Chapter 4 ( reasons for belief and doubt) Flashcards
What are some reasons for belief and doubt?
If we care whether our beliefs are true or reliable, then we must care about the reasons for accepting those beliefs.
What are the three types of conflict?
1) 2 statements can be inconsistent – i.e. can’t both be true, but could both be false. E.g. “Today is Monday” and “Today is Wednesday” are inconsistent.
2) That 2 statements can be contradictories - i.e. can’t both be true, but (also) can’t both be false. E.g. “There is a Covid-19 virus” and “There is not a Covid-19 virus” are contradictories.
3) Conflict with background information
Sometimes, rather than two conflicting claims, we see a conflict between a claim and your ‘background information’.
What does background information include?
1) Facts about everyday things.
‘The sky is blue.’
2) Beliefs based on very good evidence.
‘Cigarettes aren’t good for you.’
3) Justified claims that we would regard as ‘common sense’ or ‘common knowledge’.
‘If you study, then you will do better on the quiz.’
What principle is applied to statement conflicts
if a new claim conflicts with other claims we have good reason to accept, we have good grounds for doubting the new claim.
Provide an example of background info conflict, and why you woulnt belive it
Example: ‘Some babies can bench-press 500 pounds.’
You are not going to be able to accept this claim because it conflicts with an enormous number of your background beliefs about physiology, gravity, and weightlifting.
1) what prinicple is applied to background info conflict?
2) is it the same thing as saying its false?
1) If a claim conflicts with our background information, we have good reason to doubt it.
2) No. But it is a reason to explore further.
How much further depends on how important the claim is!
The more a claim conflicst with background info the more….
the more reason we have to doubt it.
is it possible, , that a conflicting claim is true and some of our background information is unfounded.
YES
Common sense’ and Background Info isn’t always right!
Many people believe:
Shark attacks are common.
Flying in an airplane is dangerous.
SUVs are safer to drive than smaller cars.
Yet these are all false.
“Common sense” used to tell people…
The earth is flat.
Animals don’t feel pain.
No one would ever walk on the moon.
in terms of believing things, what principle should we follow?
“We should proportion our belief to the evidence.”
- Our degree of belief should vary according to the evidence.
- The more evidence a claim has in favour of it, the stronger our belief in it should be.
- It’s not reasonable to believe a claim when there is no good reason for doing so.
Believing shouldn’t be your ‘default settin
WHAT IS AN EXPERT?
1) Someone who is more knowledgeable in a particular subject area more than other people
ex:
- In law? Lawyer, judge, law professor
- In philosophy Philosopher
- In car repair?
Mechanic
Why are experts good soruse to rely on?
In their specialty areas, experts are more likely to be right than we are because:
1) They have access to more information on the subject
2) They are better at judging that information than we are.
This is primarily because of their greater experience and practice.
- In a complex world people must rely on experts.
You can’t be a doctor, AND lawyer, AND mechanic, engineer, botanist, toxicologist, etc.
But good critical thinkers are careful about expert opinions because expert opinion is never a guarantee of truth.
When can you doubt an expert?
- If a claim conflicts with expert opinion, we have good reason to doubt it.
Example: ‘The earth is about 10,000 years old.’
When experts disagree over a claim, we have good reason to withhold judgement.
Prof. Smith: ‘It’s clear that butter is worse for you than margarine.’
Prof. Sehdev: ‘The evidence about butter versus margarine is quite mixed.
Whats does appeal to authority mean
When a claim comes from someone deemed to be an expert who in fact is not an expert, we commit the fallacy known as the appeal to authority.
how can appeal to authority occur?
First, just because someone is an expert in one field, he or she is not necessarily an expert in another.
The point is not that these experts can’t be right, but that their expertise in a particular field doesn’t give us reason to believe them in all things.
The second way appeal to authority can happen is that:
We may fall into a fallacious appeal to authority by regarding a non-expert as an expert.
- Movie Stars
- TV actors
- Famous athletes
People listen to and believe political, religious, and cultural leaders because they have often been designated as authorities.
Critical thinkers have to ask ‘Does this person provide us with any good reason or evidence?’
what principle can be used when evaluationg a claim based on personal experiemce
“It is reasonable to accept the evidence provided by personal experience only if there’s no good reason to doubt it.”
provide an example/ scenario of using the following principle as a guideline It is reasonable to accept the evidence provided by personal experience only if there’s no good reason to doubt it.
For example:
If we seem to see a cat on the mat under good viewing conditions, then we’re justified in believing that there’s a cat on the mat.
List some Factors that can give us good reason to doubt the reliability of personal experience:
1) Impairment
2) Expectation
3) Innumeracy
Whats impairment?
- If our perceptual powers are somehow impaired, we have reason to doubt them.
- The following are reasons to doubt the trustworthiness of what we experience.
- Situation: too dark, too bright, too hazy, too noisy
- Senses: sick, injured, tired, stressed, excited, drugged, distracted, disoriented, drunk
What’s expectation?
We often perceive exactly what we expect, regardless of whether there’s really anything there to detect.
( like when it dark in ur bedroom and a pile of clothes look like an animal/person)
whats innumeracy?
- ‘Innumeracy’ means roughly ‘being really bad with numbers’.
- When we make an off-the-cuff judgment about the chances of something happening, we should be extra careful.
- Why? Because we humans are terrible at figuring probabilities.
whats The Conjunction Fallacy
thinking that the probability of the conjunction of two independent events is greater than the probability of the individual conjuncts.
The probability of A + B is never greater than the probability of A by itself.
What are the 3 most common mistakes we make?
Three of the most common and most serious mistakes we make are:
1) Resisting contrary evidence
2) Looking only for confirming evidence
3) Preferring available evidence
whats RESISTING CONTRARY EVIDENCE?
We resist evidence that flies in the face of our cherished beliefs.
This can be psychologically comforting, but it can prevent any further search for knowledge.
Often, you will see the evidence you want to see (and be blind to what you don’t want to see).
provide an example of RESISTING CONTRARY EVIDENCE
If you want to believe in ghosts, you may mis-read (or mis-remember) evidence to the contrary.
You may tend to ignore evidence that conflicts with political beliefs you hold.
A scientist may be so committed to her own theory that she finds reasons to reject contrary evidence.
Often our resistance is subtle. We frequently don’t reject evidence outright, but we are simply more critical in a one-sided way.
There is no cure, but a remedy is to examine critically our favourite claims.
whats LOOKING ONLY FOR CONFIRMING EVIDENCE
We often seek out and use only confirming evidence. This is known as confirming bias or confirmation bias.
The result: we can end up accepting a claim that’s not true.
If I show you 100 pieces of evidence, pointing in different directions, which ones will you read and remember?
Often, you will remember more vividly the evidence that supports your preferred claim.
Remember, when we evaluate claims, we MUST look for disconfirming, not just confirming, evidence.
What is PREFERRING AVAILABLE EVIDENCE and provide an example
Availability error: We rely on evidence because it’s memorable or striking, or rather, because it is psychologically ‘available’.
For example:
‘Shark attacks are common.’
‘Air travel just isn’t safe.’
Not true. But it’s easy to think of scary data!
