GEA 101 Critical Thinking Attendance The Importance of Context When someone provides you with evidence for a truthclaim you have to ask Does this evidence really support the claim Is there other relevant evidence I should look for before assessing the claim ID: 319817
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Slide1
The Big Picture
GEA 101 Critical ThinkingSlide2
Attendance!Slide3
The Importance of Context
When someone provides you with evidence for a truth-claim, you have to ask:
Does this evidence really support the claim?
Is there other relevant evidence I should look for before assessing the claim?Slide4
Words out of ContextSlide5
Out of Context
Words are taken out of context when:
You present some, but not all, of what someone said.
What you present makes it seem as if they believe or support some claim.
If we look at all of what they said, it is clear that they do not support or believe that claim.Slide6
Example
Original context: “Only crazy people will rush out and buy this book.”
Out of context quote: “people will rush out and buy this book.”Slide7
What the Ad Says
“a small masterpiece”
--
Entertainment WeeklySlide8
What the Reviewer Said
“
The credit sequence
, with its jumpy frames and near-subliminal flashes of
psychoparaphernalia
,
is a small masterpiece
of
dementia… B-”Slide9
Every
quote is taken out of its original context. That’s why it’s a quote and not a reproduction.
This is fine if the person providing the quote has also provided enough context that the quote does not mislead you into thinking someone meant something they did not mean.Slide10
What Darwin Said
“
To
suppose that the eye
with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration,
could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest
degree
…”Slide11
What Darwin Said
“…
Yet
reason tells me
, that if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist; if further, the eye does vary ever so slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case; and if any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful to an animal under changing conditions of life, then
the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection
, though insuperable by our imagination,
can hardly be considered real
.”Slide12
Dishonesty Writ Large
“Evolutionists
are notorious for expressing objection when their quotes are used against them. This reveals the dogmatic nature of their faith, because real scientists always welcome evidence which contradicts mainstream
theories.” –
Conservapedia
, “Quote Mining”Slide13
Video Time!
http
://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=07NMglQX6gE
Slide14
I
t
is not just words that can be deprived of the context that is needed to understand their significance…Slide15
Claim: CO
2
emissions by humans burning fossil fuels does not result in global warming.Slide16
Out of Context: 1998-presentSlide17
Broader Context: 1850-presentSlide18
Trends
When you see a chart describing what happened in the last 10 years, or last 10 months, or last 10 weeks, you’re seeing the information out of context. What happened before then?
Sometimes short-term trends are all that matter
. I don’t care about the stock market 20 years ago.
But sometimes it’s the longer trend that matters
, as in the global warming trend.Slide19
Are there lots more Americans on Welfare?Slide20
…Not really.Slide21
Truncated Charts
When the y-axis of a chart does not start at zero (a “zero baseline”), you’re seeing what’s called a “truncated”, “torn” or “gee whiz” graph. You’re seeing the information it presents out of context.
What seems like a 400% increase might actually be an increase of less than 12%. If no numbers at all are on the y-axis, the chart tells you almost nothing at all. Slide22
Truncated Charts
Sometimes truncated charts are OK
, for example, when tiny changes make very big differences (like fluctuations in stock prices), or when people are very familiar with the information be presented (like charts of the daily temperature… it would be silly to start them at 0 Kelvin, which is -273.15 Celsius).Slide23
Always check the axes of your charts to know what you’re looking at.
If a chart is truncated, that can be a warning sign.
Do the size differences on the chart correspond to the difference in importance of the numbers charted
? If they don’t, the chart is misleading.Slide24
Context: Absolutes and Comparatives
The Russian Academy of Medicine estimates that there are 1 million Russians infected with HIV/ AIDS. Consider these two claims:
Claim: There is an AIDS epidemic in Russia.
Claim: AIDS is not a serious problem in Russia.Slide25
Which claim is closer to the truth? Well, it depends.
It depends on how many people there are in Russia
. It turns out there are 142 million Russians. So the rate of infection is 1/142, or 0.7%.
It also depends on what the rate is in other countries
. Is 0.7% high or low?Slide26
Claim: You should not go skydiving.
Evidence: You’re 8.75 times more likely to die skydiving than skiing!
So if 10% of
skiiers
die, 87.5% of skydivers die!Slide27
But those aren’t the numbers. If you go skiing one time on one day, you have a 0.8 in a million chance of dying.
If you go skydiving one time on one day, you have a 7 in a million chance of dying.
Maybe you still don’t want to go, but context certainly affects that decision, doesn’t it!Slide28
Summary
Absolute numbers can be misleading
. India has about 330,000 people in prison. A lot or a little?
Rates can also be misleading
. Russia has 615 prisoners for every 100,000 people. A lot or a little?
Even comparisons can be misleading
. If country X has twice as many people in prison today than in 1990, is that bad? What if they have twice as many residents than in 1990?Slide29
What does it mean?
One way absent context can be misleading is when normal words are being used in a special way, and that fact is not indicated.
A clear statement of
what is being discussed
is important context that should not be omitted.Slide30
Regnerus Study
Here was a headline from CBS News regarding a study published by Mark
Regnerus
, at the University of Texas at Austin:
“Kids of Gay Parents Fare Worse, Study Finds”
But something is strange here. Other studies have found in the past that gay parents are better. What could be going on?Slide31
Regnerus Study
In the study, participants were asked about a number of personal details– did they use drugs? Did they think of committing suicide? Were they happy?
They were also asked about how they were raised. In stable families? Did their parents get divorced? Were they raised by single mothers?Slide32
Regnerus Study
If the children were raised by two opposite-sex parents for their entire childhood, they were raised by their “still intact biological families,” one of the two main comparison groups in the study.
If they were raised by a parent or parents who, at any point, had a same-sex relationship, they were raised by “gay parents,” the other group.Slide33
Regnerus Study
Only 2 of the 15,000 people randomly contacted for the study were raised by gay parents for their entire childhood (18 years).
Only 8 were raised by gay parents for at least 10 years. (The 2 before + 6 more)
Only 18 were raised by gay parents for at least 5 years. (The 8 before + 10 more)Slide34
Regnerus Study
Most “children of lesbian mothers” were children raised in single-parent households, after the divorce of their opposite-sex parents (who they lived with longer), where their single mother had a short-term relationship with another woman.
All
“children of still intact biological families” were raised in stable 2-parent households for their entire childhood.Slide35
What does it mean?
“Kids of Gay Parents Fare Worse, Study Finds”
“Kids whose parents at one point had same-sex relationships, of any duration, and who may have lived in single-parent homes with divorced parents, do worse than kids raised by the same two heterosexual parents for their entire childhood.”Slide36
Similar Example
You can find people making the claim that blacks are “less intelligent” than whites or Asians.
Why? Because they score lower on
intelligence
tests.
One important question to ask, though, is: “Do intelligence tests actually measure intelligence?”Slide37
HW1
Find an example,
from your own life and experiences
, where a piece of information was taken out of context in a misleading way.Slide38
Rubric
Describe the information taken out of context: 1 mark
Describe the claim the information was used to support, and who was making the claim: 2 marks
Describe the broader context and why the information presented was misleading: 2 marks
Students’ own experience: 1 mark