In this essay, your thesis statement should be your answer to the research question “Is the Bigfoot claim in the article likely baloney, or possibly true?”
Read the article “Bigfoot sighting reported in California,” available at https://kmph.com/news/local/is-bigfoot-back-in-the-valley (Links to an external site.). The website also has a short video you can watch. Develop an essay where you think critically about the claim, using the five tools/strategies we’ve discussed so far in our Baloney Detection Toolkit:
Wherever possible, there must be independent confirmation of the “facts.”
What does the article say the “facts” are? Are these really facts? (NOTE: This is a great place to include a quotation or two from the article.)
How many people witnessed the event? Are any of these people independent from each other?
What kind of evidence is presented in the article? Is the evidence empirical or anecdotal? How strong is the evidence? How clear are the photographs/videos? Do we know who took the photographs? If not, is the evidence trustworthy?
Is any bias present in the claim or the evidence? What does any bias mean for the trustworthiness of the claim?
Spin more than one hypothesis.
What are other possible reasons for what people saw in the orchard? Think of one or two.
Occam’s razor
Discuss all the questions that must be answered in order for the claim to be true.
Discuss all the questions that must be answered in order for your alternative hypotheses to be true.
Which hypothesis (the article’s claim or your alternative hypotheses) has the least number of questions that must be answered? Why might the number of questions/type of questions be important?
Apply Occam’s razor. Based on your analysis, which hypothesis is most likely to be true?
Always ask whether the hypothesis can be, at least in principle, falsified.
Is it possible to fake the hypothesis—or any evidence for or against the hypothesis? If so, how could it be done?
How could we find out if the hypothesis was faked? What tests could we run?
How do we know when to trust that a hypothesis—or any evidence for or against the hypothesis—is real?
What are your criteria for trustworthiness of a hypothesis or evidence?
Is it reasonable to think that evidence was faked just because someone says it is?
Is it reasonable to think that evidence was faked just because it disproves a hypothesis you believe in?
Why would people believe the claim–or evidence proving or disproving the claim–was real? Why would people believe the claim–or evidence proving or disproving the claim–was fake?
If there’s a chain of argument, every link in the chain must work
Does the claim make an argument? If so, what are the premises, and what is the conclusion?
What is the argument’s structure?
Is the argument good or bad?
Is the argument valid or invalid?
Do you see any logical fallacies in the claim? Which ones? How are they working in the claim?
Do you see any appeals in the claim? Which ones? How are they working in the claim?
Helpful hints
You are not trying to figure out whether Bigfoot exists! We’ll have to leave that discussion to reality shows. Instead, you are thinking critically about the claim presented in the article.
You do not have to answer all the questions I provide in this assignment. These questions are to help you begin applying the Baloney Detection Tools to the claim.
THE FILE: “EDGE ESSAY 2” IS JUST THE EXAMPLE OF HOW MY PROFESSOR’S EXPECTED.
