SSH 105 Chapter Notes - Chapter 4: Eminem, Personal Taste, Leading Edge

• School: Ryerson University
• Department: Social Sciences and Humanities
• Course: SSH 105
• Professor: David Hunter

Document Summary

For example, flipping a coin to guess the weather is not as reliable as looking out the window: there are 3 main points to keep in mind when thinking about the reliability of evidence, the matter of degree. Some sources of evidence are more reliable than others. It is hard to imagine that a source is 100% reliable because there could always be a malfunction but there is a minimum level of reliability needed: another is optimal conditions. We must keep in mind whether the conditions are optimal, meaning we must know what the conditions are. For example, a scale is only accurate when it is on a flat and level surface, and eyesight is only reliable in good light conditions: the last is topic relative. Simply put, just because a source is reliable for one topic does not mean it is reliable for others.