Unit 1: Truth and Credibility

At school, we have a subject called thinking skills, where we study Critical thinking. The skills required to analyse and evaluate arguments are taught in this subject. The term argument consists of a reason or reasons which support a conclusion. To support a certain point of view or a particular belief, we need evidence, if not the argument is not reliable. Moreover, we ought to make a judgement about the credibility of the evidence in each argument.
In order to do this judgement, we need to focus on the source, which is where the evidence comes from. The source might be an eyewitness, a TV Programme or an article in a magazine and etc. Furthermore, we must use a credibility criteria. This criteria can be divided as it follows:

• Neutrality : It consists of a source which is impartial and which does not have a motive to distort evidence for its own benefit. 
• Vested Interest: When a source takes a side and manipulates or selects certain parts of the evidence for its own benefit. However, the existence of a vested interest does not mean that evidence will be distorted or that individuals will lie.
• Bias: having a vested interest may lead to bias, which means having a preference for something or supporting a particular point of view. Biased viewpoints reduce the credibility of a source
• Expertise: Consists of evidence which is highly credible due to the fact that it is provided by an expert. Nevertheless, expertise is only credible if it fits the situation.
• Reputation: It consists of the position of a source. The higher the reputation of a source, the more credible it is seen to be. Nonetheless, a reputation does not mean that the source provides accurate information.
• Observation and eyewitness accounts: Eye witnesses are very credible as they have seen the events. However, many times their credibility is lost since ,by retelling the story that they saw, they tend to forget many details. 
• Corroboration: This makes reference to pieces of evidence which support each other. In general, corroboration increases the credibility of evidence.
• Selectivity and representativeness: Many campaign groups only select evidence which supports their views. This one-sided election of evidence is seen to reduce their credibility as sources. Moreover, the presentation of unrepresentative information can weaken the credibility of a source.
• Context: it makes reference to the setting or situation in which evidence is produced. When assessing credibility, its important that we analyse the whole context since there might be factors which can affect the evidence provided.

To conclude with this explanation, we can say that evidence does not have to be true in order to be credible and that credibility does not equal truth.