By: Logan Eslinger Mrs. Cannon 3rd Block The Great Crow Fallacy By: Logan Eslinger Mrs. Cannon 3rd Block

What is The Great Crow Fallacy? It is a way of persuasion that emphasizes the idea of using unsupported facts and transforming them into an anecdote (A short amusing or interesting story about a real event) that is almost completely convincing to the audience of being real, supported data.

It originated from a study attempted to be proven by Terry Maple. He observed a crow dropping walnuts in front of cars as they came by and crushed the walnuts. He published an article posing a question on whether crows use cars as nutcrackers. Maple was aware of the “anecdote” he published and implied that later research would answer his question.

But On The Other Hand… Two biologists observed the same account many years later, except this time it was more than one acorn (palm fruits) in a 20-minute time period. They used Maple’s article as a basis for their observations and published another article answering his question; they said crows do use automobiles as nutcrackers. The public used their observations as direct evidence that crows are smart, and that they are capable of understanding how cars can be used as nutcrackers. Little did they know that they have been tricked by this common logical fallacy of anecdotes.

Lesson 1: Don’t Confuse Anecdotes with Data One or two interesting stories do not prove something to be fact. Most of the time, the article will present a topic that is highly interesting to the reader, making it very “fun” to read. This also makes it more believable…

Continued… We must be able to differentiate between the hard evidence (data from reliable sources) and someone who observes an interesting event and tries to write a story about it. Real Data! (U.S. Census Bureau)

Lesson 2: Remember the Blind Men and the Elephant Our personal experience seldom gives us a “full picture.” Like how it says in the Blind Men story, each person felt the elephant and claimed it to be a different thing. This proves the human tendency to put great weight to an immediate experience without thought.

Continued… For example, former 49ers quarterback Bob Waters was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s Disease. Soon after, local newspapers were fast to post a story about how the groundskeeper for that field used certain lawn fertilizers and caused Waters to obtain this disease. This was a personal experience and should have been taken with a grain of salt. This was not backed up by scientific data, but was widely believed to be true. It’s easy to be manipulated by personal experience stories without data.

Lesson 3: Not All “Studies” Are Equal Many different organizations may conduct a study on one event and come up with drastically different results. This can happen through guesswork or weak study procedures.

It’s the same event, but different data. Don’t be fooled… Make sure you get your information from a trustworthy source that has a reputation of giving accurate information.

Lesson 4: Saying It Doesn’t Make It So We must be aware of the common tactic of repetition. Something might have been said, but saying it many times doesn’t make the fact true.

Continued… For example, Democrats have claimed that the number of abortions rose since the anti-abortion president took office (President Bush). After many interviews with statistical data on national TV, this idea was endorsed and believed by everyone. In reality, the data was observed by the Guttmacher Institute, and was negated.

Humans Love Repetition, But That Doesn’t Make The Data True!!

Lesson 5: Extraordinary Claims Need Extraordinary Evidence Before accepting any type of claim, you must first look at the source. A claim may have been made by someone with no expertise in the area of research and presented fragmented data, which enforces the idea of finding the source and determining if it’s valid for the type of information they’re claiming.

Continued… Many different products that claim to be “clinically proven” might be citing information from years ago. From this, it’s essential to be able to identify a claim and be able to research it to tell if the information is from a trustworthy source.

“Clinically Proven” Look for the Evidence…

Works Cited http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties http://www.lies.com/wp/2006/11/05/us-deaths-in-iraq-vs-vietnam-the-handoff/ http://www.drbillofhealth.com/health-q-a/what-does-clinically-proven-mean-in-advertising/