https://padlet.com/suzyfletch123/mbyty7hhldvr Assingment 1 - World Mysteries en-us 2020-01-22 19:29:54 UTC 2026-03-17 08:21:12 UTC hello@padlet.com suzyfletch123 https://padlet.com/suzyfletch123/mbyty7hhldvr/wish/434763256 Suzy Sledziewski]]> 2020-01-22 19:31:19 UTC https://padlet.com/suzyfletch123/mbyty7hhldvr/wish/434763256 suzyfletch123 https://padlet.com/suzyfletch123/mbyty7hhldvr/wish/434778543 Definition
The Red Herring Red Flag is when you are discussing a topic with a person or watching a debate and  they throw in information that is not relevant but seems like it goes with the topic to throw you off the original topic.
Connection
This is a compilation of some of Donald Trump's use of the Red Herring Red Flag. Rarely will Donald Trump answer the question put to him. He will distract by talking about the same topic or similar topic but not actually answer the question. This is  problem because  his interviewers have not been able to figure out how to get a straight answer out of him, so they just repeat the nonsense that he says, and being that most of it is lies, this is detrimental to democracy. Every answer is trying to distract the viewer from the actual questions. A limitation that is often seen with reporters on Trump is the lack of holding him accountable for what he is saying for fear of losing access. It would be beneficial to have interviewers hold Trump accountable and repeat the question until he has answered.  In light of all of the evidence of his Red Herrings and lies, skepticism should be applied to all of the things that Donald Trump says.

]]> 2020-01-22 19:53:30 UTC https://padlet.com/suzyfletch123/mbyty7hhldvr/wish/434778543 suzyfletch123 https://padlet.com/suzyfletch123/mbyty7hhldvr/wish/434781175 Definition
The Appeal to Authority Red Flag is when a company uses authoritative imagery to lend credibility to a product's advertising.
Connection
Below is an early advertisement for cigarettes. In the advertisement, you see a throat specialist, not just a general practitioner stating that it doesn't irritate the throat, as well as celebrities who are photographed in the bottom right of the ad. This leads the consumer that because this doctor is specializing in throat issues, that these cigarettes will not harm their throat because he is stating that there hasn't been a single case of throat irritation from smoking Camels. This advertisement also can be connected to the pseudoscience watchlist through the criteria of the results cannot be replicated or verified.  We obviously know the risk to smoking now and how harmful smoking is to our bodies but in this time, the public didn't have this information. These companies knew that by using someone in a white lab coat, the could use the public's assumptions and general positive biases because the public generally has trust in doctors. As research around the effect of smoking on the public weren't made available, these companies continued to mislead the public without recourse.
 ]]> 2020-01-22 19:57:47 UTC https://padlet.com/suzyfletch123/mbyty7hhldvr/wish/434781175 suzyfletch123 https://padlet.com/suzyfletch123/mbyty7hhldvr/wish/435447798 Definition
The Suppression by Authorities Red Flag is where a claim is made that lacks evidence and the reason for the missing evidence to back up the claim is that the government or some big agency (CDC or others) are suppressing the information.
Connection
The video I've attached is that of an interview promoting the movie Vaxxed. It's basically anti-vaccination propaganda based on junk science that a senior member at the CDC stated that there was a link between young black boys, the MMR vaccine and autism. The senior researcher William Thompson stated that the CDC had been suppressing information about the link for over 13 years. The article published was later pulled because there were multiple flaws in the study and the correlation was proven as false. In the video Andrew Wakefield is promoting the movie. He is an ex physician who first published the connection between vaccines and autism which was proven false. The limitations with this film is it does not explain the plethora of evidence that contradicts their claim.  In the clip that is shown from this movie, there is a mother that states that after her son had vaccines, he started to have symptoms and constant head banging. This argument could also be seen as confusion between correlation and causation. She is stating that the cause of the autism is the vaccine but it is more likely just be correlation between the age of the child and the fact that symptoms of autism will show around the same age. Lastly, the harm created from movies like this is people can die. The anti-vaccine  movement is responsible for 152763 deaths according to the anti-vaccine Body Count in this courses Week 1 lecture.]]> 2020-01-24 00:52:29 UTC https://padlet.com/suzyfletch123/mbyty7hhldvr/wish/435447798 suzyfletch123 https://padlet.com/suzyfletch123/mbyty7hhldvr/wish/435454232 Definition
Confirmation Bias is the tendency to believe things to be true that coincide with your views already.
Connection
This is a screenshot taken of my Twitter feed. This is the height of confirmation bias. I follow people who interest me or post things that are politically aligned with the ideals I believe in and it basically only shows me posts that I would be interested in or agree with unless I go looking for a different opinion.  The limitation to getting your new this way, is that it only shows one perspective and you could miss different ideas from different perspective that make you grow as a human. Another flaw is that  Twitter is also a platform that posts the news almost immediately and sometimes the facts can be wrong because of the urgency in writing. ]]> 2020-01-24 01:18:45 UTC https://padlet.com/suzyfletch123/mbyty7hhldvr/wish/435454232 suzyfletch123 https://padlet.com/suzyfletch123/mbyty7hhldvr/wish/436141489 Definition
This is when someone uses the term energy to mean something other than the ability to perform work. In pseudoscience, the term energy is often used in correlation to mean something different such as chakra or alignment in one's self.
Connection
This is a link to an article about how to find the right healing crystal for you. Even though the article states "it’s important to know that there’s no scientific evidence to support the use of crystals" it then goes on to give a guide as to how to use them. For example, it says that the clear quartz is "white crystal is considered a “master healer.” It’s said to amplify energy by absorbing, storing, releasing, and regulating it." This is an exact example of using the term energy, in the wrong context and as a buzzword to sell more product. This connects to the pseudoscience watchlist by using scientific sounding language like energy, that is actually meaningless in hope to push the crystals healing modalities, in this case absorbing, restoring, releasing and regulating energy. These claims are hard to believe and if you use the critical thinking process because by the time you get to step 2 (gather information to support claim), you would have a hard time finding any scientific evidence to further these claims. ]]> 2020-01-26 16:49:11 UTC https://padlet.com/suzyfletch123/mbyty7hhldvr/wish/436141489 suzyfletch123 https://padlet.com/suzyfletch123/mbyty7hhldvr/wish/436621609 Definition
This is the tendency to find faces, or patterns in things that are meaningless. We as humans are programmed to find patterns so it's inherent that we will seek to find meaning or patterns in everyday life.
Connection
This is a picture of a dying and wilted rose, but if you look closer you can see the outline of a skull of face in the rose. There is no meaning behind this and it is not anything but a wilted rose, but because of patternicity, someone could take this specific rose to have a deeper meaning because of the image of the skull. In addition, a connection could be made to the pseudoscience watchlist because seeing something like this appeals to our love of mystery.]]> 2020-01-27 19:13:27 UTC https://padlet.com/suzyfletch123/mbyty7hhldvr/wish/436621609 suzyfletch123 https://padlet.com/suzyfletch123/mbyty7hhldvr/wish/436633673 Definition
Ideology is a set of ideas upon which we make decisions about our life. The are guiding principles that you believe and live by.
Connection
This is an article that had an interesting take on how religious fundamentalism takes over the brain and compromised the decision making of an individual. This means that the person is less likely to be skeptical of information relayed through a religious lens. The article states "we know that religious fundamentalism is strongly correlated with what psychologists and scientists call “magical thinking,” which refers to making connections between actions and events when no such connections exist in reality." Another way of saying magical thinking would be choices and beliefs driven by ideology. When someone is a fanatic, their critical thinking skills are impaired because they are unable to effectively evaluate the evidence because the religious dogma is clouding their objectivity. ]]> 2020-01-27 19:30:23 UTC https://padlet.com/suzyfletch123/mbyty7hhldvr/wish/436633673 suzyfletch123 https://padlet.com/suzyfletch123/mbyty7hhldvr/wish/436640274 Definition
When an emotional connection blurs the line between fact and fiction. Sometimes when we feel strongly for something, we will look for confirmation of that belief to help ease or enforce an emotional attachment to the subject.
Connection
This is a link to the show Long Island Medium. The show is based on Teresa Caputo, who claims to speak to the dead. She makes a living by charging people to speak to their loved ones  who have passed.  The belief in the ability to speak to the dead is on the pseudoscience watchlist as "often appeals to emotion" and with  situations like these it's usually grief. In this case the child is vulnerable to Teresa's claims because her emotion is trumping her rational thought, also described on the pseudoscience watchlist. There is also an element of confirmation bias. She might make  lots of claims but the person she is working with will only remember things that she got right because it coincides with the belief of the afterlife and eases the feeling of loss. In this video, Teresa immediately starts the reading, with general statements so that she immediately has the girl believing her. ]]> 2020-01-27 19:39:15 UTC https://padlet.com/suzyfletch123/mbyty7hhldvr/wish/436640274 suzyfletch123 https://padlet.com/suzyfletch123/mbyty7hhldvr/wish/436704000  I chose to evaluate the interview with disgraced physician Andrew Wakefield and his colleague and producer of the anti-vaxx movie, Polly Tommey.

Problem:
The MMR vaccine causes autism.

Gather information:
This interview appears on FOX News, a known network that regularly pushes right wing propaganda and is not concerned with reporting facts. One of the interviewees, Andrew Wakefield is a disgraced physician who published a previous report that basically created the anti-vaxx movement. In this segment, the interviewer does not state that Andrew's previous work has been widely discredited. Also, the other person being interview is a mother who has no medical background and who has a son who has autism.

Evaluate the Evidence:
Andrew Wakefield has been widely discredited and his original study could not be replicated. There has been many different studys which are peer reviewed that have proven that there is no link between autism and the MMR  vaccine. The mother, Polly, also emphatically states that she "knows"  her son got autism from the MMR  vaccine but she also does not have and medical background to be able to make assumptions like that.

Recognize Assumptions, Emotions and Biases
In this video, Polly is a mother that has a son with autism. She is obviously still affected by her son having autism and has made a correlation between the vaccine and her sons diagnosis. Also Andrew has invested interest in the anti-vaccine movement. He has been widely disgraced and has been looking for a way to push his agenda again and retain some credibility.

Synthesize Evidence, Identify Alternatives
Alternative 1-MMR Vaccines cause autism, proven by Polly's personal experience, Andrew Wakefield's distorted science.
Alternative 2- There is no link between vaccines and autism as proven by science that has been both peer reviewed and follows the scientific process.

Select Best Alternative
I have concluded that the anti-vaccine movement is not based in fact and vaccines do not cause autism.

]]> 2020-01-27 21:48:55 UTC https://padlet.com/suzyfletch123/mbyty7hhldvr/wish/436704000