Class Exercises in Sources of Knowledge and the Scientific Research Method

A. Evaluate each of the following as to the source of knowledge upon which it depends (sensory, authority, logic (and which type—inductive or deductive), or faith/intuitive) and discuss the likelihood that the assertion is the truth. You may have to do a little searching for some of these sources to evaluate them.

1. Your roommate says that it has been very humid lately.

2. A letter to the editor in the local newspaper asserts that President Obama has broken most of his promises.

3. An Associated Press (AP) story that the Iraq and Afghan Wars have now cost the US over a trillion dollars.

4. An AP story that the Trustees of the Social Security Administration say that 2010 is the first year that the system has paid out more than it took in and that by 2037 the reserves will be exhausted.

5. A Charles Krauthammer editorial that building a Islamic cultural center near ground zero will be culturally insensitive to the feelings of families and loved ones of the victims of the 9-11 attack.

6. Your classmate tells you that she read that the number of American soldiers in Afghanistan is now more than the number in Iraq.

7. A Congressional Quarterly study that Obama’s success rating with Congress in his first two years was higher than any President in modern history.

8. You taste the ice tea in the SAC cafeteria and tell the person with whom you are eating that it is very sweet.

9. The student speaker in the College Science Club asserts that it is almost a mathematical certainty that intelligent life exists on other planets and that UFO’s are objective proof of this.

10. Franklin Graham (Billy’s son) says in a televised interview that Islam is passed down through fathers and that since Obama’s father was a Muslim, then Obama was born a Muslim.

11. A Pew Center Survey showing that 18% of all Americans think that Obama is Muslim.

12. Your political science professor tells you that the number of political independents has grown since 2008.

13. A political commentator argues on television that Muslims attacked the WTC and Muslims want to build a mosque near the WTC, so allowing them to do this amounts to rewarding the enemy.

14. Regardless of who the Republican presidential candidate may be in 2012, that person will beat Obama.

15. The national debt increased more under the Bush presidency than it has under Obama. 

B. Apply the scientific method (step by step) to how you might go about improving your performance in some skilled activity (pick a specific activity, like putting in golf or shooting the basketball or playing bridge or running cross country or making higher grades).