Assessing the content of the claim
>Some claims stand up on their own; they tend to be acceptable regardless of from whom we hear them. When they fall on their own, it's because they come into conflict either with our own observations or with what we call "our background knowledge."
Does the Claim Conflict with Our Personal Observations?
> Our own observations provide our most reliable source of information about the world.
- Therefore, only reasonable to be suspicious of any claim that comes into conflict with what we've observed. Imagine that Moore has just come from the home of Mr. Marquis, a muatal friend of his and Parker, who tells him, "I heard that Marquis has bought a new Mini Cooper, a bright blue one." Moore does not need critical thinking training to reject Parker's claim about the color of the car, because of the obvious conflict with his earlier observation.
>Observations and short-term memory are far from infallible.
-ex. Professional dancer Douglas Hall would not have been rewarded $450,000 in damages by a New York jury in January 2005. Dr. Vicent Feldman, twenty minutes after having placed a large "X" on the dancer's right knee, where the latter had complained of pain, sliced open the patient's left knee, which had been perfectly healthy up until that moment, and effectively ended his dancing career in the process. Although he had just seen where he was to operate and had marked the spot, he nonetheless managed to confuse the location and the result may have put a serious wrinkle in his own career as well as that of the dancer.
-All kind of factors influence our observations and our recollections of them. Dr. Feldman may have been affected by one or more of them: tiredness, distraction, worry about na unrelated matter, or emotional upset could easily account for such mistakes as well as physical conditions that often affect our observations: bad lighting, lots of noise, and the speed of events.
- We sometimes prey to measuring instruments thatt are inexact, temperamental, or inaccurate.
>It's important to remember that people are not all created equal when it comes to making observations. Some people see better, hear better, and remember better than you do.
> Our beliefs, hopes, fears, and expectations affect our observations.
- ex. Tell us someone that a house is infested with rats, and he is likely to believe he sees evidence of rats.
* Fallacy: a mistake in reasoning. Called wishful thinking that occurs when we allow hopes and desires to influence our judgement and color our beliefs.
-ex. It's unlikely somebody, somewhere, wants to send you millions of dollars just because you have a bank account and that the money they ask for really is just to facilitate the transaction. The most gullible victim, with no stake in the matter would probably realize this but the idea of getting one's hands on a great pole of money can blind a person to even the most obvious facts.
> Our personal interests and biases affect our perceptions and the judgements we base on them.
- We overlook many of the mean and selfish actions of the people we like or love and when we are infatuated with someone, everything that person does seems wonderful.
- People who we detest can hardly do anything that we don't perceive as mean and selfish.
-ex. If we desperately wish for the success of a project, we are apt to see more evidence for that success than is actually present. On the other hand, if we wish for a project to fail, we are apt to exaggearate flaws that we see in it or imagine flaws that are not there are all.
> The reliability of our observations is no better than the reliablity of our memories, except in those cases where we have the means at our disposal to record our observations.
- Memory can be deceptive.
- Critical thinkers are always alert to the possibility that what they remember having observed may not be what they did observe.
- Although firsthand observations are not infallible, they are still the best source of information we have. Any report that conflicts with our own direct observations is subject to serious doubt.
Does the Claim Conflict with Our Personal Observations?
> Our own observations provide our most reliable source of information about the world.
- Therefore, only reasonable to be suspicious of any claim that comes into conflict with what we've observed. Imagine that Moore has just come from the home of Mr. Marquis, a muatal friend of his and Parker, who tells him, "I heard that Marquis has bought a new Mini Cooper, a bright blue one." Moore does not need critical thinking training to reject Parker's claim about the color of the car, because of the obvious conflict with his earlier observation.
>Observations and short-term memory are far from infallible.
-ex. Professional dancer Douglas Hall would not have been rewarded $450,000 in damages by a New York jury in January 2005. Dr. Vicent Feldman, twenty minutes after having placed a large "X" on the dancer's right knee, where the latter had complained of pain, sliced open the patient's left knee, which had been perfectly healthy up until that moment, and effectively ended his dancing career in the process. Although he had just seen where he was to operate and had marked the spot, he nonetheless managed to confuse the location and the result may have put a serious wrinkle in his own career as well as that of the dancer.
-All kind of factors influence our observations and our recollections of them. Dr. Feldman may have been affected by one or more of them: tiredness, distraction, worry about na unrelated matter, or emotional upset could easily account for such mistakes as well as physical conditions that often affect our observations: bad lighting, lots of noise, and the speed of events.
- We sometimes prey to measuring instruments thatt are inexact, temperamental, or inaccurate.
>It's important to remember that people are not all created equal when it comes to making observations. Some people see better, hear better, and remember better than you do.
> Our beliefs, hopes, fears, and expectations affect our observations.
- ex. Tell us someone that a house is infested with rats, and he is likely to believe he sees evidence of rats.
* Fallacy: a mistake in reasoning. Called wishful thinking that occurs when we allow hopes and desires to influence our judgement and color our beliefs.
-ex. It's unlikely somebody, somewhere, wants to send you millions of dollars just because you have a bank account and that the money they ask for really is just to facilitate the transaction. The most gullible victim, with no stake in the matter would probably realize this but the idea of getting one's hands on a great pole of money can blind a person to even the most obvious facts.
> Our personal interests and biases affect our perceptions and the judgements we base on them.
- We overlook many of the mean and selfish actions of the people we like or love and when we are infatuated with someone, everything that person does seems wonderful.
- People who we detest can hardly do anything that we don't perceive as mean and selfish.
-ex. If we desperately wish for the success of a project, we are apt to see more evidence for that success than is actually present. On the other hand, if we wish for a project to fail, we are apt to exaggearate flaws that we see in it or imagine flaws that are not there are all.
> The reliability of our observations is no better than the reliablity of our memories, except in those cases where we have the means at our disposal to record our observations.
- Memory can be deceptive.
- Critical thinkers are always alert to the possibility that what they remember having observed may not be what they did observe.
- Although firsthand observations are not infallible, they are still the best source of information we have. Any report that conflicts with our own direct observations is subject to serious doubt.