Richard L Epstein

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Richard L Epstein Page 13

by Critical Thinking (3rd Edition) (pdf)


  to use your judgment.

  Up to this point we've considered whether to believe people who claim to be

  knowledgeable. But sometimes we can rely on the quality and reputation of an

  organization or reference work. For example, The New England Journal of

  Medicine is regularly quoted in newspapers, and for good reason. The articles in it

  are subjected to peer review: Experts in the subject are asked to evaluate whether the

  research was done to scientific standards. That journal is notable for having high

  scientific standards, and its official website is similarly reliable.

  The National Geographic has less reliable standards, since they pay for their

  own research. But it's pretty reliable about natural history.

  What about the Dictionary of Biography! There's probably no motive for bias

  in it, though it may be incomplete. Yet it's often hard to get a better source of

  information about, say, a 19th century physician.

  We can accept a claim in a reputable journal or reference source.

  On the Internet you're likely to come across sites with very impressive names.

  But anyone can start up an organization called the "American Institute for Economic

  Analysis," or any other title you like, and get an address that ends with ".org". A

  name is not enough to go by.

  There are good sources for checking about the history and reputation of an

  institute, for example, Research Centers Directory in your library and on the

  Internet, or the Encyclopedia of Medical Organizations and Agencies in the library.

  There's no reason to accept a claim made by an "institute" you don't know about.

  Most remote from our experience and least reliable is what we hear and read

  from what is called "the media." That includes newspapers, television, radio,

  magazines. Remember, what you read on the Internet is not personal experience.

  SECTION B Criteria for Accepting or Rejecting Claims 89

  With these sources it's partly like trusting your friend and partly like trusting an

  authority. The more you read a particular newspaper, for instance, the better you'll

  be able to judge whether to trust its news gathering as reliable or not. The more you

  read a particular magazine, the better you'll be able to judge whether there's an

  editorial bias.

  We can accept a claim in a media outlet that's usually reliable.

  Here are three factors that are important in evaluating a news report.

  • The outlet has been reliable in the past.

  A local paper seems to get the information correct about local stories most of the

  time. It's probably trustworthy in its account of a car accident. The National

  Enquirer gets sued a lot for libel, so it may not be reliable about the love life of

  a movie star.

  • The outlet doesn't have a bias on this topic.

  A television network consistently gives a bias against a particular presidential

  candidate. So when it says that the candidate contradicted himself twice yesterday,

  you should take it with a grain of salt. That may be true, but it may be a matter of

  interpretation. Or it may be plain false.

  Bias often follows the money. Try to find out who owns the media outlet or

  who its principal advertisers are. If you hear NBC saying what a good job General

  Electric Co. is doing in the "reconstruction" of Iraq, it's worth knowing that GE

  owns NBC.

  • The source being quoted is named.

  Do you know who wrote the articles you read in your newspaper? "From our

  sources" or no byline at all often means that the article is simply a reprint of a

  publicity handout from a company.

  Remember those Department of Defense unnamed sources? Don't trust them.

  "Usually reliable sources" are not even as reliable as the person who is quoting them,

  and anyway, they've covered themselves by saying "usually." And when someone is

  unwilling to admit being a source, it's a sign he or she may have a motive to mislead.

  An unnamed source is no better than a rumor. There's never good reason to accept

  a claim from an unnamed source. That's particularly important to remember when

  you're looking at sites on the Internet.

  In summary, we have our personal experience and what we learn from other

  sources. And we have to weigh that against what new claims are presented to us.

  For example, a buddy tries to convince you that you shouldn't go to a restaurant with

  a friend because she has AIDS and you could catch it from eating at the same table

  with her. You reject the claim that you can catch AIDS in that manner, because

  90 CHAPTER 5 Is That True?

  you've read in a public health pamphlet that AIDS can be transmitted only through

  contact with bodily fluids. You make your own argument: AIDS can only be

  transmitted through contact with bodily fluids; when eating at a restaurant with a

  friend it is extremely unlikely that you'll share bodily fluids with her; so it's safe to

  go to a restaurant with a friend who has AIDS.

  We can reject a claim that contradicts other claims we know to be true.

  Sometimes, though, it isn't that we know one claim is true and the other false,

  but that two contradictory claims are offered to us as premises, as in Example 11 of

  Chapter 4, on p. 66. In that case, all we can do is suspend judgment.

  Here, then, are the criteria we can use in evaluating unsupported claims.

  Summary: When to accept and when to reject a claim

  PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

  Accept: We know the claim is true from our own experience.

  Reject: We know the claim is false from our own experience.

  (Exceptions: We have good reason to doubt our memory or our perception;

  the claim contradicts other experiences of ours, and there is a good

  argument against the claim.)

  Reject: The claim contradicts other claims we know to be true.

  OTHER SOURCES

  Accept: The claim is made by someone we know and trust,

  and the person is an authority on this kind of claim.

  Accept: The claim is made by a reputable authority whom we can trust as an

  expert about this kind of claim and who has no motive to mislead.

  Accept: The claim is put forward in a reputable journal or reference.

  Accept: The claim is in a media source that's usually reliable and has no

  obvious motive to mislead, and the original source is named.

  We don't have criteria for when to suspend judgment on a claim. That's the

  default choice when we don't have good reason to accept or reject a claim.

  Remember that these criteria are given in order of importance. Regardless of

  how good the source may seem to be, you still need to trust your own experience.

  "Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?" Groucho Marx

  EXERCISES for Section B 91

  Teacher Deb Harris could hardly believe what she was reading to her fourth-

  grade class. Whales in Lake Michigan?

  But that's what it said in her "Michigan Studies Weekly," a newspaper

  distributed to 462 teachers statewide. Harris called Utah-based Studies Weekly,

  Inc., which puts out the teaching aid, but she said an editor stood behind the

  story. "I've lived here all my life—there are no whales in Lake Michigan,"

  Harris recalled telling the editor.

  A retraction was later posted on the company's Web site with an

&n
bsp; explanation that the false information came from a different Internet site intended

  as a joke. "We at Studies Weekly want this to be a lesson to you," the apology

  said. "Not all Web sites are true, and you cannot always believe them. When

  researching, you should always look for a reliable site that has credentials (proof

  of truthfulness)." Studies Weekly publications have a circulation of 1.2 million

  readers in third through sixth grades nationwide.

  The article read: "Every spring, the freshwater whales and freshwater

  dolphins begin the 1300-mile migration from Hudson Bay to the warmer waters

  of Lake Michigan." In reality, the closest whales get to Michigan is the salty

  estuary at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River, which is home to beluga whales.

  Associated Press, November 17, 2002

  Exercises for Section B

  1. When should we suspend judgment on a claim?

  2. a. Give five criteria for accepting an unsupported claim,

  b. Give two criteria for rejecting an unsupported claim.

  3. Explain why we should apply the criteria listed in the summary in the order in which

  they are listed.

  4. a. Describe two people you encounter regularly whose word you trust and say why you

  believe them,

  b. Give an example of a claim that one of them made that you shouldn't accept because

  the knowledge or expertise he or she has does not bear on that claim.

  5. List three categories of authorities you feel you can trust. State for which kind of

  claims those kinds of authorities would be experts.

  6. Give a recent example from some media outlet of an authority being quoted whose

  claims you accepted as true.

  7. Give an example from some media outlet of an authority being quoted whose expertise

  does not bear on the claim being put forward, so you have no reason to accept the claim.

  8. Give an example of an authority who made a claim recently that turned out to be false.

  Do you think it was a lie? Or did the person just not know it was false?

  9. Give an example of a claim you've heard repeated so often you think it's true, but which

  you really have no reason to believe.

  92 CHAPTER 5 Is That True?

  10. Look at the front page of your local newspaper and the first page of the local section of

  your newspaper and see if you can determine who wrote each article. Can you do the

  same with your local TV newscast?

  11. Which section of your local newspaper do you think is most reliable? Why?

  12. Choose a magazine you often read and tell the class what biases you expect from it.

  That is, for what kinds of claims in it should you suspend judgment rather than accept?

  13. a. What part of a national newscast do you think is most likely to be true? Why?

  b. Which part do you think is least reliable? Why?

  14. Give an example of a news story you heard or read that you knew was biased because it

  didn't give the whole story.

  15. Find an article that has quotes from some "think tank" or "institute." Find out what bias that group would have.

  16. Here is part of an article from the Associated Press, Nov. 2, 2004. Should you believe it?

  Militants given $500,000 for hostages' release

  Militants [in Iraq] released seven foreign hostages Wednesday after their employer

  paid $500,000 ransom, while France mustered support from Muslims at home and

  abroad to push for the release of two French journalists still held captive in Iraq. . . .

  Militants waging a violent 16-month-old insurgency have turned to kidnapping

  foreigners in recent months as part of their campaign to drive out coalition forces and

  contractors. Other groups have taken hostages in hopes of extorting ransom,

  sometimes masking their greed under a cloak of politics.

  17. Choose one of the large national news broadcasting outlets and find out who owns the

  company and what companies it owns or are owned by the same company.

  18. Bring to class an article that praises some business or type of business that comes from

  a magazine that has lots of advertising from that business or type of business.

  19. Find an example of an argument that uses claims you know to be false, though not from

  personal experience. (Letters to the editor in a newspaper are a good source.)

  20. You tell your friend who's experimenting with heroin he should stop. It's dangerous.

  He says you're no expert. Besides, you've never tried it. How do you respond?

  21. Your friend who's an avid fan tells you that the basketball game on Saturday has been

  cancelled. Five minutes later you hear on the radio that tickets are on sale for the game

  on Saturday. Whom do you believe? Why?

  22. Your doctor tells you that the pain in your back can't be fixed without surgery. You go

  to the health-food store, and the clerk tells you they have a root extract that's been made

  especially for back pain that'll fix your back. Whom do you believe? Why?

  23. Tom: I'm going to start taking steroids.

  Zoe: What? Are you crazy? They'll destroy your body.

  Tom: No way. My coach said it will build me up. And my trainer at the health club

  said he could get them for me.

  Comment on Tom's reasons for believing that steroids won't harm his body.

  EXERCISES for Section B 93

  24. The old adage "Where there's smoke, there's fire" is a license to believe any rumor.

  During the initial stages of the war in Kosovo and Yugoslavia, the following appeared in

  USA Today (April 12, 1999). Is the following an example of that adage?

  While it is impossible to independently verify the accounts [of human rights abuses

  in Kosovo by Serbs] because human rights officials, aide workers and journalists are

  not allowed to travel freely in Kosovo, the refugees on opposite sides of Macedonia

  provided similar dates, times and locations of incidents involving Serb soldiers.

  They also provided identical names of the victims, as well as such details as scars

  and other physical attributes on the Serb soldiers who took them.

  Lee was asked to decide whether to accept, reject, or suspend judgment on some claims, with

  an explanation of what criteria he's using. Dr. E didn't make any comments on his

  homework, since Lee's answers are good.

  Suzy prefers to go out with athletes.

  accept reject suspend judgment

  criteria: Personal experience. She told me so.

  Japanese are good at math.

  accept reject suspend judgment

  criteria: I know everyone thinks this is so, but it's just a stereotype, isn't

  it? I know a couple who aren't real good at math, but maybe they mean

  "almost all"? It just seems so unlikely.

  Crocodiles are found only in Asia and Africa.

  accept reject suspend judgment

  criteria: I think this is true. At least I seem to remember hearing it.

  Crocodiles are the ones in Africa and alligators in the U.S. But I'm not

  sure. So I guess I should suspend judgment.

  25. Evaluate the following claims by saying whether you accept, reject, or suspend

  judgment, citing the criteria you are using to make that decision.

  a. Toads give you warts, (said by your mother)

  b. Toads give you warts, (said by your doctor)

  c. The moon rises in the west.

  d. The Pacers beat the Knicks 92-84 last night, (heard on your local news)

  e. They're marketing a new lipos
uction machine you can attach to your vacuum

  cleaner, (in the weekly supplement to your Sunday paper)

  f. You were speeding, (said by a police officer)

  g. Boise-Cascade has plans to log all old-growth forests in California,

  (said by a Sierra Club representative)

  h. The United States government was not involved in the recent coup attempt in

  Venezuela, (unnamed sources in the Defense Department, by the Associated Press)

  i. Cats are the greatest threat to public health of any common pet.

  (said by the author of this book)

  94 CHAPTER 5 Is That True?

  j. Cats are the greatest threat to public health of any common pet.

  (said by the Surgeon General)

  k. Crocodiles weep after eating their victims, hence the term "crocodile tears."

  (in the travel section of your local newspaper)

  1. They've started serving sushi at KFC. (said by your friend)

  m. State Representative Hansen-Fong: The streets aren't safe. We need to get tougher

  on crime. We should lock up more of those drug-pushers and scare people into

  obeying the law. Get more police, lock the criminals up, and throw the key away.

  And we also need to reduce taxes. We can't afford the bond proposition to build a

  new prison.

  C. Advertising and the Internet

  1. Advertising

  The truth-in-advertising laws weren't written because all the advertisers were always

  telling us the truth. Many advertisements are arguments, with the (often unstated)

  conclusion that you should buy the product, or frequent the establishment, or use the

  service. Sometimes the claims are accurate, especially in print advertising for

  medicines. But sometimes they are not. There's nothing special about them, though.

  They should be judged by the criteria we've already considered.

  If you think there should be more stringent criteria for evaluating ads, you're

  not judging other claims carefully enough.

  At the supermarket I saw small soft magnets for sale. On each was an

  American flag with "God Bless America" written below it. On the box

  was:

  Show your support

  CAR MAGNETS

  A portion of the proceeds go to the

  New York Firefighters and victims

  Key Bank Disaster Relief Fund

  Nothing else was written on the box or magnets—no name nor address

  of the manufacturer. A search on the Internet for "Key Bank Disaster

 

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