Lord777
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Simple tips to help you distinguish truth from meaningless statements and build sound reasoning.
Neighbors say that you need to give up vaccinations, on TV they discuss the coming of the next end of the world, they write on the Internet that a kefir diet (Forex trading, Holotropic Breathwork, nude jogging) will make you happy forever.
There is too much information around us, and much of it is complete nonsense. How to distinguish true and well-founded statements from impudent manipulation and sincere, but no less dangerous stupidity? Perhaps it is enough to turn to the help of common sense to dispel all misunderstandings with the light of truth?
The problem is that common sense very often deceives us.
If people had to make do with only them, we would still think that the Sun revolves around the Earth, which has a flat shape. Common sense is often called upon by creationists, for example. Could all the wealth of nature appear as a result of chance? No, there is clearly not without an intelligent Creator.
No matter how convoluted the arguments of those who are trying to misinform you, in the end they boil down to just a few tricks. The writer John Grant conducts a session of this uncomplicated magic with a revelation in his recent book I Don't Believe! How to see the truth in a sea of misinformation." We have highlighted the main of these techniques and share recommendations on how to distinguish nonsense from everything meaningful and truthful.
1. FOCUS ON THE MAIN
After reading an article or hearing someone's loud statement, think about what they want to convince you of and what exactly they tell you, and then look at the details. It is useless to argue about how many people fell victim to Stalin's camps if your opponent's apartment is hung with portraits of the leader. Forget about metaphors and rhetorical devices for a while. Having selected the actual content of someone else's statement, you still cannot determine whether it is true or wrong. But you definitely cannot do without this step.
2. PAY ATTENTION TO QUOTES AND AUTHORITY LINKS
Remember: Newton's opinion is not authoritative on questions of quantum mechanics, your grandmother's name is on international politics, and even the most talented dermatologist is unlikely to understand enough climatology to make his claims about global warming unconditionally believe.
An equally common technique is selective citation.
Darwin wrote in The Origin of Species: “Frankly speaking, it may seem extremely absurd to suppose that natural selection could have formed an eye with all its inimitable inventions for regulating the focal length, for regulating the amount of penetrating light, for correcting for spherical and chromatic aberration ". But he wrote this only to immediately challenge the absurdity of this statement. When you come across a questionable quote, check it against the context. Perhaps it meant something completely different.
3. BE CAREFUL OF THE "STRAW STUFF" AND PERSONAL TRANSITION
People always tend to make their opponents look bad. If someone is in favor of legalizing marijuana, his opponent will say that he is seeking unrestricted access to drugs and undermining the foundations of public morality (although this is not the same thing). The straw scarecrow trick works especially well if you are not familiar with the arguments that your opponent rejects. It will be easier to convince you that there is simply nothing good there.
If that doesn't work, get ready to go personal. Whenever, instead of reasonably arguing, someone is called a fool or an idiot, you should be wary. Labels are hung only by those who cannot oppose anything meaningful to the opponent's statements. You should be interested not in what a person looks like and where he comes from, but in the factual side of the issue.
4. REMEMBER: MANY SPECIAL CASES ARE NOT PROOF
If they are proving to you that global warming is a fiction, referring at the same time to severe frosts and snowstorms that happened in a certain city last winter, there is reason to doubt the correctness of the argument. Likewise, the effectiveness of homeopathy is not proven by the fact that someone's aunt recovered from miraculous dummies. There are exceptions to any rule.
When proving their point of view, people often try to reverse this proportion and present the exception as the rule.
In this case, you need to be careful and return this proportion from head to feet.
5. AFTER THIS - DOESN'T MEAN A CONSEQUENCE OF THIS
If you have breakfast with oatmeal, and by lunchtime you feel sick, you are unlikely to attribute the disease-causing properties of oatmeal. Yet this is precisely what people who resort to the post hoc ergo propter hoc trick do. An example of this kind of thinking is mocked in The Tale of a Monastery Chaplain by the medieval poet Jeffrey Chaucer: a rooster named Chanticaire believes the sun to rise again and again because he wakes him up with his song. Don't be like Chanticlair - don't confuse a temporary relationship with a causal one.
6. DO NOT RELY ON FALSE BALANCE AND INAPPROPRIATE PLURALISM
A variety of points of view, which is indispensable in politics or aesthetics, is not always appropriate when it comes to facts. Striving to achieve a balance between opposing opinions often leads to failure: "the balance point between rational and crazy crap is ... crazy crap." If 98% of climatologists are confident about the reality of global warming, the point of view of the remaining two percent is unlikely to be given as much attention.
7. INTUITION OFTEN DOES US
If the "sixth sense" tells you the right solution to the problem, find reasons to doubt it. Sometimes intuition really does not fail (when you bypass a dark alley or rush into the corner of the goal to hit a soccer ball), but in the event of a rational argument, it is not your assistant. You need facts and logical reasoning, not premonitions that can lead you anywhere.
8. DOUBT YOUR OWN OBJECTIVITY
People often pay attention only to information that confirms their established beliefs. If you are sure that you are a good and intelligent person who will succeed in life, and your mother thinks the same way, then you will listen to her opinion more often than to the opinion of the boss who criticizes you.
Numerous omens and superstitions work on the basis of this confirmation bias.
If someone broke a pot, and after that a quarrel broke out, then this fact will be well remembered, while other broken pots will simply fade from memory. To come to the correct conclusion, you need to take into account the entire set of facts, and not just the most beloved and pleasant ones.
9. FOLLOW THE RULES OF THE GAME AND THEIR VIOLATIONS
Imagine someone asks you to prove that humans descended from humanoid apes. In this case, you can present the remains of an intermediate form - for example, Australopithecus. But where, your opponent will ask you, is the intermediate form between ape and australopithecus (and also between australopithecus and man)?
You can present new evidence as much as you like - this will not be enough for a stubborn opponent. You can always insert another link between two shapes. The logical error "god of gaps" works according to the same principle, when the unknown is explained by some mystical reasons. If we do not know something, this does not mean that it is unknowable in principle. Most likely, you just need to wait a little.
10. USE THE METHODS OF SCIENTIFIC THINKING
The scientific method, the foundations of which were laid in the 17th century, has since served people a considerable service (see increasing life expectancy, treating many diseases, preventing hunger, increasing leisure, etc.) But for some reason we still neglect it, being convinced that we can think rationally anyway. Meanwhile, intelligent thinking is far from something obvious.
Scientists comprehend the world using the method of deduction and hypotheses. First, you need to collect as much information as possible about the phenomenon you are interested in, then formulate a hypothesis that allows you to explain it, and then make a prediction based on the hypothesis.
The prediction must be verifiable - confirming or refuting - based on new observations and experiments. This, of course, is a slow process, because it often does not suit us. But the correct results are more or less guaranteed.
Neighbors say that you need to give up vaccinations, on TV they discuss the coming of the next end of the world, they write on the Internet that a kefir diet (Forex trading, Holotropic Breathwork, nude jogging) will make you happy forever.
There is too much information around us, and much of it is complete nonsense. How to distinguish true and well-founded statements from impudent manipulation and sincere, but no less dangerous stupidity? Perhaps it is enough to turn to the help of common sense to dispel all misunderstandings with the light of truth?
The problem is that common sense very often deceives us.
If people had to make do with only them, we would still think that the Sun revolves around the Earth, which has a flat shape. Common sense is often called upon by creationists, for example. Could all the wealth of nature appear as a result of chance? No, there is clearly not without an intelligent Creator.
No matter how convoluted the arguments of those who are trying to misinform you, in the end they boil down to just a few tricks. The writer John Grant conducts a session of this uncomplicated magic with a revelation in his recent book I Don't Believe! How to see the truth in a sea of misinformation." We have highlighted the main of these techniques and share recommendations on how to distinguish nonsense from everything meaningful and truthful.
1. FOCUS ON THE MAIN
After reading an article or hearing someone's loud statement, think about what they want to convince you of and what exactly they tell you, and then look at the details. It is useless to argue about how many people fell victim to Stalin's camps if your opponent's apartment is hung with portraits of the leader. Forget about metaphors and rhetorical devices for a while. Having selected the actual content of someone else's statement, you still cannot determine whether it is true or wrong. But you definitely cannot do without this step.
2. PAY ATTENTION TO QUOTES AND AUTHORITY LINKS
Remember: Newton's opinion is not authoritative on questions of quantum mechanics, your grandmother's name is on international politics, and even the most talented dermatologist is unlikely to understand enough climatology to make his claims about global warming unconditionally believe.
An equally common technique is selective citation.
Darwin wrote in The Origin of Species: “Frankly speaking, it may seem extremely absurd to suppose that natural selection could have formed an eye with all its inimitable inventions for regulating the focal length, for regulating the amount of penetrating light, for correcting for spherical and chromatic aberration ". But he wrote this only to immediately challenge the absurdity of this statement. When you come across a questionable quote, check it against the context. Perhaps it meant something completely different.
3. BE CAREFUL OF THE "STRAW STUFF" AND PERSONAL TRANSITION
People always tend to make their opponents look bad. If someone is in favor of legalizing marijuana, his opponent will say that he is seeking unrestricted access to drugs and undermining the foundations of public morality (although this is not the same thing). The straw scarecrow trick works especially well if you are not familiar with the arguments that your opponent rejects. It will be easier to convince you that there is simply nothing good there.
If that doesn't work, get ready to go personal. Whenever, instead of reasonably arguing, someone is called a fool or an idiot, you should be wary. Labels are hung only by those who cannot oppose anything meaningful to the opponent's statements. You should be interested not in what a person looks like and where he comes from, but in the factual side of the issue.
4. REMEMBER: MANY SPECIAL CASES ARE NOT PROOF
If they are proving to you that global warming is a fiction, referring at the same time to severe frosts and snowstorms that happened in a certain city last winter, there is reason to doubt the correctness of the argument. Likewise, the effectiveness of homeopathy is not proven by the fact that someone's aunt recovered from miraculous dummies. There are exceptions to any rule.
When proving their point of view, people often try to reverse this proportion and present the exception as the rule.
In this case, you need to be careful and return this proportion from head to feet.
5. AFTER THIS - DOESN'T MEAN A CONSEQUENCE OF THIS
If you have breakfast with oatmeal, and by lunchtime you feel sick, you are unlikely to attribute the disease-causing properties of oatmeal. Yet this is precisely what people who resort to the post hoc ergo propter hoc trick do. An example of this kind of thinking is mocked in The Tale of a Monastery Chaplain by the medieval poet Jeffrey Chaucer: a rooster named Chanticaire believes the sun to rise again and again because he wakes him up with his song. Don't be like Chanticlair - don't confuse a temporary relationship with a causal one.
6. DO NOT RELY ON FALSE BALANCE AND INAPPROPRIATE PLURALISM
A variety of points of view, which is indispensable in politics or aesthetics, is not always appropriate when it comes to facts. Striving to achieve a balance between opposing opinions often leads to failure: "the balance point between rational and crazy crap is ... crazy crap." If 98% of climatologists are confident about the reality of global warming, the point of view of the remaining two percent is unlikely to be given as much attention.
7. INTUITION OFTEN DOES US
If the "sixth sense" tells you the right solution to the problem, find reasons to doubt it. Sometimes intuition really does not fail (when you bypass a dark alley or rush into the corner of the goal to hit a soccer ball), but in the event of a rational argument, it is not your assistant. You need facts and logical reasoning, not premonitions that can lead you anywhere.
8. DOUBT YOUR OWN OBJECTIVITY
People often pay attention only to information that confirms their established beliefs. If you are sure that you are a good and intelligent person who will succeed in life, and your mother thinks the same way, then you will listen to her opinion more often than to the opinion of the boss who criticizes you.
Numerous omens and superstitions work on the basis of this confirmation bias.
If someone broke a pot, and after that a quarrel broke out, then this fact will be well remembered, while other broken pots will simply fade from memory. To come to the correct conclusion, you need to take into account the entire set of facts, and not just the most beloved and pleasant ones.
9. FOLLOW THE RULES OF THE GAME AND THEIR VIOLATIONS
Imagine someone asks you to prove that humans descended from humanoid apes. In this case, you can present the remains of an intermediate form - for example, Australopithecus. But where, your opponent will ask you, is the intermediate form between ape and australopithecus (and also between australopithecus and man)?
You can present new evidence as much as you like - this will not be enough for a stubborn opponent. You can always insert another link between two shapes. The logical error "god of gaps" works according to the same principle, when the unknown is explained by some mystical reasons. If we do not know something, this does not mean that it is unknowable in principle. Most likely, you just need to wait a little.
10. USE THE METHODS OF SCIENTIFIC THINKING
The scientific method, the foundations of which were laid in the 17th century, has since served people a considerable service (see increasing life expectancy, treating many diseases, preventing hunger, increasing leisure, etc.) But for some reason we still neglect it, being convinced that we can think rationally anyway. Meanwhile, intelligent thinking is far from something obvious.
Scientists comprehend the world using the method of deduction and hypotheses. First, you need to collect as much information as possible about the phenomenon you are interested in, then formulate a hypothesis that allows you to explain it, and then make a prediction based on the hypothesis.
The prediction must be verifiable - confirming or refuting - based on new observations and experiments. This, of course, is a slow process, because it often does not suit us. But the correct results are more or less guaranteed.
