support and defend free speech, free inquiry and science education, the critical skeptic can help to advance ways of thinking that limit the power of these three dangerous realities.
Think of skepticism as a shield. Learn to think of new information as false, or at least untrustworthy until you can find verifiable sources to back it up. Remember that just because you believe something strongly doesn't make it true and always work to reevaluate your convictions when shown evidence to the contrary of what you have believed. There is no shame in having been wrong and there is no shame in adjusting your stance when presented with evidence.
A critical skeptic isn't going to get it right every time, but she is going to be much more likely to avoid being coerced, falling victim to the hucksterish and tawdry pseudo facts and those who proffer them, and will certainly be much more likely to have a strong, sleek critical faculty.