Vaughn - Concise Guide to Critical Thinking - Chapter 06 Summary

CHAPTER 6 SUMMARY

When Claims Conflict

  • Many times we need to be able to evaluate an unsupported claim—a claim that isn’t backed by an argument. There are several critical thinking principles that can help us do this. An important one is: If a claim conflicts with other claims we have good reason to accept, we have good grounds for doubting it.
  • Sometimes there is a conflict between a claim and your background information. Background information is the large collection of very well supported beliefs that we rely on to inform our actions and choices. The relevant principle is: If a claim conflicts with our background information, we have good reason to doubt the claim.
  • It’s not reasonable to accept a claim if there is good reason to doubt it. In the case of claims that we can neither accept nor reject outright: We should proportion our belief to the evidence.

Experts and Authorities

  • An expert is someone who is more knowledgeable in a particular subject area than most others are. The important principle is: If a claim conflicts with expert opinion, we have good reason to doubt it.
  • We must couple this principle with another one: When the experts disagree about a claim, we have good reason to doubt it. When we rely on bogus expert opinion, we commit the fallacy known as the appeal to authority.
  • Doubt is justified when a claim comes from someone deemed to be an expert who in fact is not an expert. When we rely on such bogus expert opinion, we make the mistake known as the fallacious appeal to authority. We must look beyond mere labels and titles and ask, “Does this person provide us with any good reasons or evidence?”

Biased Opinions

  • When experts are biased, they are motivated by something other than the search for the truth—perhaps by financial gain, loyalty to a cause, professional ambition, emotional needs, political outlook, sectarian dogma, personal ideology, or some other judgment-distorting factor. Therefore, if we have reason to believe that an expert is biased, we are not justified in accepting the expert’s opinion.
  • Good reasons for doubting an expert’s claims include: any blatant violation of critical thinking principles; simple factual or formal errors; no adequate support for his or her assertions; strongly biased, emotional, or dismissive attitude; and unfair treatment of opposing views.

The Evidence of Personal Experience

  • Many claims are based on nothing more than personal experience, ours or someone else’s. We can trust our personal experience—to a point. The guiding principle is: It’s reasonable to accept the evidence provided by personal experience only if there’s no reason to doubt it.
  • Some common factors that can raise such doubts are impairment (stress, injury, distraction, emotional upset, and the like), expectation, and our limited abilities in judging probabilities.

Advertising and Persuasion

  • Advertising is another possible source of unsupported or misleading claims. We should realize that we generally have good reason to doubt advertising claims and to be wary of advertising’s persuasive powers.
  • Reasons for this cautious approach include (1) the advertiser’s obvious aim of selling or promoting something and (2) advertising’s reputation for—and a history of—misleading messages. The world is filled with ads that make dubious or false claims, use fallacious arguments (stated or implied), and employ psychological tricks to manipulate consumer responses.

Evaluating Sources: The Internet and Beyond

·        The hard facts about the news media, social media, the Internet, and the print world include (1) not everything you read is true, (2) countless sources on the Internet and in conventional media are unreliable, (3) it’s often difficult to tell the difference between fake or false news and real news, and (4) a great deal of what you read online is false, misleading, vicious, self-serving, clueless, or crazy.

The best strategy for critical thinkers is to read critically; size up authors, bloggers, and publishers; sort out claims; compare sources; try to discern the source’s purpose; and check alternative news sources.

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