I wrote the original version of this four months ago, when the only serious misinformation was about a contagious and deadly disease. Since then, things have gotten quite a bit more complicated. In an effort to turn down the heat, I decided this post is worth publicizing. In honor of the beginning of wall to wall political coverage, I am reposting instructions on how to analyze rhetoric:
One statement about Covid-19 that cannot be disputed is that there is a lot of highly suspect information around about it. Most of us are suffering from some degree or another of misery trying to sort the valid from the idiotic from the merely incorrect claims swirling about and infecting our social media. I can't help with developing a vaccine, but I might be of some use in providing tools that everyone can use to sort the claims supported by facts from the nonsense. Lawyers spend all our time at work not devoted to meetings to analyzing evidence. Over centuries, the legal profession in the English-speaking world has developed a set of principles we use to distinguish useful evidence from useless. Those rules have been codified in the US, at least, as the Federal Rules of Evidence. Each state has a version with some small variations, but mostly following the federal version.
One statement about Covid-19 that cannot be disputed is that there is a lot of highly suspect information around about it. Most of us are suffering from some degree or another of misery trying to sort the valid from the idiotic from the merely incorrect claims swirling about and infecting our social media. I can't help with developing a vaccine, but I might be of some use in providing tools that everyone can use to sort the claims supported by facts from the nonsense. Lawyers spend all our time at work not devoted to meetings to analyzing evidence. Over centuries, the legal profession in the English-speaking world has developed a set of principles we use to distinguish useful evidence from useless. Those rules have been codified in the US, at least, as the Federal Rules of Evidence. Each state has a version with some small variations, but mostly following the federal version.
The statement of purpose of the federal rules is: "to administer every proceeding fairly, eliminate unjustifiable expense and delay, and promote the development of evidence law, to the end of ascertaining the truth and securing a just determination." Here's the link to the entire set of rules, should you be curious. If we have ever needed a tool to ascertain truth and secure a just determination, now is that time. Let me try to demonstrate how these rules can help anyone judge the merits of any assertion.
There are, of course, differences between a trial, with a judge and a jury, and an ordinary person reading something posted from a friend's Facebook page or Twitter account. There's no judge, and no opposing counsel making objections. You, Dear Reader, are going to have to be both judge and opposing counsel, objecting to irrelevant or inaccurate evidence and ruling on your own objections. To do that, you have to understand a couple of things: 1. The difference between a fact and a conclusion; and 2. the importance of a definition.
One thing that you have to understand that seems obvious but very much is not is: What is a fact? The Rules of Evidence don't define 'fact.' Webster's has one that takes a page or so. The best definition that I can give you -- and I don't have authority to cite to support it, so please just take my word for this one, single thing -- is that a fact is not a conclusion. That distinction is vital and very difficult to make. We think in conclusions. Let me give you an example:
"Karen has a blue car parked in her driveway" contains both facts and conclusions: the facts: there is a car, it's blue, and it's parked in a driveway. The conclusions: the driveway belongs to Karen. (Lawyers will also argue that 'car' and 'blue' are too vague to be casually deemed facts. Is an SUV a 'car?' What, exactly, is 'blue?' We'll get to those later.)
The reason that the bit about whether the driveway belongs to me is a conclusion is that ownership of property depends on other facts, not included in that statement. What facts led the speaker of this terribly vague sentence to conclude that the driveway belongs to Karen (that's me, by the way)? The witness who spoke this would have to say whether she just assumed it was my driveway because she has seen me coming out of the door of the house to which the driveway leads; she's seen mail with my name on it delivered to the address of the house to which the driveway is attached, or other ordinary observations. For most cases, that's enough. I am connected to the driveway enough to conclude that it's mine. It is vital to remember, however, that the witness has seen other things that led her to conclude that the driveway is mine.
Let's stick with this fact v. conclusion bit a little longer. "Jack Ruby murdered Lee Harvey Oswald" is a conclusion. Millions of people saw Ruby shoot Oswald as Oswald was being moved from one jail to another. Why isn't that statement just considered a fact? That's because 'murder' is a legal conclusion; concluding that something is 'murder' requires finding that several conditions existed at th time. "Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald with a pistol on November 24, 1963" is a set of facts. We have pictures of men identified by those names, one of who has a pistol and pulls the trigger of that pistol, firing a bullet that hits the other one on November 24, 1963. For us to conclude that Ruby murdered Oswald, we would need evidence establishing that Ruby "intentionally or knowingly caused the death" of Oswald. (There are some other things that qualify, but this is the main one) Did Ruby know the gun was loaded? Did he know that pulling the trigger would cause the bullet to fire? Did he know that Oswald was actually another person? The prosecuting attorney has provide evidence to the jury on all those points. The defense then can argue, to use one example, that Ruby was in the middle of a psychotic break from reality and thought the Oswald was a werewolf whom he needed to shoot with the silver bullet to save Dallas or other evidence proving that Ruby didn't actually have the mental state necessary to be guilty of murder.
It takes practice to make this distinction, but once you get good at it you will make it all the time, everywhere. Also, I will remind everyone constantly during the course of all these essays. We'll all get plenty of practice. It is a trick used by a deceptive writer to present conclusions as facts, or to leave the concluding to the reader entirely. I will show examples of this tactic later, but start looking for writings that advocate something and using only conclusions to support it.
I mentioned that 'car' and 'blue' were too vague to be useful earlier. One thing that lawsuits have over other areas where people dispute over evidence is that lawyers are constrained by statutes, rules, or caselaw as to what we can call 'blue.' As noted above, murder is a conclusion drawn from a specific set of facts. The most important part of any rule or statute is the first bit, where the enactors define the important words used in the rest of it. In Texas, for example, single axle trailers are 'motor vehicles' and mobility scooters are not, which sound idiotic since the second one actually has a motor and the first one doesn't. Still, the law governing motor vehicle titles defines trailers into the law and scooters out of it.
When evaluating whether something is true or not -- 'true' is a conclusion! -- always find out how the advocate defines significant words or phrases. What does the writer mean by the words she uses?
Let's use that word "blue." Light is 'blue' at approximately 490 - 450 nanometers wavelength interval and a frequency of approximately 610 - 670 terahertz. That's still a lot of colors that can be 'blue,' but it does allow for an objective test to see if the color observed is 'blue;' does it reflect light within those parameters? If I needed a more specific definition, I might refer to the Pantone charts and define 'blue' as Pantone 19-4052. Any color that has a wavelength and frequency outside of those numbers, or that isn't Pantone 19-4052 isn't 'blue.' If a writer leaves important definitions up to the reader to fill in the blanks, consider that writer either wrong or deceptive. If the writer says ‘everyone knows,’ immediately conclude that said writer is trying to deceive you. The writer is obligated to state openly clearly the meanings of any important words or phrases and not doing so is, to quote Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, ‘the odor of mendacity.’
Note something else here. Definitions can be much too narrow. I picked one color -- Pantone 19-4052 -- and made it the standard for 'blue.' I didn't explain or provide evidence why that one color is 'blue' and nothing else is. Excessively narrow definitions are a common rhetorical trick of deceptive writers. The best test to see whether a definition is too narrow or not is, if possible, to ask the person proposing it about other things that could be included but aren't. In our rather silly example, if you asked me why I didn't pick Pantone 2685 to be 'blue?' I would respond that that color is purple, and then we would argue about what 'purple' means, but at least we have some evidence on which to base the discussion. If the author can't explain their reasons or argues about something else entirely, then it's reasonable to dismiss their assertions, at least on what 'blue' means.
Rhetorical questions: One common method advocates use to deflect people from noting that her arguments are absolute bunk is the rhetorical question. Writers use such questions to get an effect or make an assertion, not to get a reply. So far, so much English 301, the dreaded freshman comp. It's a perfectly respectable tactic provided that the author then goes on to actually answer it. If the writer has an entire paragraph of rhetorical questions, you can safely ignore everything else they say.
The most deception subset of the rhetorical question goes by the nickname "'whataboutism', which I include under rhetorical questions because that's the typical manner of phrasing such things. As the link says, this is a way of deflecting criticism by asking about some terrible thing other people do. Advocates for the Soviet Union usually responded to criticism of gulags by referencing Jim Crow laws. In a trial, such tactics would draw a loud objection about relevance which would be sustained. If you're reading something in which the writer says someone can't criticize police brutality because they are also in favor of Roe v. Wade, that's a good example of 'whataboutism' and should cause you to doubt the writer's credibility. (And to be perfectly bipartisan, if someone defends Roe by accusing opponents of being racists, that is also 'whataboutism.') Even if the whatabout is valid, using it to buttress an argument about something unrelated is deceptive and should make you doubt the person’s credibility.
There are several million other ways advocates cover for the fact that their arguments are without merit, and the next essays will go into them in more detail. Your homework for the next few days is to look for unsupported conclusions and deceptive 'whataboutism.'
To summarize: anyone making an argument is obligated to provide facts to support the argument. Conclusions are not facts.
