Hey what’s up Thinkers! Kathy Gibbens here…
Ok, y’all, this episode is going to be even more short & sweet than they normally are, but first, let’s start off by doing a review of a fallacy we covered earlier this season, the Appeal to Silence. An Appeal to Silence happens when someone uses silence or the lack of a response as evidence for a claim. This fallacy is also sometimes called the Argument from Silence, and it’s basically saying that since someone doesn't say something, they must be in agreement with an idea or a person. But, you can’t make an assessment based on someone NOT saying something.
Question to ask yourself if you think you’re facing an Appeal to Silence is this: “Does the fact that they didn’t say anything really mean the claim is true?”
If you want to review or hear more about this fallacy, go back & check out Episode 137.
Is your highschooler not sure what they want to do after they graduate? Well, my friend, Beth from Well Spent Solutions, is an advisor for high school students who are trying to figure out what they want to do and she invited us to have our daughter take the YouScience Assessment. Y’all, this Assessment was so cool. It assessed the way her mind works and how she thinks to help highlight her gifts & talents, and then it matched that up with different career fields that use those particular gifts & talents. Beth took the time to go over her Assessment with us and can I just say that it was so validating for her to hear from an outside source all the amazing ways her brain works and to see such a wide array of options that would be a good fit for how her brain works. Guys, I highly recommend this assessment. And what’s super cool is that for listeners of Filter It Through A Brain Cell, Well Spent Solutions is offering an exclusive discount! Visit www.wellspentsolutions.com today and use the promo code FILTERIT20 to get 20% off of their program Discover Your Talents. That's www.wellspentsolutions.com with promo code FILTERIT20. The link will be in the show notes.
Alright, so I told you this would be a quick episode and it will be because I’m really just doing it so you’d know the language and have words to recognize & describe this Propaganda Tactic when it happens, so I’m not going to give a lot of examples because you don’t need them to understand this tactic.
Today’s Propaganda Tactic is called the Baseless Claim, and we’ll also talk about the very similar False Claim and Misleading Claim.
So let me just give you real quick definitions of these different versions of claims and it’ll make sense to you.
First up is the Baseless Claim: A Baseless Claim is a statement that is presented as accepted or established fact, but no evidence could be found to support the claim.
Similarly is the False Claim, which is a statement that is directly contradicted by fact and can be easily proven untrue.
And lastly, we have the Misleading Claim, which is a statement with a few elements or kernel of truth, which can easily be proven deceptive or fundamentally untrue. Misleading Claims are sometimes called a Half Truth. Unlike a flat-out lie, the person can't be accused of lying because the information presented is technically true, and if they’re accused of certain facts being left out, they can always pretend they didn’t know.
So, we have Baseless Claims, False Claims, andMisleading Claims. The similarities in all of these claims are that someone is making a claim and trying to present it as being true, when in reality the claim is either completely false, partly false or can’t be proven to be true.
The question to ask yourself when you’re faced with a claim that is being presented as being true but you’re not sure whether it is or not is super simple: “Is that really true?” *repeat* See what I told y’all? Short & Sweet today!
Remember: When you learn HOW to think, you will no longer fall prey to those who are trying to tell you what THEY want you to think and it all starts with asking one simple question: “Is that really true?”
