Chapter 4: Reasons for Belief and Doubt

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Chapter 4 Reasons for Belief and Doubt

• Strategies to correct unsupported or
• unreasonable beliefs.
• When are there good reasons to doubt?
• We do not want to be neigh-sayers or unreasonable
  skeptics!
• When are there good reasons to believe?
• We do not want our beliefs to be mere beliefs, or
  do we?

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Principle

• The better the reasons for acceptance, the more
  likely the belief is to be true.
• We need to know what good reasons are.

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FAILED REASONS

• Inadequate reasons no reasons or fake reasons
• Mostly concerned with the first two, more on the
  last in next chapter.
• Unsupported claims
• They are everywhere

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CONFLICTING CLAIMS

• If we have two opposing, contradictory claims,
  one must be false and the other true.
• Sometimes claims conflict with other claims we
  know to be true (facts) or we have good reason to
  believe.

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RESOLVING CONFLICTS

• Tests
• Simply looking
• E.g. friend your dog is eating the garbage
• You my dog is not eating the garbage

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RESOLVING CONFLICTS

• Other tests
• Research of evidence, finding evidence for or
  against
• Using background information
• huge collection of very well supported beliefs
  that we all rely on to inform our actions and
  choices.

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BACKGROUND INFO, cont.

• Basic facts about things common sense or
  knowledge
• Claim some babies can bench press five hundred
  pounds.
• Quantity of Conflict
• For any given claim, if it conflicts with many
  background facts, the more reason we have for
  doubting it.

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BACKGROUND INFO, cont.

• When our background information is unfounded.
• Proportioning our belief to the evidence.
• Stronger belief due to stronger evidence
• Weaker belief due to weaker evidence

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EXPERTS AND EXPERTISE

• When claim comes from a genuine expert, we have
  reason to belief it.
• Expertise means knowledge and ability.

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PRINCIPLES TO GUIDE US

• 1. Claims that conflict with expert opinion
  should be doubted.
• 2. When experts disagree about a claim, this
  claim should be doubted.

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APPEAL TO AUTHORITY

• A Fallacy
• When the so-called expert is not an expert.
• 2 ways to tell
• 1. Expert is not an expert in specified field but
  another instead
• Expertise is specialized knowledge

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APPEAL TO AUTHORITY, cont.

• 2. When expertise is a sham, false expertise.
• Endorsers!
• Expertise due to prestige, status, popularity,
  star-status.

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GENUINE EXPERTISE

• 4 indicators of genuine expertise
• a. education and training from reputable
  institutes.
• b. experience in making good judgements.
• 2 others.
• C. reputation among peers (peer review)
• D. professional accomplishments
• Last two most helpful but not fool-proof

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LIMITS OF EXPERTISE

• In some contexts experts may not be as helpful
  moral, social and political questions.

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PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

• Principle/Rule of Thumb
• Use personal experience as evidence only if there
  is no good reason to doubt this experience

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IMPAIRMENT

• Conditions
• Internal illness, injury, weariness, stress,
  drugged, distracted or disoriented
• External Environment
• Darkness, brightness, fogged, noisy, busy or
  crowded

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SELF IMPAIRMENT

• Our faculties seem at times to work to construct
  or remark memories, concoct creative
  representations.
• Placebo Effect

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EXPECTATION

• We perceive what we expect to perceive!
• Open to suggestion, the power of this! (hypnosis,
  magic)
• We do this because we form the expectations
  ourselves.

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INNUMERACY

• Are problems calculating probability
• Not to worry too much about this.
• Caution do not overemphasize coincidence,
  probabilities work!
• Gamblers Fallacy Coin tossing

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WAYS WE FOOL OURSELVES

• Self-deception again
• Resisting Contrary Evidence
• Refusal to accept disconfirming evidence (We
  might face save to this end)

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WAYS WE FOOL OURSELVES

• Confirming Evidence
• Confirmation Bias in science.
• All swans are white
• All unicorns have horns!???

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PREFERENCE FOR AVAILABLE EVIDENCE

• Evidence that is striking, memorable, thrilling,
  impressive.
• Being impressed by the emotional and
  psychological intensity of the information.
• Popular hysteria cell phones/cancer

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CLAIMS IN THE NEWS

• Media onslaught of unsupported claims
• Knowledgetransforming information via critical
  thinking into true belief

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THE NEWS INDUSTRY

• A business that seeks to maximize profit
• newspapers, organizations, radio, magazines,
  websites, etc.
• Not all is created equal! Some are better
  sources, etc. more reliable.

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GETTING BIG AUDIENCES

• Required to sell more expensive advertising and
  increase profit
• Pressure to turn a good profit is immense it
  colours what is reported, how much is reported,
  etc.

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GETTING BIG AUDIENCES

• Compromise of objectivity by skewing reports.
• Result watered down, inoffensive stories
• Canned News.
• Predigested stories Those given to the news
  agencies by publicists, public relations people
  working for corporations, etc.
• Omission/Selectivity

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ROLE OF REPORTERS

• Loaded language, omissions, manipulation of tone,
  sensationalism, editorializing.

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SIZING UP REPORTS

• Use principle of conflict
• If report conflicts with other reports or with
  background knowledge or with expert opinion, the
  report should be doubted.

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STRATEGIES

• Reporter Slanting
• Language
• Lack
• False Emphasis
• Alternative Sources

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ADVERTISING AND PERSUASION

• Pervasive and Invasive
• Consumer culture, market society
• Ads are designed to persuade and manipulate, not
  support!

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ADVERTISING AND PERSUASION

• Advertisement power we like it, sometimes more
  than the programs or stories or news itself.
• Its persuasive power is not only grounds for
  doubting advertising claims but for diagnosing
  its ills.

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PERSUASIVE TECHNIQUES

• IDENTIFICATION
• Vicarious living
• SLOGANS/HOOKS
• MISLEADING COMPARISONS
• WEASEL WORDS