We Are All Confident Idiots

Pop culture has been seen in the past to be a main ingredient in making our country’s I.Q. drop, or well, that the overall population is going to become dumber because of its rise. However, Malcolm Gladwell has felt differently, and decided to produce an article on how pop culture has effected the smarts of our country. In Malcolm Gladwell’s article “Brain Candy”, Gladwell effectively uses rhetorical appeals to prove his argument.

This quote from the book explains how the government’s plan is to insert useless information into the brains of individuals and give them the sense of intelligence but with useless information.

the seed of doubt in the mind of the reader as to the credibility of

Take a look at this study done by researchers at the University of Connecticut in 2005. A group of seventh graders were asked to read information on a website on the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus and evaluate the site’s credibility and trustworthiness. All but one student deemed the site to be credible due to extensive cited sources, pictures, and a wide array of scientific words. The truth? The site was a hoax designed just for this experiment (Galagan). One might ask, why weren’t most of the students able to recognize this? That’s because these students didn’t have a basic knowledge and

Zinser utilizes his readers emotional appeal, pathos, to prove that “fake” news programs, such as The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, use “deception and dilution” (365). He states that deception is giving the wrong information on purpose; yet, states that The Daily Show does not claim to be a legitimate news source (Zinser 366). Then, Zinser asserts that he “[assumes] that the audience is

Gerd Gigerenzer in “Deliberate Ignorance” distinguishes what this self-chosen defiance of knowledge means and what people feel when confining themselves to the situation. When someone willfully decides to remain ignorant even when the answer remains easily obtained, that person has decided to become deliberately ignorant. Gigerenzer understands how systematic ignorance can wreak havoc on large populations and impact people’s daily lives. This systematic production of ignorance deflects, covers up, and obscures facts. He stated a prime example of this “the tobacco industry’s efforts to keep people unaware of the evidence that smoking causes cancer” (Gigerenzer 1). In contrast deliberate ignorance involves a phenomenon where people choose not to have specified information.

The connections I anticipate my group members will make as a result of this question is to experiences that they have underestimated people by how the look, not how they truly are. They might think that someone is incapable of a task until they're proven wrong. This can also relate to the quote “Never judge a book by its cover”. It means to never make something or someone feel smaller or less important than they actually are, as in this saying it is the book. You never know how the book really is, by just looking at the cover. Additionally, connections I foresee my group will create based on the critical thinking question made is to the book “Cue for Treason” by Geoffrey Trease since all group members were in that group. In the book, underestimation was one of the several themes represented. This is to the character Burbage. Burbage thought that Kit was ten

In chapter one of The Dumbest Generation, Mike Bauerlein makes several statements about our generation and comes to a conclusion that helps set the groundwork for the entire book. His analysis of today’s youth states that the current generation is lacking when it comes to intellectual knowledge. He provides evidence that states that today’s under-thirty population in the United States does not have adequate knowledge, and their lack of knowledge with affect them greatly in their adulthood years.

Over the course of time technology has changed society’s views on various topics. In The Dumbest generation, Mark Bauerlein makes the argument that the youth generation is less knowledgeable than the older generation. This is not necessarily the case because the youth generation do not feel the need to know facts such as “who wrote the oratorio “Messiah” (which 35 percent of college seniors knew in 2002, compared with 56 percent in 1955) (Source B). As mentioned previously this is not by any means indicating that the youth generation is less knowledgeable, but instead shows that they have other resources to find out this information rather than just knowing it. Also, not knowing facts that were once very important to the older generations does

In chapter 3 in Freakonomics by Stevin Levitt and Stephen Dubner, it concentrates on conventional wisdom. The chapter begins by discussing about conventional wisdom, and how conventional can be wrong. Conventional wisdom was invented by John Kenneth Galbraith to explain generally acceptance by the public. It is furthered explained that conventional wisdom is associated with convenience. That many experts used it for their own agenda. But then explained how asking pointed questions can often overturn conventional wisdom. The authors provide some examples of when people have done some creative lying to draw attention. One of the examples was about getting people’s attention on how rape is a serious problem, it’s much more attention grabbing to tell people that it occurs in every one in three women, rather than the

As information technology continues to expand, we find that almost anyone can be a self-claimed expert in almost any field, without the cumbersome technicality of having an educational background on the matter they choose to discuss. This issue is further exacerbated when those individuals are given a public platform to convey their poorly substantiated opinions. Now it is important, as it has always been that the individual must take it upon their self to properly research the subject matter before developing an opinion. In this case, information technology has provided people with the ability to easily obtain information from reliable sources.

The way media is run justifies MacDonald’s argument that people are making things that are, “hastily slapped-together stuff… and would be foolish to waste much time or effort on writing or reading.” All in all technological advancements have made everything more accessible and eventually handicaps people from finding the truth for themselves.   Instead society just takes in the information that is spoon fed to them with no thinking required.

In Carrs article he discusses the way that the Internet gives us a false sense of knowledge. When we want to know about something we Google it. We find the article title that is closest to what we are searching for and we click it. In our everlasting quest to be know-it-alls we skim and skim or look for bold words and sentences until we feel that the information we have now obtained is suffice and we are considered knowledgeable about the topic. Although we feel this way, this “knowledge” is usually based off of two or three sentences that are compact and straight to the point.

Testimonial injustice involves preconceived opinions that are not based on reason or actual experience. In which, causes any individual to put a label on another individual’s words as a credibility deficit or a credibility excess. Fricker highlights, anyone can be a victim of epistemic injustices. In this paper, I will support Fricker’s argument that epistemic injustice creates wrongfully prejudgments about other’s credibility of their knowledge. She thinks that people should change their perceptions and then their beliefs to give people around them a fair chance to prove their credibility. I will be defending her through examples and back her up in some objection that other’s may have against her theory.

Assumptions are automatic opinion that come to mind. Many times we us our assumptions to make a decision on something or someone. When making assumption we sometimes overlook the facts and make an assumption based on what we think about that situation or person. We make assumption at times based on our experiences in life. Our assumptions also help to shape us into the individual we are today. Harris (2011) found that many individuals make daily decision based on assumptions. We operate in assumptions in many ways