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Article: How Lurid Examples Can Mislead
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- August 14, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
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Immanuel Kant was a Prussian philosopher not known for his
pithy prose. But sometimes he spoke plainly. "Examples," he wrote,
"are the go-carts of judgment."
The translation conjures images of periwigged truants peeling
down the streets of 18th-century Koenigsberg on soapbox racers, but
what Kant had in mind was the way examples and concrete images pull
judgment along like a cart on a string.
That can be bad, tricking listeners into poor decisions.
Of course, examples have legitimate uses. A single counterexample
can scuttle a plausible generalization. For example, you may have
thought that, among vertebrate animals, reproduction requires males.
Behold the whiptail lizard, the ultimate ...