Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-7qhmt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T06:26:03.376Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

8 - Evaluation of evidence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 May 2011

Get access

Summary

In this chapter, we examine a reasoning skill that plays a clear and important role in everyday life. People come in constant contact with information that bears on the beliefs they hold. How do they interpret this information? Although this processing of new information is not usually connected to argumentive reasoning, in this chapter we see that the two in fact bear a close and important relation to one another.

Subjects are asked to interpret two kinds of evidence related to two of the three topics they have previously been questioned about – school failure and prisoners' return to crime. The main interview for these two topics occurs during the first interview session, and evidence evaluation takes place during the second session. Hence, subjects' discussion of their theories is separated in time from their evaluation of evidence related to the theories.

The two kinds of evidence, which we refer to as underdetermined and overdetermined evidence, stand in sharp contrast to one another. Underdetermined evidence is not really evidence at all. It simply describes the phenomenon (school failure or return to crime) in the context of a single, specific instance of its occurrence, with at most minimal cues with respect to possible causes. In the case of overdetermined evidence, in contrast, three broad sets of antecedents are identified as possible causes of the phenomenon. Each set of factors co-occurs with outcome (school failure or return to crime), and each is advocated as causal by a different authority figure.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×