-
阅读方法论之六
Critical
Thinking
(2)
II.
Confusion
in
Causal
Reasoning
＊
Causal
Oversimplification
(Questionable
Cause)
这种谬误的含义是在缺
乏事实论据的情况下仅仅凭借观察到的表面现象就断定或暗示某件事是另一
件事的起因，
并且未能考虑其他真正原因的存在。例如，在讨论未婚少女怀孕现象增加的现象时，很多评
论所给出的唯一解释是：她们自身缺乏责任感。显然，这不可能是唯一的原因，例如因为父母没有尽到监
督的责任，家庭破裂对孩子产生不良的影响，电影、录像中情色画面的负面影响等等，但是谴责
年轻人总
是比承认整个社会体系需要反省要来的容易。所以这种谬误的产生有时是作者的
思维太过于简单，有时却
是在推卸责任或者避重就轻。例如：
“The
owners
of
the
Cumquat
Café
evidently
made
a
good
business
decision
in
moving
to
a
new
location,
as
can
be
seen
from
the
fact
that
the
Café
will
soon
celebrate
its
second
anniver
sary
there.
Moreover,
it
appears
that
businesses
are
not
likely
to
succeed
at
the
old
location:
sin
ce
the
Café’s
move,
three
different
businesses
—
a
tanning
salon,
an
antique
emporium,
and
a
pet-grooming
shop
—
have
occupied
its
f
ormer
spot.”
仅仅因为
tanning
salon,
an
antique
emporium,
and
a
pet-grooming
shop
在
old
< br>location
的迅速
关门的现象，就断定
old
location
风水不好不适合
business
，从而忽略了其它潜在的真正原因，例如这三
家倒闭的小店老板不善于经营，或者提供的产品和服务存在瑕疵不流行等等。
< br>
＊
Post
hoc,
ergo
propter
hoc
(After
this,
therefore
because
of
this)
< br>这种谬误的含义在于观点提出者仅仅因为观察到了两个事件的发生存在先后关系，
就贸然断定发生在
前的事件就是发生在后事件的原因。比如，一只黑猫在你车前穿过，几
分钟后你发生了车祸，你就由此得
出了一个不合逻辑（但是非常符合传统迷信色彩观点）
的结论：那只黑猫导致了车祸的发生。再来看一个
英文例子：
Two
years
ago
NovaHigh
School
began
to
use
interactive
computer
instruction
in
three
acad
emic
subjects.
The
school
dropout
rate
decl
ined
immediately,
and
last
year’s
graduates
have
repo
rted
some
impressive
achievements
in
college.
In
future
budgets
the
school
board
should
use
a
greater
portion
of
the
available
funds
to
buy
more
computers,
and
all
schools
in
the
district
shoul
d
adopt
interactive
computer
instruction
throughout
the
curriculum.
仅仅因为使用了
interactive
computer
instruction
< br>发生在两年前，退学率的降低和大学入学率的增加
发生在后面，就断定二者之间存
在因果关系，这显然是难以令人信服的。
＊
Cum
hoc,
ergo
propter
hoc
(Concurrence)
这种谬
误的含义在于观点提出者仅仅因为观察到了两个事件的发生同时出现，
就贸然断定二者之
间必
然存在因果相关性。例如，在股市当中我们经常会发现股票交易量的变化和股票价格
的变化经常会同时出
现，所以很多人就断定交易量的变化和价格变化之间存在因果关系并
且还乐此不疲地发明了各种指标来做
分析，
但是几十年的统计研
究表明二者之间其实并不存在必然的因果相关性。
我们还是来看一个英文例子：
The
falling
revenues
that
the
company
is
experiencing
coincide
with
delays
in
manufacturing.
These
delays,
in
turn,
are
due
in
large
part
to
poor
planning
in
purchasing
metals.
Consider
furt
her
that
the
manager
of
the
department
that
handles
purchasing
of
raw
materials
has
an
excelle
nt
background
in
general
business,
psychology,
and
sociology,
but
knows
little
about
the
propertie
s
of
metals.
The
company
should,
therefore,
move
the
purchasing
manager
to
the
sales
departm
ent
and
bring
in
a
scientist
from
the
research
division
to
be
manager
of
the
purchasing
departme
nt.
仅仅因为收入的下降和生产的延迟同时发生，就匆忙地认为二者之间存在因果关系，并且断定后者是
前者的原因，这显然无视现实中的一种常见情况：当期的收入更多是来自库存商品的销售
而不是当期的生
产商品的销售。
＊
Correlation
to
Causation
这种谬误的含义
在于观点提出者仅仅因为观察到了两个事件的变化间存在相关性，
就轻易断定二者之
间必然存在因果相关性。例如：
Parents
of
young
children
are
becoming
increasingly
concerned
about
how
depictions
of
viol
ence
on
television
might
influence
a
child’s
behavior
and
attitudes.
During
the
past
year,
the
ratin
gs
for
Real
Crime
,
one
of
our
network’s
most
popular
prime
-time
shows,
have
steadily
declined.
Therefore,
in
order
to
boost
our
prime-
time
ratings,
we
should
replace
Real
Crime
with
a
situatio
n
comedy
show.
仅仅因为父母对电视暴力对小孩影响关注程度的上升了，同时
Real
Crime
的收视率下降的变化相关
性
的观察，就断定前者是后者的原因，显然忽略了这样一种更为真实的原因：
Real <
/p>
Crime
的后续情节在暴
力描写上缺乏
创新和新鲜感，过于雷同导致观众的乏味和流失。
＊
One
Example
in
Reading
Many
theories
have
been
formulated
to
explain
the
role
of
grazers
such
as
zoo-plankton
in
controlling
the
amount
of
phytoplankton
in
lakes.
The
first
theories
of
such
grazer
control
were
m
erely
based
on
observations
of
negative
correlations
between
algal
and
zooplankton
numbers.
A
l
ow
number
of
algal
cells
in
the
presence
of
a
high
number
of
grazers
suggested,
but
did
not
pr
ove,
that
the
grazers
had
removed
most
of
the
algae.
The
converse
observation,
of
the
absence
of
grazers
in
areas
of
high
phytoplankton
concentration,
led
Hardy
to
propose
his
principle
of
an
imal
exclusion,
which
hypothesized
that
phytoplankton
produced
a
repellent
that
excluded
grazers
from
regions
of
high
phytoplankton
concentration.
This
was
the
first
suggestion
of
algal
defenses
against
grazing.
思考一下，为什么作者要用
merely
一词对
first
theories
做出负面评价呢？负面评价的理由又是什么
呢？带着这样的问题去读文章，
我们很快发现理由是
”correlation
to
causation”
因为早期的研究只是观察到
了水藻数量和水虫数量间存在负相关的关系，
并没有给出令人信服的证据表明后者的变动是前者变动的原
因。由此可见，如果读者能够
识别逻辑谬误，就能够更好地理解文章写作思路，才能做到真正地读懂。
阅读方法论七
Question
Patterns
(2)
II.
General
Understanding
Questions
1.
Main
Idea
(1)
GRE
、
GMAT
考试
对于
GRE
、
GMAT
考试中的
短文章，我们主要是学会从文章找到观点，然后根据观点的关系确定谁
是最重要的观点从
而确定
main
idea
。
这里我们非常重视因果关系和由
demonstrative
pronouns
or
adjec
tives
承上启下的关系。
我们来看
下面这个例子
（例子参看上期文章
《阅读方法论七
Question
Patterns
(1)
》
）
而对于
GRE
、
GMAT
的长文章，我们主要是重视文章首段和二段
的阅读。
GRE
、
GMAT
的长文
章一般在结构可以分为两个大类：评论型文章（
Evaluative
）和说明型文章（
Exposito
ry
）。根据文章的写
作目的，我们又可以细分为四个大类，六
个小类，参看下表：
Different
Viewpoints
Viewpoints
Conflicting
Patterns
Persuasive Patterns
Opposing Arguments
Establishment
Disagreement
Expository
Expository Patterns
Descriptive + Evaluative
Patterns
Descriptive plus Evaluative
其分类标准的确立是基于
ETS
的一篇
官方文献，具体内容如下：
“Re
ading
comprehension
passages
generally
rely
on
some
kind
of
tension
to
give
them
diffic
ulty.
A
discussion
or
argument
that
develops
in
a
linear
fashion
toward
a
conclusion
is
usually
to
o
simple
to
support
challenging
items.
The
requisite
tension
can
take
various
forms:
a
conflict
bet
ween
different
or
opposing
arguments
about
something,
an
unexpected
finding
that
challenges
pr
eviously
established
ways
of
understanding
something,
a
disagreement
about
what
evidence
is
rel
evant
to
the
solution
of
a
particular
problem,
etc.
But
disagreement
or
contrast
or
opposition
is
n
ot
in
itself
enough
to
provide
the
tension:
a
passage
that
merely
states
or
describes
opposing
po
sitions,
without
discussing
in
much
detail
the
reasoning
behind
them,
will
not
support
very
many
or
very
complex
items.
For
example,
instead
of
saying
that
Brown
believed
X
and
Smith
believed
Y,
a
passage
might
tell
us
that
Brown,
heavily
influenced
by
such-and-such
school
of
thought,
t
ended
to
assume
A,
and
therefore
believed
X.
Smith,
on
the
other
hand,
had
access
to
informati
on
that
Brown
did
not
have,
namely
B
and
C,
and
this
information
led
Smith
to
conclude
Y.
Ho
wever,
Smith
interpreted
B
in
such
a
way
that
it
seemed
logical
to
conclude
Y,
when
in
fact
this
interpretation
was
ill
founded.
The
more
interdependent
details,
the
more
logical
twists
and
turns,
the
better.
Naturally,
a
passage
containing
this
kind
of
density
can
only
be
created
from
a
sourc
e
that
provides
the
requisite
information,
and
such
sources
are
not
easy
to
find.
”
我们在阅读
GRE
、
GMAT
长文章时，判断它
是属于什么类型的文章和解决其相应的三种主旨题目，
都是在文章的首段以及二段这里完
成的。所以考生在文章的这两个地方一定要通过观点出现的
Word
< br>Wat
ch
（观点性谓语动词，主观性判断、评价、估计
，限定词，结论性标志词，强烈感情的表述）仔细挖掘观
点，并分析观点间的关系，进而
确定文章结构和文章中心。我们来看几个例子：
Example
1:
Different
Viewpoints
The
earliest
controversies
about
the
relationship
between
photography
and
art
centered
on
whether
photography's
fidelity
to
appearances
and
dependence
on
a
machine
allowed
it
to
be
a
f
ine
art
as
distinct
from
merely
a
practical
art.
Throughout
the
nineteenth
century,
the
defense
of
photography
was
identical
with
the
struggle
to
establish
it
as
a
fine
art.
Against
the
charge
that
photography
was
a
soulless,
mechanical
copying
of
reality,
photographers
asserted
that
it
was
in
stead
a
privileged
way
of
seeing,
a
revolt
against
commonplace
vision,
and
no
less
worthy
an
ar
t
than
painting.
Ironically,
now
that
photography
is
securely
established
as
a
fine
art,
many
photographers
fi
nd
it
pretentious
or
irrelevant
to
label
it
as
such.
Serious
photographers
variously
claim
to
be
fin
ding,
recording,
impartially
observing,
witnessing
events,
exploring
themselves
—
anything
but
makin
g
works
of
art.
In
the
nineteenth
century,
photography's
association
with
the
real
world
placed
it
i
n
an
ambivalent
relation
to
art;
late
in
the
twentieth
century,
an
ambivalent
relation
exists
becaus
e
of
the
Modernist
heritage
in
art.
That
important
photographers
are
no
longer
willing
to
debate
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