Chapter.7 Verified Test Bank Experts And Evidence

Chapter 7: Experts and Evidence

Multiple Choice

(Correct answers are marked with an asterisk.)

1. If a claim conflicts with other claims we have good reason to accept, we…

a. Can accept it provisionally

b. Have no good grounds for doubting it

c. Have good grounds for doubting it

d. Still must accept the claim

2. Your background information consists of…

a. Beliefs that are certain

b. Both well-supported and obviously false beliefs

c. Numerous valid arguments

d. Very well-supported beliefs

3. If a claim conflicts with our background information, we have good reason to…

a. Accept it

b. Doubt it

c. Reject it

d. Replace it

4. When a claim is neither worthy of outright rejection nor deserving of complete acceptance, we should…

a. Proportion our belief to the evidence

b. Proportion our belief to background information

c. Tentatively accept it

d. Tentatively reject it

5. If a claim conflicts with expert opinion, we have good reason to…

a. Ignore it

b. Reject it

c. Doubt it

d. Go with our own opinion

6. We are often justified in believing a claim because…

a. Most people believe it

b. Experts disagree about it

c. Experts have not accepted it

d. It comes from experts

7. When experts disagree about a claim, we have good reason to…

a. Reject it

b. Believe it

c. Doubt it

d. Dismiss it

8. The two most revealing indicators of an expert’s reliability are…

a. Education and popularity

b. Education and lack of conflicts of interest

c. Reputation and training

d. Reputation among peers and professional accomplishments

9. It is reasonable to accept the evidence provided by personal experience only if…

a. It is consistent

b. There’s no good reason to doubt it

c. We are fallible

d. It is beyond all doubt

10. Experts are more likely to be right than we are because they have mastered particular skills or bodies of knowledge and because…

a. They practice those skills or use that knowledge as their main occupation in life

b. The information has been checked

c. They are experts

d. They have credentials

11. When we regard a nonexpert as an expert, we …

a. Certify that expert’s credentials

b. Rely on the true expert

c. Fall into the fallacy of available evidence

d. Fall into the fallacious appeal to authority

12. Personal experience, although generally reliable, is…

a. Infallible

b. Difficult to quantify

c. Not trustworthy

d. Not infallible

13. Eyewitness testimony is…

a. Unorthodox

b. Authoritative

c. Reliable

d. Unreliable

14. Other things being equal, the more background information a claim conflicts with, the more reason we have to…

a. Revise our background information

b. Believe it

c. Doubt it

d. Try to prove it

15. We fall into a fallacious appeal to authority when we…

a. Judge the authority’s credentials to be good

b. Respect science and its methods

c. Think that just because someone is an expert in one field, he or she is necessarily an expert in another

d. Doubt the results of a scientific study

16. Bias on the part of an expert is a chief reason for . . .

a. Rejecting everything the expert has said

b. Accepting the expert’s claims

c. Doubting that expert

d. The availability error

17. The error of thinking that previous events can affect the probabilities in the random event at hand is known as…

a. The gambler’s fallacy

b. The availability error

c. The bias fallacy

d. The appeal to ignorance

18. Usually, experts err because they depart from investigating and explaining the facts and jump to trying to…

a. Undermine the facts

b. Predict the facts

c. Manipulate the facts

d. Understand the facts

19. A tricky thing about perception is that we often perceive…

a. What we don’t expect to see

b. What others expect us to perceive

c. Objects that are actually there

d. Exactly what we expect to perceive

20. Any event, even one that seems shockingly improbable, is actually…

a. Highly probable in the short term

b. Unlikely to occur when we expect it to

c. Is unprecedented

d. Very probable over the long haul

Short Answer/Short Essay

1. What are the indicators that someone is likely to be a true expert?

2. How can the post hoc fallacy lead someone to serious harm?

3. How can someone be misled by coincidence?

4. What is the fallacious appeal to authority? Give examples.

5. Why shouldn’t we accept a claim that conflicts with our background information or with expert opinion?