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The Big Picture. GEA 101 Critical Thinking. Attendance!. The Importance of Context. When someone provides you with evidence for a 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?.
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The Big Picture GEA 101 Critical Thinking
The Importance of Context When someone provides you with evidence for a 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?
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.
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.”
What the Ad Says “a small masterpiece” --Entertainment Weekly
What the Reviewer Said “The credit sequence, with its jumpy frames and near-subliminal flashes of psychoparaphernalia, is a small masterpiece of dementia… B-”
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.
Mencius 孟子 “When it comes to animals, the Superior Man… cannot stand to eat their meat.”
Mencius Context: Mencius was speaking to the king. The king saw an ox about to be slaughtered (for religious reasons), but then ordered them to spare the ox (because he felt sorry for it) and use a different animal instead.
Mencius in Context “What you did was an act of humaneness. You saw the ox, but had not seen the sheep. When it comes to animals, if the Superior Man has seen them while alive, he cannot stand to watch them die. If he hears their screams, he cannot stand to eat their meat. Therefore he stays away from the kitchen.”
Hobby Lobby See the course website for a bunch of examples of quotes-out-of-context.
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”
Video Time! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07NMglQX6gE
If you claim to be taken out of context, you should be able to describe the relevant context in a way that shows you were taken out of context. (And what you say should be compatible with our evidence.)
Climategate “In late November 2009, more than 1,000 emails between scientists at the Climate Research Unit of the U.K.’s University of East Anglia were stolen and made public by an as-yet-unnamed hacker. Climate skeptics are claiming that they show scientific misconduct that amounts to the complete fabrication of man-made global warming.” – FactCheck.org
The Smoking Gun “I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (i.e., from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.” Using tricks to hide the decline in average global temperature!
What the Researchers Did • Observed increase in temperature since the 60’s. • Tree-ring data correlate with rise in temperature until the 60’s. Then they show “decrease” when we actually observe increase. • Trick: present real data alongside tree-ring data.
Yik Siu-ling • Survivor of Manila hostage crisis. • Shot in the jaw. • The doctor who operated on her (Andrew Burd) claims that her operation was delayed by administrators for publicity reasons.
From the SCMP A series of e-mails seen by the [South China Morning] Post suggested that several hospital administrators… expressed concern that rescheduling the operation sooner could attract negative media coverage. The operation took place five days later, which Burd said led to “unnecessary suffering” for Yik.
Lame Defense The hospital says that the emails have been “taken out of context” BUT: • The administrators didn’t release the emails to the public. • They didn’t explain how things had been taken out of context. • They didn’t deny the accusation that the surgery was delayed for political reasons.
It is not just words that can be deprived of the context that is needed to understand their significance…
Claim: CO2 emissions by humans burning fossil fuels does not result in global warming.
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.
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.
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).
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.
Cherry Picking If you see cherries in the store, you might notice that most or all of them were ripe and healthy. But you couldn’t conclude that most or all cherries are ripe and healthy. These ones have been selectively picked for good condition.
Obama the Narcissist Claim: Obama only cares about himself, not anyone else. Evidence: “the president… is inordinately fond of the first-person singular pronoun” – George F. Will
Stanley Fish Says: Eight “I”’s right off the bat: “Just over two months ago Ispoke with you… and I laid out what needed to be done.” “From the beginning I made it clear that I would not put any more tax dollars on the line.” “I refused to let those companies become permanent wards of the state.” “I refused to kick the can down the road. But I also recognized the importance of a viable auto industry.” “I decided then…”
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.
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?
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!
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!
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?
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.
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