Distinctions are subtle differences among things. Care in making distinc- tions can help you overcome confusion and deal with complex issues effectively. Following are some important distinctions to recognize:
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Unwarranted Assumption Why Unwarranted
If one event occurs soon after Sometimes the closeness in time is merely coincidental. another, it must have been
caused by the other.
The way things are is the Because we humans are an imperfect species, what we way they are supposed to be. invent or establish is almost always open to improvement. Whatever hasn’t been done According to Edward Karsner and James Newman, “the first is impossible to do. steam vessel to cross the Atlantic carried, as part of its
cargo, a book which ‘proved’ that it was impossible for a steam vessel to cross anything, much less the Atlantic” (Larrabee, 91). The author of that book obviously assumed that what hadn’t yet been done couldn’t be done.
If an idea is in one’s mind, it All day long, every day of our lives, we read and hear other must have originated there. people’s ideas. Those we hear only once may be quickly
forgotten, but those we hear many times are reinforced, especially when we repeat them in our own words. In time we may mistakenly regard them as uniquely ours. Widely accepted ideas Nations and cultures can be as easily mistaken as individuals. must be true. History is filled with examples, such as the popular notion
that high self-esteem is correlated with success and low self- esteem with failure. Harold Stevenson and James Stigler tested this idea in a study of elementary students from Japan, Taiwan, China, and the United States. All the Asian students outperformed the Americans academically yet scored lower in self-esteem (Stevenson). Moreover, in 1990 a group of scholars, many of them favorably disposed to the self-esteem theory, reviewed the research on self-esteem and found, in the words of sociologist Neil Smelser, “the associations between self-esteem and its expected consequences are mixed, insignificant, or absent” (Kohn, 274).
Oversimplification
There’s nothing wrong with simplifying. In elementary school especially, teachers simplify their subjects. Professionals such as engineers and chemists simplify to communicate with people untrained in their fields. Oversimplification differs from simplification. Oversimplification omits essential information or ignores complexity. Consider this idea: “High school teachers have it made. They’re through at three o’clock every day and work only nine months of the year.” Though there is some truth to this statement, it’s inaccurate. Teachers often prepare four or five classes a day, grade homework, keep records, chaperone activities, and advise organizations. These activities often occur outside the normal eight-hour day. In addition, teachers are often required to take summer courses.
Oversimplification distorts reality and confuses discussion.
Errors of judgment
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The Distinction Why Necessary
The distinction between the Critical thinkers judge an idea on its own merits—not on the person and the idea celebrity status or expertise of the person expressing it.
Though experts usually have more informed views than novices, experts can be wrong and novices can have genuine insights. The distinction between Some people pile assertion upon assertion without evidence. If assertion and evidence these people are articulate, the casual thinker may be persuaded.
Critical thinkers judge ideas on how well supported—and supportable—they are. This is more important than how well the idea is expressed.
The distinction between We’re naturally attracted to the familiar. It’s easy to believe that familiarity and validity reasoning is valid merely because we’ve heard it many times.
Critical thinkers, however, are not swayed by familiarity. The distinction between Uncritical thinkers tend to think that once they have determined categorizing the person and a person’s philosophical, political, or religious perspective, they evaluating the argument need not consider the merits of the person’s argument. Such
thinkers are fond of saying “I’ve got her pegged—she’s a liberal” (or “a Democrat” or “a Republican”) and then closing their minds to the person’s ideas. Critical thinkers know that an argument deserves to be considered on its merits, regardless of who advances it.
The distinction between Uncritical thinkers tend to ignore this distinction. They might often and always, say something “always” occurs when the evidence supports seldom and never. only “often,” or they might say it “never” occurs when the
evidence supports only “seldom.” Critical thinkers are careful to make the distinction.
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Consider each of the seven errors of judgment. Think of a time when
you’ve committed each one and describe the situation. Explain how you reacted and what events followed. Then decide how you might have avoided each error and how the consequences might have been different. Double standard Irrelevant criterion Overgeneralizing or stereotyping Hasty conclusion Unwarranted assumption
Failure to make a distinction
Errors of judgment
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Oversimplification
exercise 49 (cont.)
Read each of the following passages carefully, looking for errors of judgment. Remember that such errors are sometimes implied rather than stated directly. When you find an error, explain it in the space provided.
A.
Sue: My English instructor makes us rewrite any composition that contains more than three errors in grammar or usage. And she’s always demanding that we do better in our writing. I think she dislikes us.
Ellen: I know what you mean. The professors at this college seem to think it’s Harvard.
B.
Morris: Did you notice all the people using food stamps in the grocery store this morning?
Olaf: Yeah. It seems everybody has them these days. It’s the fashionable thing to plead poverty.
Morris: That one woman was dressed well, too. I’ll bet her lazy husband was waiting for her outside in a big fancy car.
Olaf: It makes me sick, people like that leeching on society. Darwin had the right idea: survival of the fittest. If people can’t survive on their own, let them suffer.
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C.
Times change, and values in one age are different from values in another. Par- ents fail to realize this. That’s why they keep harping about avoiding alcohol and drugs and postponing sexual involvement. They think that what was right for them is right for us.
D.
Boris: Can you believe the price of textbooks? The average amount I spent for a book this semester was $80, and a good half of my books are paperbacks.
Elaine: Everybody’s complaining about it. When the cost of books keeps going up and up, there’s only one explanation: The authors and publishers are getting greedy.
Boris: Yeah, and you know one of my instructors has the nerve to make us buy a book he wrote. And get this: He teaches Ethics!
Elaine: Wow.
E.
Zeb: Did you read the latest about Senator Fosdick? The candidate running against him claimed he knowingly received illegal campaign contributions.
Clarissa: How ironic. Senator Fosdick has been talking about campaign reform for years. Now it turns out he’s as big a crook as the rest of them. What a hypocrite.
F.
Cynthia: A study has shown that as the speed limit has been raised, there’s been an increase in traffic fatalities.
Mark: Speed limits don’t cause traffic fatalities. Careless drivers do.