Week 4 - Identifying Assumptions, Biases, and Common Fallacies

Activity 1 :: Activity 2 :: Activity 3 :: Activity 4

Key Concepts and Questions 

As you read the text and work through the MindEdge Modules, you'll want to pay particularly close attention to the information regarding the following key concepts:

1.  The ways we assess information:

• Inert Information: taking into mind information that, though memorized, we do not understand.
• Activated Ignorance: taking into the mind, and actively using, information that is false though we believe it to be true.
• Activated Knowledge: taking into the mind, and actively using, information that is true, and understood.

2.    Assessing information by applying the standards:

• Is the information clear or unclear?
• Is the information relevant or irrelevant?
• Is the information fairly gathered and reported or biased?
• Is the information accurate or inaccurate?
• Is the information consistently applied or inconsistently applied?
• Is the information adequate or insufficient?

3.  The relationship between assumptions and inferences:

• Assumption: Something we take for granted or presuppose. All reasoning is based on assumptions.
• Inference: A conclusion we make about a situation based on our assumptions.

4.  Assessing assumptions by applying the standards:

• Is the assumption clear or unclear?
• Is the assumption justified or unjustified?
• Is the assumption consistent or contradictory?

5.  Assessing inferences by applying the standards:

• Is the inference clear or unclear?
• Is the inference logical or illogical?
• Is the inference justified or unjustified?
• Is the inference deeply thought out or superficial?
• Is the inference reasonable or unreasonable?
• Is the inference consistent or contradictory?

6.  Understanding media bias and becoming a critical consumer of the news:

• Understand the basic agenda of the media
• Use knowledge of logic to deconstruct news stories and reconstruct them with alternative biases and slants
• Learn how to redefine issues, access alternative sources, and assess assumptions and implications.
• Learn how to identify low-credibility stories by noticing vested interests.

7.  Three types of thinkers:

• Uncritical thinkers: intellectually unskilled thinkers
• Skilled manipulators: weak-sense critical thinkers
• Fair-minded critical thinkers: strong-sense critical thinkers

8.  The relationship of fallacies to the human mind:

• We are resistant to recognizing poor reasoning when it supports what we intensely believe.
• Humans by nature are egocentric, sociocentric and self-interested.
• Cultivation of intellectual virtues is crucial to human development.
• Recognizing the most common tricks of persuasion can help us better understand ourselves and others.