Deception has been practiced in so many ways, and new ways are being created so fast by so many creative people, that we readers, consumers, voters, and potential converts have a tough time keeping our defenses up.

1. Defending Against Deception
Logical Reasoning
Chapter# 7
Presented By:
Zaib un Nisa

2. • Deception:
Deception has been practiced in so many ways, and new ways
are being created so fast by so many creative people, that we
readers, consumers, voters, and potential converts have a tough
time keeping our defenses up.
• Example:
The primary purpose of ads and sales presentations is not to
provide you with helpful information but to encourage you to
buy a product.

3. • Exaggeration and Lying:
A lie is a false statement made with the intent to
deceive. What are salespersons doing when they say
that "$15,000 is absolutely the best price" they can
sell you the car for, and then after ten more minutes
of negotiating they drop the price another $500?
The statement about the $15,000 was false—just
another sales pitch. We consumers are so used to
this sort of behavior that we hardly notice that it's
an outright lie.

4. • People at home, hoping to make some money in their
spare time, are often exploited by scams. Scams are
systematic techniques of deception. They are also called
cons. Here is an example called the craft con. In a
magazine ad, a company agrees to sell you instructions
and materials for making some specialty items at home,
such as baby booties, aprons, table decorations, and so
on. You are told you will get paid if your work is up to the
company's standards. After you've bought their package
deal, knitted a few hundred baby booties, and mailed
them, you may be surprised to learn that your work is not
up to company standards. No work ever is; the company is
only in the business of selling instructions and materials.

5. Telling Only Half the Truth:
Although some advertisements contain lies and exaggerations, the more
sophisticated ones walk the narrow line between truth and falsehood. You get a
little truth, but not enough. A sophisticated ad doesn't lie outright and say, "Our
toothpaste is 25 percent more effective than all other brands." Instead, it says
"Our toothpaste is 25 percent more effective." When we see this ad, we should
ask ourselves: "More effective than what?" The advertiser counts on the fact that
we will falsely believe it is more effective than all the competing toothpastes. Yet
when the Federal Trade Commission demands to know what the company means
by "more effective," the answer will perhaps be that it is 25 percent more
effective than no brushing at all. When ads make comparisons, we readers need
to be sensitive about what is being compared to what.

6. • Using select information to sway someone's opinion is called
the technique of selective representation. It is also called telling
a half-truth. Logical reasoners should look for the full story, not
just the select information in an ad. A logical reasoner's duty is
to consider both sides, not merely the good side. It is the
propagandist who pushes one side no matter what.
• Headline:
Former Mental Patients Suspected in 14 Killings in County.
suspend judgment rather
than leap to a conclusion
with insufficient evidence

7. • The hedge is another common but devious tactic used by the
enemies of critical thinkers. It is based on selectively presenting
information so that what the speaker appears to be saying can
later be denied. An ad on a webpage might say, "You could
make $100,000 this year if you …. " The word "could" is the
hedge. Whether you could reasonably expect to make
$100,000 is something else again. At first the ad appears to be
saying you will make a $100,000, but on careful reading, you
realize that the advertiser could claim, "Hey, we never actually
promised a $100,000." Hedge words are also called weasel
words.

8. • Telling the Truth, While Still Misleading:
Even when you get all the relevant facts, there can be serious problems. It
depends on how the facts are presented. Consider Grandpa's Granola Bars—
pressed bars of breakfast cereal. The primary ingredient in Grandpa's Granola Bars
is sugar. The manufacturer of this "health food bar" does not want to broadcast
this fact, yet the manufacturer must obey federal law and list the ingredients in the
order of their weight. (The U.S. Food and Drug Administration requires the main
ingredient to be listed first.) The corporate management that is pushing Grandpa's
Granola Bars has found a clever way to tell the sugar story: List each of the seven
kinds of sugar separately. In this case, at the top of the list goes "rolled oats,"
followed by "sucrose, dextrose, fructose, honey, chocolate chips, invert sugar, and
corn syrup." Clever of the manufacturer, but deceitful. The unwary reader might
conclude, "Ah, the bar is mostly rolled oats." It is mostly sugar.

9. • Saying Little with Lots of Words:
Heat Wave Blamed for Record High Temperatures Across U.S.
What else would you blame? This headline has low information
content. It contains no information that isn't already known by
everybody.

10. • Persuading Without Using Reasons:
Suppose you see a billboard with a picture of a smiling doughnut and the phrase
"Mmmmm, DOUBLE DONUTS." The advertiser hopes to trigger a gut-level
response so you will buy the product. What information are you getting from that
billboard? You are not being given a reason to buy those donuts. This ad is
designed merely to create a mood and to provide name recognition for the
product.
We open a magazine and notice a beautiful woman wearing Gentleman Jim jeans
saying, "I like to be close to my Gentleman Jims."
The advertiser is hoping readers will identify with the woman and they will want
to do what she would like them to do. The ad lures us readers unconsciously into
buying Gentleman Jims for this "reason," but the ad is giving us no good reason.

11. Deceiving with Loaded Language:
Early one morning many years ago, the Libyans were yawning when United
States bombers streaked out of the clouds and bombed the President’s palace.
The next day, Russian newspapers objected to this attack by the United States.
In reporting that fact, one U.S. news story said, "As expected, the Russian Bear
kicked up a fuss about Libya." The use of the phrase "kicked up a fuss" is a
propagandistic slap at the Russians; it is an example of loaded language. So is
the phrase "as expected," which tends to discount or dismiss the complaint. An
unloaded way to present the information would have been for the newspaper
to say, "The Russians strongly objected to the Libyan incident." Saying it that
way is sticking to the facts.
Logical reasoners must be
on the alert to sort out the
facts from the values

12. • Using Rhetorical Devices:
 Terms used to slant a passage and influence the reader to accept the
writer’s attitudes are called slanters or rhetorical devices. The name
“slanter” comes from the metaphor of tilting an otherwise level playing
field. The most common rhetorical devices have names. We’ve already
mentioned euphemism, exaggeration, half-truths, innuendo, lying,
sarcasm.
 A dysphemism is the opposite of a euphemism. It is a term used in order
to produce a negative effect. If you call his freedom fighter a terrorist, or
her grandfather’s cemetery a boneyard, you’ve chosen a dysphemism.

13. A proof surrogate is a less well-known rhetorical
device, but we’ve all seen it. When a politician says,
“Everyone knows there should not be this kind of tax
increase,” this remark is claiming there’s a proof, but
not giving the proof. That phrase, “Everyone knows”
is a substitute for the proof, a “surrogate” for it.