Practice Exercises: Chapter 12

Group 1: Experience vs. Testimony

Determine whether the following knowledge is based on Direct Experience or Testimony.

1. Knowing that the stove is hot because you touched it.

2. Knowing that the Earth has a molten iron core.

3. Knowing that your great-grandmother’s name was Martha.

4. Knowing that it is currently raining outside because you are standing in the rain.

5. Knowing that the Battle of Hastings occurred in 1066.

Group 2: Evaluating Experts

Evaluate the following “experts” based on the criteria for Epistemic Authority.

6. A world-renowned architect gives a televised interview arguing against the safety of a new vaccine. Should you accept this as expert testimony? Why or why not?

7. A scientist funded by a major oil company publishes a study claiming that carbon emissions have no impact on global temperatures. Which “Red Flag” of expertise is most prominent here?

8. If 97% of climate scientists agree on a conclusion, but one scientist with a PhD from Harvard disagrees, which source should a Reasonable Person follow according to the Consensus Rule?

9. Why is “Peer Review” considered a necessary component of professional accomplishments for an expert?

Group 3: Mitigated Skepticism & Fake News

Apply the tools of Mitigated Skepticism to the following digital scenarios.

10. You see a headline on a site called www.the-real-truth-daily.net that claims: “NASA ADMITS THE MOON IS MADE OF CHEESE.” What is the first step of Lateral Reading you should take?

11. Which stance is more logically sound: Global Skepticism or Mitigated Skepticism?

12. A news story uses “Loaded Language” (Chapter 5) to make you feel intense anger toward a specific group of people. According to our study of “Fake News,” what should this emotional reaction signal to you?

Group 4: Strong Objectivity & Standpoint Theory

Answer the following based on the work of Sandra Harding.

13. In Harding’s view, why is a group of researchers who all share the same social background (e.g., all wealthy men) actually less objective than a diverse group?

14. What does it mean for knowledge to be “situated”?

15. True or False: Strong Objectivity argues that we should ignore the identity of the researcher to find the truth.

Group 5: Extraordinary Claims & Miracles

Apply Hume’s Maxim to the following scenarios.

16. Your neighbor, who is known for being a bit of a prankster, tells you they saw a ghost in their kitchen last night. According to Hume, which is more likely: that the laws of nature regarding the afterlife were suspended, or that your neighbor is mistaken/pranking you?

17. Explain the Sagan Standard in your own words.

18. Why does Christine Overall argue that frequent miracles would actually make science impossible?

Answer Key

Group 1: Experience vs. Testimony

1. Direct Experience.

2. Testimony. (You cannot see the core; you trust scientific instruments and reports).

3. Testimony. (Family records or verbal history).

4. Direct Experience.

5. Testimony. (Historical records).

Group 2: Evaluating Experts

6. No. He is an expert in architecture, not medicine or immunology. This is the “Outside the Field” fallacy.

7. Conflict of Interest (Bias).

8. The 97%. A Reasonable Person follows the Consensus of the field, not a single outlier, regardless of their credentials.

9. It ensures that the work has been vetted and approved by other experts in the same field, reducing the chance of individual error or bias.

Group 3: Mitigated Skepticism

10. Open a new tab and search for “NASA moon cheese claim” on reputable sites like the Associated Press, Reuters, or NASA’s official .gov website.

11. Mitigated Skepticism. Global skepticism is self-defeating because it claims to know that knowledge is impossible.

12. It should signal that the story is designed to hijack your emotions to bypass your critical thinking faculties.

Group 4: Strong Objectivity

13. Because they are likely to share the same “blind spots” and mistake their specific cultural perspective for a universal fact.

14. It means knowledge is always produced by a specific person who exists in a specific social and historical context.

15. False. Strong Objectivity argues we should acknowledge the researcher’s standpoint to account for potential bias.

Group 5: Extraordinary Claims

16. The neighbor is mistaken/pranking. Human error is a common event; the suspension of natural laws is (by definition) the least likely event.

17. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If a claim breaks our fundamental understanding of how the world works, the proof must be overwhelming.

18. Because science relies on the uniformity of nature. If the laws of physics changed randomly due to miracles, we could never rely on experiments or predictions.