Defending against deception (logical Reasoning)
- 1. Defending Against Deception Logical Reasoning Chapter# 7 Presented By: Zaib un Nisa
- 2. • Deception: Deception has been practiced in so many ways, and new ways are being created so fast by so many creative people, that we readers, consumers, voters, and potential converts have a tough time keeping our defenses up. • Example: The primary purpose of ads and sales presentations is not to provide you with helpful information but to encourage you to buy a product.
- 3. • Exaggeration and Lying: A lie is a false statement made with the intent to deceive. What are salespersons doing when they say that "$15,000 is absolutely the best price" they can sell you the car for, and then after ten more minutes of negotiating they drop the price another $500? The statement about the $15,000 was false—just another sales pitch. We consumers are so used to this sort of behavior that we hardly notice that it's an outright lie.
- 4. • People at home, hoping to make some money in their spare time, are often exploited by scams. Scams are systematic techniques of deception. They are also called cons. Here is an example called the craft con. In a magazine ad, a company agrees to sell you instructions and materials for making some specialty items at home, such as baby booties, aprons, table decorations, and so on. You are told you will get paid if your work is up to the company's standards. After you've bought their package deal, knitted a few hundred baby booties, and mailed them, you may be surprised to learn that your work is not up to company standards. No work ever is; the company is only in the business of selling instructions and materials.
- 5. Telling Only Half the Truth: Although some advertisements contain lies and exaggerations, the more sophisticated ones walk the narrow line between truth and falsehood. You get a little truth, but not enough. A sophisticated ad doesn't lie outright and say, "Our toothpaste is 25 percent more effective than all other brands." Instead, it says "Our toothpaste is 25 percent more effective." When we see this ad, we should ask ourselves: "More effective than what?" The advertiser counts on the fact that we will falsely believe it is more effective than all the competing toothpastes. Yet when the Federal Trade Commission demands to know what the company means by "more effective," the answer will perhaps be that it is 25 percent more effective than no brushing at all. When ads make comparisons, we readers need to be sensitive about what is being compared to what.
- 6. • Using select information to sway someone's opinion is called the technique of selective representation. It is also called telling a half-truth. Logical reasoners should look for the full story, not just the select information in an ad. A logical reasoner's duty is to consider both sides, not merely the good side. It is the propagandist who pushes one side no matter what. • Headline: Former Mental Patients Suspected in 14 Killings in County. suspend judgment rather than leap to a conclusion with insufficient evidence
- 7. • The hedge is another common but devious tactic used by the enemies of critical thinkers. It is based on selectively presenting information so that what the speaker appears to be saying can later be denied. An ad on a webpage might say, "You could make $100,000 this year if you …. " The word "could" is the hedge. Whether you could reasonably expect to make $100,000 is something else again. At first the ad appears to be saying you will make a $100,000, but on careful reading, you realize that the advertiser could claim, "Hey, we never actually promised a $100,000." Hedge words are also called weasel words.
- 8. • Telling the Truth, While Still Misleading: Even when you get all the relevant facts, there can be serious problems. It depends on how the facts are presented. Consider Grandpa's Granola Bars— pressed bars of breakfast cereal. The primary ingredient in Grandpa's Granola Bars is sugar. The manufacturer of this "health food bar" does not want to broadcast this fact, yet the manufacturer must obey federal law and list the ingredients in the order of their weight. (The U.S. Food and Drug Administration requires the main ingredient to be listed first.) The corporate management that is pushing Grandpa's Granola Bars has found a clever way to tell the sugar story: List each of the seven kinds of sugar separately. In this case, at the top of the list goes "rolled oats," followed by "sucrose, dextrose, fructose, honey, chocolate chips, invert sugar, and corn syrup." Clever of the manufacturer, but deceitful. The unwary reader might conclude, "Ah, the bar is mostly rolled oats." It is mostly sugar.
- 9. • Saying Little with Lots of Words: Heat Wave Blamed for Record High Temperatures Across U.S. What else would you blame? This headline has low information content. It contains no information that isn't already known by everybody.
- 10. • Persuading Without Using Reasons: Suppose you see a billboard with a picture of a smiling doughnut and the phrase "Mmmmm, DOUBLE DONUTS." The advertiser hopes to trigger a gut-level response so you will buy the product. What information are you getting from that billboard? You are not being given a reason to buy those donuts. This ad is designed merely to create a mood and to provide name recognition for the product. We open a magazine and notice a beautiful woman wearing Gentleman Jim jeans saying, "I like to be close to my Gentleman Jims." The advertiser is hoping readers will identify with the woman and they will want to do what she would like them to do. The ad lures us readers unconsciously into buying Gentleman Jims for this "reason," but the ad is giving us no good reason.
- 11. Deceiving with Loaded Language: Early one morning many years ago, the Libyans were yawning when United States bombers streaked out of the clouds and bombed the President’s palace. The next day, Russian newspapers objected to this attack by the United States. In reporting that fact, one U.S. news story said, "As expected, the Russian Bear kicked up a fuss about Libya." The use of the phrase "kicked up a fuss" is a propagandistic slap at the Russians; it is an example of loaded language. So is the phrase "as expected," which tends to discount or dismiss the complaint. An unloaded way to present the information would have been for the newspaper to say, "The Russians strongly objected to the Libyan incident." Saying it that way is sticking to the facts. Logical reasoners must be on the alert to sort out the facts from the values
- 12. • Using Rhetorical Devices: Terms used to slant a passage and influence the reader to accept the writer’s attitudes are called slanters or rhetorical devices. The name “slanter” comes from the metaphor of tilting an otherwise level playing field. The most common rhetorical devices have names. We’ve already mentioned euphemism, exaggeration, half-truths, innuendo, lying, sarcasm. A dysphemism is the opposite of a euphemism. It is a term used in order to produce a negative effect. If you call his freedom fighter a terrorist, or her grandfather’s cemetery a boneyard, you’ve chosen a dysphemism.
- 13. A proof surrogate is a less well-known rhetorical device, but we’ve all seen it. When a politician says, “Everyone knows there should not be this kind of tax increase,” this remark is claiming there’s a proof, but not giving the proof. That phrase, “Everyone knows” is a substitute for the proof, a “surrogate” for it.