It seems that to some, critical thinking means silencing dissenters.
"Critical thinking" in science means doing science, not providing an affirmative action program for religious belief!
The rules of evidence are very different between these two fields. Revelation, belief, and scripture have no place in science. There is no scientific evidence behind them. Critical thinking, if done correctly, is a natural part of science.
Unfortunately, "critical thinking" has now become a talking point of creationists, which freely translated means "we can pass off our religious belief as science and you can't challenge it, but we can use our belief to challenge the most well-established science and you have to accept our belief as scientific evidence."
Further, there are not "two competing theories" as apologists would have us believe. Within science, there is no competing theory to the theory of evolution.
What I am seeing here seems to stem from the Wedge Strategy, which promotes a scheme to battle the facts and theory of science with PR and misinformation, while claiming that both sides are scientific theories and deserve an equal hearing.
The Dover decision put that lie where it belongs.
Sorry, I did not know that I was using creationistspeak, how very un-PC of me.