Purpose 1.Analyze competing hypotheses to determine which meets the criteria of

Purpose
1.Analyze competing hypotheses to determine which meets the criteria of adequacy.
Evaluate weird things (i.e., events or objects that seem impossible, given what we know about the natural world) using the SEARCH formula.
2. Use the criteria of adequacy to analyze hypotheses.
3. Apply the criteria of adequacy to hypotheses.
Sharpen your ability to use knowledge, reasoning, and evidence (critical thinking skills).
Overview
The SEARCH formula is a formula for inquiry that will help you evaluate any claim by applying the principles discussed
Action Items
Review below text from Schick and Vaughn (2014).
From them, focus on one of the following weird things (events or objects that seem impossible, given what we know about the natural world): UFO abductions
In Microsoft Word, write a 400-word paper that explores the following: IN YOUR OWN WORDS, use the steps of the SEARCH formula (as described in the below text) to judge the hypothesis found in the section of the weird thing you chose to focus on. In light of alternative, competing hypotheses, make sure to apply the criteria of adequacy to each of these hypotheses and determine which hypothesis measures up to the criteria of adequacy.
THE SEARCH FORMULA
Our formula for inquiry consists of four steps, which we represent by the acronym SEARCH. The letters stand for the key words in the four steps:
1. State the claim.
2. Examine the Evidence for the claim.
3. Consider Alternative hypotheses.
4. Rate, according to the Criteria of adequacy, each Hypothesis.
The acronym is arbitrary and artificial, but it may help you remember the formula’s vital components. Go through these steps any time you’re faced with an extraordinary claim.
Note that throughout this chapter we use the words hypothesis and claim interchangeably. We do so because any weird claim, like any claim about events and entities, can be viewed as a hypothesis as an explanation of a particular phenomenon. Thinking of weird claims as hypotheses is important because effectively evaluating weird claims involves essentially the same hypothesis-assessing procedure used in science.
Step 1: State the Claim
Before you can carefully examine a claim, you have to understand what it is. It’s vital to state the claim in terms that are as clear and as specific as possible. “Ghosts are real” is not a good candidate for exam- ination because it’s vague and nonspecific. A better claim is “The dis- embodied spirits of dead persons exist and are visible to the human eye.” Likewise, “Astrology is true” is not much to go on. It’s better to say, “Astrologers can correctly identify someone’s personality traits by using sun signs.” Even these revised claims aren’t as unambiguous and definitive as they should be. (Terms in the claims, for example, could be better defined. What is meant by “spirit”? What does it mean to “correctly identify someone’s personality traits”?) But many of the ex- traordinary claims you run into are of this caliber. The point is that before examining any claim, you must achieve maximum clarity and specificity of what the claim is.
Step 2: Examine the Evidence for the Claim
Ask yourself what reasons there are for accepting the claim. That is, what empirical evidence or logical arguments are there in the claim’s favor? Answering this question entails taking inventory of both the quantity and quality of the reasons for believing that the claim is true. An honest and thorough appraisal of reasons must include:
1. Determining the exact nature and limitations of the empirical evidence. You should assess not only what the evidence is but whether there are any reasonable doubts regarding it. You have to try to find out if it’s sub- ject to any of the deficiencies we’ve discussed in this book—the dis- tortions of human perception, memory, and judgment; the errors and biases of scientific research; the difficulties inherent in ambiguous data. Sometimes even a preliminary survey of the facts may force you to admit that there really isn’t anything mysterious that needs explaining. Or perhaps investigating a little mystery will lead to a bigger mystery. At any rate, attempting an objective assessment of the evidence takes courage. Many true believers have never taken this elementary step.
2. Discovering if any of these reasons deserve to be disqualified. As we’ve seen, people frequently offer considerations in support of a claim that should be discounted. These considerations include wishful thinking,
faith, unfounded intuition, and subjective certainty. The problem is that these factors aren’t reasons at all. In themselves, they can’t pro- vide any support for a claim.
3. Deciding whether the hypothesis in question actually explains the evidence. If it doesn’t—if important factors are left out of account—the hypoth- esis is not a good one. In other words, a good hypothesis must be rel- evant to the evidence it’s intended to explain. If it isn’t, there’s no reason to consider it any further.
Step 3: Consider Alternative Hypotheses
It’s never enough to consider only the hypothesis in question and its reasons for acceptance. If you ever hope to discover the truth, you must also weigh alternative hypotheses and their reasons.
Take this hypothesis, for example: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Rein- deer—Santa’s funny, flying, furry headlight—is real and lives at the North Pole. As evidence for this hypothesis we could submit these facts: Millions of people (mostly children) believe Rudolph to be real; his likeness shows up everywhere during the Christmas holidays; given the multitude of reindeer in the world and their long history, it’s likely that at some time a reindeer with flying capabilities would ei- ther evolve or be born with the necessary mutations; some people say that they have seen Rudolph with their own eyes. We could go on and on and build a fairly convincing case for the hypothesis—soon you may even come to believe that we were on to something.
The hypothesis sounds great by itself, but when considered along-side an alternative hypothesis—that Rudolph is a creature of the imagination created in a Christmas song—it looks ludicrous. The song hypothesis is supported by evidence that’s overwhelming; it doesn’t conflict with well-established theory in biology (as the real- Rudolph hypothesis does); and unlike its competitor, it requires no postulations about new entities.
This third step involves creativity and maintaining an open mind. It requires asking whether there are other ways to account for the phenomenon at hand and, if there are, what reasons there are in favor of these alternative hypotheses. This step involves applying step 2 to all competing explanations.
It’s also important to remember that when people are confronted with some extraordinary phenomenon they often immediately offer a hypothesis involving the paranormal or supernatural and then can’t imagine a natural hypothesis to account for the facts. As a result, they assume that the paranormal or supernatural hypothesis must be right. But this assumption is unwarranted. Just because you can’t think of a natural explanation doesn’t mean there isn’t one. It may be (as has often been the case throughout history) that you’re simply unaware of the correct natural explanation. As pointed out in Chapter 2, the most reasonable response to a mystifying fact is to keep looking for a nat- ural explanation.
We all have a built-in bias that urges us to latch onto a favorite hypothesis and ignore or resist all alternatives. We may believe that we needn’t look at other explanations since we know that our favorite one is correct. This tendency may make us happy (at least for a while), but it’s also a good recipe for delusion. We must work to counteract this bias. Having an open mind means being willing to consider any possibility and changing your view in light of good reasons.
Step 4: Rate, According to the Criteria of Adequacy, Each Hypothesis
Now it’s time to weigh competing hypotheses and see which are found wanting and which are worthy of belief. Simply cataloging the evidence for each hypothesis isn’t enough. We need to consider other factors that can put that evidence in perspective and help us weigh hypotheses when there’s no evidence at all, which is often the case with weird things. To command our assent, extraordinary claims must provide ex- emplary explanations. That is, they must explain the phenomena better than any competing explanation. As we saw in Chapter 6, the way to determine which explanation is best is to apply the criteria of adequacy. By applying them to each hypothesis, we can often eliminate some hypotheses right away, give more weight to some than to others, and decide between hypotheses that may at first seem equally strong.
1. Testability.Ask:Canthehypothesisbetested?Isthereanypossible way to determine whether the hypothesis is true or false? Many hy- potheses regarding extraordinary phenomena aren’t testable. This does not mean they’re false. It means they’re worthless. They are merely as- sertions that we’ll never be able to know. What if we claim that there is an invisible, undetectable gremlin in your head that sometimes causes you to have headaches. As an explanation for your headaches, this hypothesis is interesting but trivial. Since by definition there’s no way to determine if this gremlin really exists, the hypothesis is amaz- ingly uninformative. You can assign no weight to such a claim.
2. Fruitfulness. Ask: Does the hypothesis yield observable, surprising predictions that explain new phenomena? Any hypothesis that does so gets extra points. Other things being equal, hypotheses that make accurate, unexpected predictions are more likely to be true than hy- potheses that don’t. (Of course, if they yield no predictions, this in
itself doesn’t show that they’re false.) Most hypotheses regarding weird things don’t make observable predictions.
3. Scope. Ask: How many different phenomena can the hypothesis explain? Other things being equal, the more it explains, the less likely it is to be mistaken. In Chapter 5 we discussed the well-confirmed hy- pothesis that human perception is constructive. As we pointed out, the hypothesis explains a broad range of phenomena, including per- ceptual size constancy, misperception of stimuli, hallucinations, parei- dolia, certain UFO sightings, and more. A hypothesis that explains only one of these phenomena (for example, the hypothesis that UFO sightings are caused by actual alien spacecraft) would be much less impressive—unless it had other things in its favor like compelling evidence.
5. Simplicity. Ask: Is this hypothesis the simplest explanation for the phenomenon? Generally, the simplest hypothesis that explains the phenomenon is the best, the one least likely to be false. Simplest means makes the fewest assumptions. In the realm of weird things, simplicity is often a matter of postulating the existence of the fewest entities. Let’s say you get into your car one morning, put the key in the ignition, and try to start the engine but find that it won’t start. One hypothesis for this phenomenon is that the car battery is dead. Another is that a poltergeist (a mischievous spirit) has somehow caused your car not to start. The battery hypothesis is the simplest (in addition to being testable, able to yield predic- tions, and capable of explaining several phenomena) because it doesn’t require postulating the existence of any mysterious enti- ties. The poltergeist hypothesis, though, does postulate the exis- tence of an entity (as well as assuming that the entity has certain capabilities and tendencies). Thus the criterion of simplicity shows us that the battery hypothesis has the greater chance of being right.
6. Conservatism. Ask: Is the hypothesis consistent with our well- founded beliefs? That is, is it consistent with the empirical evidence— with results from trustworthy observations and scientific tests, with natural laws, or with well-established theory? Trying to answer this question takes you beyond merely cataloging evidence for hypothe- ses to actually assigning weight to hypotheses in light of all the available evidence. Other things being equal, the hypothesis most consistent with the entire corpus of our knowledge is the best bet, the one most likely to be true.
It follows that a hypothesis that flies in the face of extremely well-established evidence must be assigned a very low probability. Say, for example, that someone claims that yesterday thousands of
cats and dogs rained down from the sky in Texas. This strange happening is logically possible, of course, but it conflicts with an enormous amount of human experience regarding objects that fall from the sky. Maybe one fine day cats and dogs will indeed tumble from the clouds and surprise us all. But based on a massive amount of experience, we must assign a very low probability to such a possibility.
What if someone claims to have built a perpetual motion ma- chine, a device that, to work, must successfully circumvent one of the laws of thermodynamics. (A perpetual motion machine is supposed to function without ever stopping and without needing to draw on an external source of power—it supplies its own energy; this concept violates the law of conservation of mass-energy, which says that mass- energy can’t be created or destroyed.) The laws of thermodynamics are supported by a massive amount of empirical evidence gathered throughout centuries. There have also been numerous failed attempts to build a perpetual motion machine. In light of such evidence, we’re forced to conclude that it’s very unlikely that anyone could avoid the laws of thermodynamics. Unless someone is able to produce good evidence showing that it can be done, we must say that person’s claim is highly improbable.
Likewise, if someone puts forth a hypothesis that conflicts with a highly confirmed theory, the hypothesis must be regarded as improb- able until good evidence shows that the hypothesis is right and the theory wrong. Paranormal claims then are, by definition, improbable. They conflict with what we know, with mountains of evidence. Only good evidence to the contrary can change this verdict
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UFO ABDUCTIONS
In recent years, books, magazines, movies, and television talk shows have circulated an amazing hypothesis: Alien beings are abducting ordinary people, manipulating them in strange ways (performing experiments on them, having sex with them, or otherwise terrifying them), and then releasing their victims and vanishing. In the best- selling book Communion, author Whitley Strieber suggested that he was abducted by aliens with large heads and strange eyes and that they forced him to endure horrific treatment, including having a needle inserted into his head and an instrument put into his anus.4 Later the book was made into a movie with the same name. The book Intruders by Budd Hopkins presents dramatic case histories of people who claim to have endured UFO abductions.5 Hopkins suggests that aliens have abducted hundreds of people and used them in disturbing genetic experiments, then released them. On the basis of a Roper poll, Hopkins believes that millions of people have been abducted by aliens.
In 1991, the Roper organization polled almost 6,000 people in an attempt to determine the extent of alien abductions. The respondents were asked to indicate how often they had certain sorts of experi- ences. These experiences included the following: (1) “Waking up par- alyzed with a sense of a strange person or presence or something else in the room,” (2) “Feeling that you were actually flying through the air although you didn’t know why or how,” (3) “Experiencing a period of time of an hour or more, in which you were apparently lost, but you could not remember why, or where you had been,” (4) “Seeing unusual lights or balls of light in a room without knowing what was causing them, or where they came from,” and (5) “Finding puzzling scars on
your body and neither you nor anyone else remembering how you received them or where you got them.” The designers of the poll, Budd Hopkins and Dave Jacobs, reasoned that if someone answered yes to four or five of these questions, they had been abducted by aliens. About 2 percent of the respondents fell into this category. Since the sample represented 185 million people, they concluded that about 4 million Americans have been abducted by aliens. (The authors of this book have been informed that about 100 percent of fraternity brothers can answer yes to four out of five of these questions. Does that mean they’ve all been abducted by aliens?)
In many cases, before any abduction story surfaces, the victims first experience a vivid dream or nightmare (sometimes in childhood) involving eerie, otherworldly creatures. Or they experience “missing time,” the realization that they don’t remember what happened to them during a certain period. Or they see an odd light in the night sky that they identify as a UFO. Later, when the victims are hypno- tized to try to learn more about these strange occurrences, an abduc- tion experience is fully revealed. While under hypnosis, the abductees report in stunning detail what they believe they saw or felt during abduction, what the aliens looked like, and, in some cases, what the aliens said. The technique called regressive hypnosis has been the favored method for uncovering details of an abduction and for authenticating it.
(Adapted from Schick, T., & Vaughn, L. (2014). How to think about weird things: Critical thinking for a new age. McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. )
Note: Must be able to pass aggressive TURNitIN and ChatGPT checks for originality and human generation.