POLI 110 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Scientific Method
8 Feb 2016
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Consider the claim: foreign aid is beneficial. The war against terror is bound up we should listen bono. Arguing that a claim is true because a person in position of authority says that it is true. Problems with authority as a basis for claims. Too easy to cherry-pick the authorities who agree with us. Claims based on the scientific method versus claims based on authority. Reveals the method used to find the information. Base for claims: common sense or just make sense . Arguing that a claim is true because it"s what everyone knows . Often based on superficial similarities between things. Often based on analogy between very different situations. Often strong reasons why the opposite also makes sense. Consider the effectiveness of obama"s campaign ads: A claim based on one"s own personal (nonsystematic) observation or on one"s own reaction to an observation. We generalize too quickly from a small number of instances and our own experience.
