The Use of 'No Evidence' Statements in Public Health

Cummings, Louise

doi:10.22329/il.v35i1.4119

Cited by 6 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…However, most work on the subject has failed to engage with the use of claims based on arguments from ignorance which are so commonly employed in novel situations of high uncertainty (cf. Cummings, 2015, EFSA, 2019. These claims are part and parcel of policy-making when no knowledge is yet available for decision-making, both in cases of uncertainty regarding technological risks (e.g.…”

Section: Arguments From Ignorance In Policy-making: a Forced Marriagementioning

confidence: 99%

On Arguments from Ignorance in Policy-Making

Andone

Hernández

2022

The Pandemic of Argumentation

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Abstract“Schools should remain open during the COVID-19 pandemic, because there is no evidence indicating that children can get the virus.” Many European policy-makers have employed such arguments from ignorance to argue for a course of action in a situation in which science lacked vital information. What is particularly challenging about such arguments is that, despite the ignorance involved, they are used to justify policies meant to deal with practical problems. Limited information (‘there is no evidence indicating that children can get the virus’) is used as a basis for decision-making that might have significant consequences for the population (‘schools should remain open’). This chapter explains the intricate but unavoidable relationship between arguments from ignorance and policy-making. Moreover, evaluation criteria are developed to distinguish between reasonable and unreasonable arguments from ignorance in policy-making by taking into consideration the structure of these argument types and their contexts of application. Finally, the chapter assesses two real-life instances of arguments from ignorance employed by the European Commission and the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control during the COVID-19 pandemic. Such an assessment sets important steps in understanding how arguments from ignorance can facilitate or reduce acceptance of the measures proposed by policy-makers.

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Section: Arguments From Ignorance In Policy-making: a Forced Marriagementioning

confidence: 99%

On Arguments from Ignorance in Policy-Making

Andone

Hernández

2022

The Pandemic of Argumentation

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“…This argument is widely viewed as a fallacy because a lack of evidence or knowledge, it is claimed, cannot be used as grounds to accept a proposition as true (or false) (Krabbe 1995;Woods and Walton 1978;Walton 1995). However, in public health and other contexts (e.g., law), there are circumstances where this is not so clearly the case (Cummings 2002;2011;2015a;2015b;Walton 1992b). Imagine a scenario in which I want to establish whether guests at a wedding have been exposed to the salmonella bacterium in the food that is served to them at the event.…”

Section: World Health Organization: Infection Control Guidance For Hementioning

confidence: 99%

Good and Bad Reasoning about COVID-19

Cummings

2020

Self Cite

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The Covid-19 pandemic presents argumentation theorists with an opportunity to reflect on the ways in which people, agencies and governments respond to the emergence of a new virus. Reponses have revealed a range of judgements and decisions, not all of which are rationally warranted. This article will examine errors in reasoning, several of which have reduced the public’s compliance with important health measures. This article will also analyse rationally warranted reasoning about Covid-19 employed by public health agencies. In examining instances of good and bad reasoning during the Covid-19 pandemic, we can begin to construct a taxonomy of arguments that facilitated and hindered individual and collective responses during this public health emergency.

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“…That people are aware of these conditions and can make judgements about them is evident in at least two ways. First, a study of 879 members of the public showed that lay people are adept at evaluating the epistemic conditions associated with use of the argument from ignorance (Cummings, 2014a(Cummings, , 2015a(Cummings, , 2015b. When these conditions were not fulfilled or were fulfilled only partially, participants tended to reject arguments from ignorance that were based on them.…”

Section: Human Health and No Evidence Statementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Convincing a Sceptical Public: The Challenge for Public Health

Cummings

2020

The Humanities in Asia

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Public health communications are an everyday occurrence. Notwithstanding the frequency of these communications, compliance with them and the recommendations they contain is often limited. In this chapter, it is argued that one of the reasons for poor compliance is the failure on the part of experts to construct public health messages that accord with the rational resources of the public. For this to be achieved, experts must develop a better appreciation of the reasoning strategies that lay people use to assess risks to their health. This chapter presents an extended theoretical discussion of how one set of strategies in particular, a group of cognitive heuristics based on the informal fallacies, has the potential to facilitate decisionmaking about public health issues (Cummings, 2014a(Cummings, , 2015a).Among the informal fallacies, the argument from ignorance plays a particularly central role in public health communication. A comparative analysis is undertaken of the use of this argument in the public health communications issued by the Department of Health in Hong Kong and Public Health England in the UK. It is argued that there are qualitative differences in the use of the argument from ignorance across these two contexts. These differences influence the way in which the argument is rationally evaluated in these two public health contexts. Specifically, the public in Hong Kong is encouraged to reflect on epistemic conditions that are integral to the rational warrant of this argument. These conditions are less often acknowledged by public health agencies in the UK. Greater rational evaluation of these conditions, it is argued, leads to better decision-making in matters relating to public health.

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The Use of 'No Evidence' Statements in Public Health

Cited by 6 publications

References 31 publications

On Arguments from Ignorance in Policy-Making

On Arguments from Ignorance in Policy-Making

Good and Bad Reasoning about COVID-19

Convincing a Sceptical Public: The Challenge for Public Health

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