Critical Thinking: Chapter 4

1. Critical Thinking: Chapter 4 • Credibility

2. Credibility • Are you gullible?

3. Credibility • Are you gullible? • Do you get taken advantaged of?

4. Credibility • Are you gullible? • Do you get taken advantaged of? • Do people think you are naïve?

5. Credibility • Are you gullible? • Do you get taken advantaged of? • Do people think you are naïve? • Are you trusting? Is there anything wrong with being trusting?

6. Credibility • Are you gullible? • Do you get taken advantaged of? • Do people think you are naïve? • Are you trusting? Is there anything wrong with being trusting? • Are you a skeptic?

7. Credibility • Are you gullible? • Do you get taken advantaged of? • Do people think you are naïve? • Are you trusting? Is there anything wrong with being trusting? • Are you a skeptic? • These are the type of questions we are going to look at in this chapter.

8. Credibility • Is a claim credible or not? • Basically credibility comes in degrees.

9. Credibility • It is very difficult to judge the credibility of a person just by looking at them.

10. Credibility • 1st general principle: “It is reasonable to be suspicious if a claim either lacks credibility inherently or comes from a source that lacks credibility.” • So there are two issues here: When does a claim lack credibility and when does a source lack credibility?

11. Credibility • 2nd general principle: “A claim lacks inherent credibility to the extent it conflicts with what we have observed or what we think we know (our background information), or with other credible claims.

12. Assessing the Contents of the Claim • Does the claim conflict with our personal observations?

13. Four Issues with observations: • The problem is that we are aware that observation is a trick business. There are four issues with observations: • 1. Observations depend on the conditions under which they are made.

14. Four Issues with observations: • 1. Observations depend on the conditions under which they are made. • For Example: Perhaps the lighting is poor or the room is noisy; perhaps we are distracted, emotionally upset, or mentally fatigued.

15. Four Issues with observations: • 2. The power of observation can differ with people’s expertise and experience. • For Example: Some people have special training or experience that makes them better observers.

16. Four Issues with observations: • 3. Expectations often influence observation. • For Example: We overlook many of the mean and selfish actions of the people we love. By contrast, people we detest can hardly do anything that we don’t perceive as mean and selfish.

17. Four Issues with observations: • 4. An observation made in the past suffers from the same dangers of unreliability as memory in general. • Critical thinkers are always alert to the possibility that what they remember having observed may not be what they did observe!

18. Does the claim conflict with our background information? • Background information includes all the general and specific facts we have learned through our lives. Three points to remember:

19. Does the claim conflict with our background information? • Background information includes all the general and specific facts we have learned through our lives. Three points to remember: • 1. Together with direct observation, background information forms the ground against which to pose any new claim.

20. Does the claim conflict with our background information? • Background information is that immense body of justified beliefs that consists of facts we learn from our own direct observation and facts we learn from others.

21. Background information: • Much of our background information is well confirmed by a variety of sources. Factual claims that conflict with this store of information are usually quite properly dismissed.

22. Background information: • For Example: We immediately reject the claim “Palm trees grow in abundance near the North Pole,” even though we are not in a position to confirm or disprove the statement by direct observation.

23. Does the claim conflict with our background information? • Three points to remember: • 1. Together with direct observation, background information forms the ground against which to pose any new claim.

24. Does the claim conflict with our background information? • Three points to remember: • 2. When two claims conflict, the burden of proof lies on the one with less initial plausibility. We have reason to be more skeptical. • Example: A claim that two people swam a mile in cold water, one person is 21 and the other person is 91.

25. Does the claim conflict with our background information? • 3. It is important to remember that we don’t have all the background information we need and some of our information may be false. • The single most effective means of increasing your ability as a critical thinker, regardless of the subject, is to increase what you know.

26. Assessing the credibility of sources • The guiding principle in evaluating claims requires that they come from credible sources. The credibility of people is usually a matter of their knowledge on one hand, and their truthfulness, accuracy, and objectivity on the other. Seven points:

27. Sharpening and Leveling • The reports people give one another are very frequently subject to innocent sharpening and leveling--exaggerating what the speaker thinks is the main point and dropping out or de-emphasizing details that seem unimportant. The result can be a distortion of the story.

28. Assessing the credibility of sources: 3 points • 1. Be wary of eyewitness accounts. Untrained observers are more likely to exaggerate their observations. • Example: Several people seeing the same event will often describe it differently!

29. Assessing the credibility of sources: 3 points • 2. How we feel about an experience colors our ability to discern objectively. • Example: if we really like a band, it may be difficult to give an objective review of their latest album.

30. Assessing the credibility of sources: 3 points • 3. Look for expert knowledge. • Example: Look for education, training, experience, accomplishments, reputation, and titles. • Cautions about experts: Just because someone is an expert in one thing does not make them an expert in all things!

31. The news media and the internet • Our abundance of sources of information is a good thing, but it can be complicated when trying to figure out what we can trust and believe. Five points:

32. The news media and the internet: 5 points • 1. Most talk shows have a specific political agenda. • Look for documentation of sources.

33. The news media and the internet: 5 points • 2. The traditional news media has to be watched for both length and depth of coverage. • The accessibility of reliable reports also restricts coverage because governments, corporations, and individuals often withhold information.

34. The news media and the internet: 5 points • 3. Reporters are, for the most part, given the news. • Be careful over having too romantic a view of “the investigative reporter.” Time and money often limit the ability of a reporter to investigate.

35. The news media and the internet: 5 points • 4. The media is a business. • Follow the money! Good and bad sides to this. Good side: independent of government. Bad side: the need to make a profit.

36. The news media and the internet: 5 points 5. The internet has to be treated like the media: Anyone can put up a web page saying anything, so check for credibility. Sites that represent institutions and universities tend to be more objective and reliable than a site with no backing organization, but it is always a good idea to use your critical thinking skills!

37. Advertising • “Advertising is the science of arresting human intelligence long enough to get money from it.” Stephen Leacock

38. Advertising • Advertising does not only sell consumer goods. Advertising is used to sell candidates, ideas, and as we have seen recently, wars.

39. Advertising • How does advertising work? • It acts by creating desires, and it uses every persuasive technique available to excite those desires.

40. Advertising • The usual reasons found in an advertisement are vague, ambiguous, misleading, or exaggerated. In doing this we often find ourselves needing something we might not have known existed before!

41. Advertising • So what is a good advertisement? • Basically a good ad simply lets you know that something you already want is available somewhere at a price you can afford.

42. Exercises • Assess each of the following claims as probably true, probably false, as requiring further documentation before judgment, or as a claim that cannot properly be evaluated. Consider both the nature of the claim and the source. • “In the early 1800s, bears were a nuisance to settlers in upstate New York.” • —Smithsonian

43. Exercises • Assess each of the following claims as probably true, probably false, as requiring further documentation before judgment, or as a claim that cannot properly be evaluated. Consider both the nature of the claim and the source. • “In the early 1800s, bears were a nuisance to settlers in upstate New York.” • —Smithsonian • Probably true

44. Exercises • Assess each of the following claims as probably true, probably false, as requiring further documentation before judgment, or as a claim that cannot properly be evaluated. Consider both the nature of the claim and the source. • NO CHOLESTEROL! • —Label on Crisco Corn Oil

45. Exercises • Assess each of the following claims as probably true, probably false, as requiring further documentation before judgment, or as a claim that cannot properly be evaluated. Consider both the nature of the claim and the source. • NO CHOLESTEROL! • —Label on Crisco Corn Oil • Probably true. Vegetable oils do not contain cholesterol, and even if you didn’t know that, such claims made by national brands are usually true (despite several famous exceptions).

46. Exercises • Assess each of the following claims as probably true, probably false, as requiring further documentation before judgment, or as a claim that cannot properly be evaluated. Consider both the nature of the claim and the source. • “Mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade’s two little girls always tried to keep her from singing in church because, they said, every time she did, everyone would turn around and stare at her.” • —Joseph McLellan, in the Washington Post

47. Exercises • Assess each of the following claims as probably true, probably false, as requiring further documentation before judgment, or as a claim that cannot properly be evaluated. Consider both the nature of the claim and the source. • “Mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade’s two little girls always tried to keep her from singing in church because, they said, every time she did, everyone would turn around and stare at her.” • —Joseph McLellan, in the Washington Post • Probably true

48. Exercises • Assess each of the following claims as probably true, probably false, as requiring further documentation before judgment, or as a claim that cannot properly be evaluated. Consider both the nature of the claim and the source. • “In the near future look for floods in Britain which will culminate in the flooding of Parliament.” • —A prediction made by Maitreya Swami, “The World Teacher,” in the News Release of the Tara Center, N. Hollywood, Calif.

49. Exercises • Assess each of the following claims as probably true, probably false, as requiring further documentation before judgment, or as a claim that cannot properly be evaluated. Consider both the nature of the claim and the source. • “In the near future look for floods in Britain which will culminate in the flooding of Parliament.” • —A prediction made by Maitreya Swami, “The World Teacher,” in the News Release of the Tara Center, N. Hollywood, Calif. • Probably false. I won’t get into the philosophical difficulties involved in attaching truth values to future contingent events.

50. Exercises • Assess each of the following claims as probably true, probably false, as requiring further documentation before judgment, or as a claim that cannot properly be evaluated. Consider both the nature of the claim and the source. • “Smoking more than triples the likelihood of premature facial wrinkling.” • —Dr. Donald Kadunce, lead author of a group of University of Utah scientists, reporting in Annals of Internal Medicine