Carl Sagan, although best known for his popular explanations of space, was also noted for a common-sense approach to critical thinking. Throughout his career, he tried to balance skepticism and openness to new ideas. His efforts were not limited to science, and he gave us 20 guides for detecting spurious information. Those guides are ever more important in society today since truth no longer seems to be a valued trait. Below are his 20 guidelines for how to detect phony information.
- Ad hominem attacks – this is an attack on a person rather than what the person believes.
- Arguments based upon an authority – you can find a so-called authority for almost any belief. Valuing information based on what an authority figure says is simply looking for someone to confirm what you already believe or suspect to be true.
- Arguments using adverse consequences – this is often used to stoke fear and rarely has a valid rational basis in fact.
- Appeal to an absence of evidence – this is based upon the argument that since something hasn’t been shown to be false, then it must be true. This is often the argument used to validate conspiracy theories.
- Special pleading – this is an argument used when you use emotions to support what you want others to accept.
- Begging the question – this is an argument used to justify a position where there is no proven causality. This argument should be followed up by asking for the evidence that causality exists.
- Observational selection – this is an argument based upon a biased set of observations.
- Statistics of small numbers – this is an argument based upon a very limited sample.
- Misunderstanding statistics – this is an argument based upon faulty statistical analysis.
- Inconsistency – this is an argument that uses one situation to make the case but refuses to consider another situation that refutes the case to be made.
- Non Sequitur – this is an argument in which the case being made doesn’t follow the evidence being presented.
- Post hoc, ergo propter hoc – this is an argument based upon something that has happened and drawing a conclusion that has no logical connection to the event.
- Meaningless question – this is an argument based up on a hypothetical inquiry that makes no sense.
- False dichotomy – this is an argument in which only counselors have two voices, one of which is extreme.
- Short-term vs long-term – this is an argument that requires a false choice between a concept need and a longer-term desire.
- Slippery slopes – this is an argument that projects a current decision into a future extreme possibility.
- Confusion of correlation and causation – this is an argument based on a statistical correlation that has no causal basis.
- Straw man – this is an argument in which a hypothetical situation is used to display what is undesirable.
- Half-truth – this is an argument that is based upon only using information that is supportive of the position being taken.
- Weasel words – this is an argument in which the words used are so general that it’s hard to refute.
There was a time in our society when blatant misinformation, distortion of facts, faulty logic, and outright lies were a mark of shame. That no longer seems to be the case. Why is that?
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“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.” – Carl Sagan