Does the claim conflict with our background information
> Reports must always be evaluated against our background information that immense body of justified beliefs that consists of facts we learn from our own direct observations and facts we learn from others.
- Information is "background" because we may not be able to specify where we learned it, unlike something we know because we witnessed it this morning.
- Much of our background information is well confirmed by a variety of sources.
- ex. Reports that conflict with this store of information are ususally quite properly dismissed, eve if we cannot disprove them through direct observation. We immedately 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.
>That's an example of how we usually treat claims when we first encounter them.
- We begin by assigning them a certain initial plausibility, a rough assessment of how credible the claim is with our background information- how well it "fits" with that information. If it fits well, we give the claim some reasonable degree of initial plausibility, there is a reasonable expectation of it being true.
- However, the claim conflicts with our background information, we give it low initial plausibility and lean toward rejecting it unless very strong evidence can be produced on its behalf.
ex. The claim " More guitars were sold in the U.S. last year than saxophones" fits very well with the background information most of us share and we would hardly require detailed evidence before accepting it. However, the claim "Charlie's eighty-seven year old grandmother swam across Lake Michigan in the middle of winter" cannot command much initial plausibility because of the obvious way it conflicts with our background information about eighty-seven year old people, about Lake Michigan, about swimming in cold water, so on.
> As a critical thinker is to trust your background information when considering claims that conflict with that information, the claim with low initial plausibility but at the same time to keep an open mind and realize that further information may cause you to give up a claim you had thought was true.
- ex. You've been suffering from headaches and have tried all the usual methods of relief: aspirin, antihistamines, whatever your physician has recommended. A friend tells you that she had headaches that were very similar to yours, and nothing worked for her, either, until she had an aromatheraphy treatment. Then, just a few minutes into her aromatherapy session, her headaches went away. Now, Moore and Parker are not much inclined to believe that smelling oils will make your headache disappear, but we think there is little to lose and at least a small possibility of something substantial to be gained by giving the treatment a try. It may be that the treatment relaxes a person and relieves tension, which can headaches.
This example falls somewhere between the plausible claim that Parker went to high school with Bill Clinton and the rather implausible claim that Paris Hilton has a Ph.D physics.
> The point is that there is a scale of initial plausibility ranging from quite plausible to only slightly so.
> It's pretty difficult to evaluate a report if you have no background information relating to the topic.
- The broader your background information, the more likely you are to be able to evaluate any given report effectively.
- Information is "background" because we may not be able to specify where we learned it, unlike something we know because we witnessed it this morning.
- Much of our background information is well confirmed by a variety of sources.
- ex. Reports that conflict with this store of information are ususally quite properly dismissed, eve if we cannot disprove them through direct observation. We immedately 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.
>That's an example of how we usually treat claims when we first encounter them.
- We begin by assigning them a certain initial plausibility, a rough assessment of how credible the claim is with our background information- how well it "fits" with that information. If it fits well, we give the claim some reasonable degree of initial plausibility, there is a reasonable expectation of it being true.
- However, the claim conflicts with our background information, we give it low initial plausibility and lean toward rejecting it unless very strong evidence can be produced on its behalf.
ex. The claim " More guitars were sold in the U.S. last year than saxophones" fits very well with the background information most of us share and we would hardly require detailed evidence before accepting it. However, the claim "Charlie's eighty-seven year old grandmother swam across Lake Michigan in the middle of winter" cannot command much initial plausibility because of the obvious way it conflicts with our background information about eighty-seven year old people, about Lake Michigan, about swimming in cold water, so on.
> As a critical thinker is to trust your background information when considering claims that conflict with that information, the claim with low initial plausibility but at the same time to keep an open mind and realize that further information may cause you to give up a claim you had thought was true.
- ex. You've been suffering from headaches and have tried all the usual methods of relief: aspirin, antihistamines, whatever your physician has recommended. A friend tells you that she had headaches that were very similar to yours, and nothing worked for her, either, until she had an aromatheraphy treatment. Then, just a few minutes into her aromatherapy session, her headaches went away. Now, Moore and Parker are not much inclined to believe that smelling oils will make your headache disappear, but we think there is little to lose and at least a small possibility of something substantial to be gained by giving the treatment a try. It may be that the treatment relaxes a person and relieves tension, which can headaches.
This example falls somewhere between the plausible claim that Parker went to high school with Bill Clinton and the rather implausible claim that Paris Hilton has a Ph.D physics.
> The point is that there is a scale of initial plausibility ranging from quite plausible to only slightly so.
> It's pretty difficult to evaluate a report if you have no background information relating to the topic.
- The broader your background information, the more likely you are to be able to evaluate any given report effectively.