One of the fantastic things about a Presidential debate (at least with regard to the study of critical thinking) is that virtually every aspect of the subject we’ve been studying is on display.
Both candidates were doing their absolute best to provide us study material, making ethos-based appeals to the TV audience, pulling at heartstrings with pathos-laden stories about voters desperate for them to win and enact their policies, as well enough logos-based facts-and-figures about jobs, the economy and health insurance to make our heads spin.
Rhetorical devices were on display as well, especially strategic ones the candidates used to try to disarm one another or turn the tables through verbal jui jistu that would trap their opponents in the last place they wanted to be: seeming to embody a contradiction.
Naturally, biased players were on the scene before, during and after the debate (some of them live-Tweeting any persuasive communication that they could cram into 140 characters), all hoping they could influence the media to parrot their party lines. And, at least on the network I was watching, a twenty-something was on hand to tell the sixty- and seventy- somethings (some of whom have been covering Presidential campaigns since the ‘60s and ‘70s) what Facebook was saying regarding who “won” and who “lost” the clash.
The only certain winners of last night’s bout were we critical thinking aficionados who got treated to an hour and a half of material to work with, all paid for by the Presidential Debate Commission, the candidates and the TV networks. And while I’ll be talking about the debate in more detail during next week’s podcast, with regard to this week’s subject (Mathematics), did anyone else notice:
- That only dollar figures in the trillions (or, at least hundreds of billions) were deemed worthy by the candidates as blunt attack instruments
- That no measure regarding healthcare impacted fewer than 10-20 million people
- Best task for Republican fact-checkers: Why did Obama lower taxes on small businesses eighteen times, rather than getting it over with by making just one big reduction all at once?
- Best task for Democratic fact-checkers: Do the top 3% of small businesses really employ half the people working in small businesses? (And, if so, are they hiring peripatetic bloggers?)
On the whole, there were fewer mathematical fallacies than I had expected for a debate focusing on the economy. Although any claims regarding “average” incomes, tax cuts or medical cost increases for middle-class families should be put to the test, that test being whether we’re talking about this kind of average:
- Family A Income: $49,000
- Family B Income: $50,000
- Family C Income: $51,000
- Average of Families A, B and C: $50,000
Or this one:
- Family X Income: $1
- Family Y Income: $2
- Family Z Income: $149,997
- Average of Families X, Y and Z: $50,000
I’ll be feeling the Proofiness (and counting the days) until the next debates.
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