Crow Fallacy

There were a lot of things that stuck out to me in Chapter 6 about false truths. It made me recall the saying "if something is too good to be true, it usually is." The idea that crows could possibly plan to drop their food while cars go by would even bypass the mental capacities of some human beings. The section about the "death tax" also made me realize how much we (as American citizens) believe in political commercials. The irony of it all is that we know how much politicians lie and deceive while in and out of office, and yet our jaw drops when we view these types of commercials that are portrayed as Public Service Announcements. The whole abortion issue really stuck out to me as well. After reading, I didn't really understand how people could believe that the abortion rate would rise after a conservative president who passed laws on abortion took office. This chapter goes to show that people will pretty much believe anything they hear and take it for truth. My parents always told me to take everything "with a grain of salt" because you don't really know if they are credible or accurate or even worth trying to fact check.

Facts Can Save Your Life

After reading chapter five, I am compelled to begin checking facts more frequently. I always knew that there as a ridiculous mark up on alcohol, but never to the extent that I read about here. It's crazy to think that executives actually sit in a room and decide that by marking up their product it would deceive consumers in thinking their product is better. The scarier part of the chapter is the lie that women believe that breast cancer is the number one killer in women, and neglect the harsh reality of heart disease being the leading killer. I agree that breast cancer gets more publicity because a lot of women are living survivors of the cancer. It made me realize that there are other leading killers that I need to be worried about as a woman, and not just breast cancer. The part about deception in what people "think" others are doing opened my eyes to a lot of the activity that teenagers and young college students engage in during their years at school. It's so true that teens and college students assume that because you're in college, you need to drink and party every night in order to be "normal." If more students realized that not everyone thinks like that, it may lower a lot of the alcohol poisoning rates, STDs, and unwanted pregnancies that tend to occur after engaging in obsessive alcohol use.