ANOTHER LOGIC TESTIMONIAL
Jon Rappoport is the author of LOGIC AND ANALYSIS, a course for home schoolers and adults.
He can be contacted at qjrconsulting@gmail.com
JULY 21, 2010. A mother of two children in California is home-schooling her oldest son. She ordered my course, LOGIC AND ANALYSIS, and is using it with success. Here is what she recently had to say. I think you’ll find it interesting.
“I didn’t really understand what logic was, when I started reading your articles about it. Prior to that, I assumed I knew how to analyze material and information. My method was simple: Consider the source. This was my whole approach.
“If I trusted an author and believed in him, I accepted his information. If I didn’t trust him because he was writing for the ‘wrong’ newspaper or website, I rejected his conclusions.
“With a source I trusted, I would even fill in holes in his work, to make it come out right. I’d assume he was leaving out facts to make his argument simpler and easier to understand.
“Once I ordered your course and started studying the teacher’s manual, I realized there were better ways to judge information. The most important thing was, I realized I could be my own independent judge, because I now had standards I could apply.
“Before then, I really had no standards. I wasn’t sure any existed. The teacher’s manual opened my eyes. By the time I was half way through it, I saw that I could analyze a passage and follow the line of reasoning in it. I could see where the author was heading, and I could figure out whether he was getting there or forcing a conclusion where none really existed.
“Now I have gone through the manual twice. Something new has happened. I see circumstantial arguments are everywhere. Authors are collecting ideas and facts and shaping a persuasive case…but they are more like lawyers in a courtroom. They are using these facts and ideas to build the best defense they can, but they are cutting corners. They have a conclusion they want to arrive at, and they’ll manipulate whatever they need to, to get there.
“I can now pinpoint the flaws in their arguments very precisely. As I teach the course to my son, he’s doing the same thing. He sees how persuasion is shaped, and he can explain an argument contained in an article very clearly. He can show me where the author is fudging results and departing from logic. It’s very gratifying to see him developing this ability.
“It hit me one day that, in an open society, we will always have people trying to persuade each other that they are right. There will always be argument and counter-argument. This can be a good thing, if we know enough logic to be able to decide for ourselves who is making the most valid argument.
“If we lack training and education in logic, we’ll be swayed in the wind from one side to another, and we’ll end up making very questionable choices…”
Margo Y.
Jon Rappoport has been working as an investigative reporter for 30 years. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize early in his career, he has published articles in LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, CBS Healthwatch, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. He is the author of Logic and Analysis, a new course for home schools. His work can be found at www.nomorefakenews.com. He can be contacted at qjrconsulting@gmail.com