Programmatic - What It Is, What It Isn’t And Why It’s Not Replacing Humans Any Time Soon | Xaxis
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XAXIS CONTRIBUTORS
Caspar Schlickum
October 20, 2014
There is nothing like a quick pop quiz as an effective ice breaker and discussion opener. When speaking to a large room of new faces I often like to start with the pop quiz: Which of the following is programmatic?
-&Using technology to place a buy order rather than faxing an insertion order?
-&Valuing and buying an ad impression in real time and only buying the impressions that you really need?
-&Using technology to decide which ad to serve based on the audience?
-&Dynamically tailoring creative depending on the audience or placement?
-&Connecting anonymous data from a vast array of sources to make buying and placement decisions?
I&ve asked this question to audiences on numerous occasions. I generally ask people to raise their hands or to stand up when I read out the definition that best matches what they think programmatic is. I can usually depend on an irregular rippling effect as pe nicely proving my point that programmatic can be many things.
Of course, the truth is that all of these (and there are probably many other definitions or use cases) are programmatic.
Indeed, one of the problems of programmatic is that it has so many definitions. All too often it is the second definition in my list that gets the most bobs & the real time element which has so captured the imagination of our industry.
Real Time Bidding or RTB is indeed a form of programmatic, but for many, programmatic is assumed to be RTB and RTB only. In the video below, we have sought to offer a quick overview that shows the breadth of technologies and processes that can be encapsulated by the term programmatic, but also show how this new technology is dramatically changing the landscape of digital advertising.
For the video we have used the US market as an example of this dramatic change. In 2012, $1.9bn or around 13% of digital spend was bought programmatically, this is set to quadruple by 2017, with 30% of all digital spend (encompassing everything from display, video, mobile, digital radio and digital out of home).
In Europe, the trend is similar, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau Europe (IAB Europe) and IHS Technology,& European online ad spend is on course to surpass outlays on any other media platform by 2018. And automated&or programmatic &ad buying will be a primary driver of this growth.
But the other myth or false assumption in this new programmatic age, is that as the machines take over, our industry becomes somehow simpler, and less reliant on expertise provided by people.
Nothing is further from the truth. The reality is that - and this is true of humanity in general - we evolve to take advantage of the tools we have available to us at the time. So as programmatic has changed media, we have also seen incredible new opportunities arise from data, inventory management, technology and of course an influx of new skillsets.
All of this while the fundamental objective of our efforts (to sell stuff to people) has remained utterly constant.
So the maths men are invading, but does this mean the end of the mad men? I for one hope not, and have to believe that if programmatic is to fulfil its promise for growth and transformation, it simply must find a way to bring the creative side of our industry with it.
That is not easy. The standardisation that is often required for a programmatic approach makes it hard. But there are other advantages around and sequential messaging (or storytelling for your creatives!) that create new opportunities for the creative.
The fact is that data-driven marketing is only successful when both parts of our brain, our teams, and our attitudes are in play.
But coming back to people. While technology is creating new opportunities, it is also creating - or exacerbating - old problems. Fraud and viewability are back on the radar in ways that they have not been for a while. And they should be.
Many of the technologies used to manage these have not kept pace with the development of the programmatic technologies themselves. A true &open exchange& ideally relies on technology to control for quality and safety. But most companies in the space are finding that manual verification is becoming critical to ensure trust by advertisers.
So once again, people and relationships make a difference. At Xaxis, we buy only a small part of our inventory in real time.
Does that mean we are not programmatic? Of course not. 100% of what we do is programmatic. However we find the audiences we target across a pool of trusted inventory that we procure directly from the publishers that we (through GroupM) have a relationship with.
This is in fact what our clients expect of their agency and by extension us: to get them the best possible media at the lowest possible price. Buying in RTB enables us to do neither.&
The new technologies we create work best when smart people at both clients, agencies and suppliers are combined with data and inventory to create new ways of engaging. To me, it&s the combination of these things that creates the magic and promise of programmatic.
XAXIS CONTRIBUTORS
CasparSchlickum
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＞＞＞It has been shown________exercising regularly is good both f..
It has been shown________exercising regularly is good both for one’s health and one’s confidence.
A．whether&&B．when&&C．that&&D．what
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据魔方格专家权威分析，试题“It has been shown________exercising regularly is good both f..”主要考查你对&&主语从句&&等考点的理解。关于这些考点的“档案”如下：
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因为篇幅有限，只列出部分考点，详细请访问。
主语从句的概念：
如果一个句子在复合句中充当一个主语，那么这个句子就是主语从句。主语从句通常由从属连词that，whether，if和连接代词what，who，whichwhatever，whoever以及连接副词how，when，where，why等词引导。that在句中无词义，只起连接作用。主语从句用法：
1、主语从句的引导词：主语从句通常由连词that和whether、连接代词或连接副词以及关系代词型what引导： 如：That he is still alive is a wonder. 他还活着，真是奇迹。 &&&&&&& When we arrive doesn't matter. 什么时候到没有关系。 &&&&&&& What we need is money. 我们需要的是钱。 &&&&&&& What I want to know is this. 我想知道的就是这一点。 &&&&&&& Whether they would support us was a problem. 他们是否会支持我们还是一个问题。 2、主语从句与形式主语it：有时为了考虑句子平衡，通常在主语从句处使用形式主语it，而将真正的主语从句移至句末。这分三种情况： (1)对于以连词that引导的主语从句，通常用形式主语代主语从句： 如：It's a pity that he didn't come. 很遗憾他没来。 (2)对于以连接代词(副词)引导的主语从句，可以使用形式主语代主语从句，也可直接在句首使用主语从句： 如：Whether they would support us was a problem. 他们是否会支持我们还是一个问题。&&&&&&&&&&It was a problem whether they would support us. 他们是否会支持我们还是一个问题。 (3)对关系代词型what引导的主语从句，通常不用形式主语，总是主语从句放在句首： 如：What we need is money. 我们需要的是钱。 &&&&&&& What I want to know is this. 我想知道的就是这一点。 (4)如果句子是疑问句，则必须用带形式主语it的结构： 如：Is it true that he is the girl's father? 他是那女孩的父亲，是真的吗？ &&&&&&& How is it that you are late again? 你怎么又迟到了？3、连词that的省略问题：引导主语从句的连词that有时可省，有时不能省，其原则是：若that引导的主语从句直接位于句首，则that不能省略；若that引导的主语从句位于句末，而在句首使用了形式主语it，则that则可以省略： 如：That you didn't go to the talk was a pity. 很遗憾你没去听报告。(that不可省) &&&&&&& It was a pity(that) you didn't go to the talk. 很遗憾你没去听报告。(that可省)主语从句应注意的几个问题：
1、that引导的主语从句既可放在句首，也可放在句尾，但在下列情况下that从句不可提前。（1）在It is said/reported...that结构中： 如：It is reported that a bank was robbed yesterday. （2）在Ithappened/occurred...结构中：Ithappenedthattheteacherwasnotintheofficethatday. （3）含主语从句的复合句是疑问句时：如：Is it ture that you will give up the job? 2、下面这种情况常用it作形式主语。在It doesn't matter+what/whatever…结构中。 如：It doesn't matter what you say. 3、由what引导的主语从句谓语动词单复数问题 what引导的主语从句一般按单数对待，但是，在实际使用中究竟按单数还是按复数对取决于其成分的含义。 如：What we need is more time. &&&&&&& What were left behind were five empty bottles.
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426581428417422394417625389236212850&SOPA explained: What it is and why it mattersBy
SOPA's backers say the sweeping anti-piracy bill is needed to squash sites like The Pirate Bay (left), but the tech industry says the bill is rife with unintended consequences.NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The tech industry is abuzz about SOPA and PIPA, a pair of anti-piracy bills. Here's why they're controversial, and how they would change the digital landscape if they became law.What is SOPA? SOPA is an acronym for the Stop Online Piracy Act. It's a proposed bill that aims to crack down on copyright infringement by restricting access to sites that host or facilitate the trading of pirated content.
SOPA's main targets are &rogue& overseas sites like torrent hub The Pirate Bay, which are a trove for illegal downloads. Go to the The Pirate Bay, type in any current hit movie or TV show like &Glee,& and you'll see links to download full seasons and recent episodes for free. Content creators have battled against piracy for years --
-- but it's hard for U.S. companies to take action against foreign sites. The Pirate Bay's servers are physically located in Sweden. So SOPA's goal is to cut off pirate sites' oxygen by requiring U.S. search engines, advertising networks and other providers to withhold their services. That means sites like Google wouldn't show flagged sites in their search results, and payment processors like eBay's (, ) PayPal couldn't transmit funds to them. Both sides say they agree that protecting content is a worthy goal. But opponents say that the way SOPA is written effectively promotes censorship and is rife with the potential for unintended consequences. Silicon Valley woke up and took notice of the implications when SOPA was introduced in the House of Representatives in October. But its very similar counterpart, PIPA (the Protect IP Act), flew under the radar and was approved by a Senate committee in May. PIPA had been scheduled for a vote on January 24.But after a massive pushback from tech companies and their supporters, both
on January 20.Isn't copyright infringement already illegal? Yes. The 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act lays out enforcement measures. Let's say a YouTube user uploads a copyrighted song. Under the current law, that song's copyright holders could send a &takedown notice& to YouTube. YouTube is protected against liability as long as it removes the content within a reasonable timeframe. When it gets a DMCA warning, YouTube has to notify the user who uploaded the content. That user has the right to file a counter-motion demonstrating that the content doesn't infringe on any copyrights. If the two sides keep disagreeing, the issue can go to court. The problem with DMCA, critics say, is that it's useless against overseas sites. SOPA tackles that by moving up the chain. If you can't force overseas sites to take down copyrighted work, you can at least stop U.S. companies from providing their services to those sites. You can also make it harder for U.S. Internet users to find and access the sites.But SOPA goes further than DMCA and potentially puts site operators -- even those based in the U.S. -- on the hook for content that their users upload.
says that a site could be deemed a SOPA scofflaw if it &facilitates& copyright infringement. That very broad language has tech companies spooked. Sites like YouTube, which publishes millions of user-uploaded videos each week, are worried that they would be forced to more closely police that content to avoid running afoul of the new rules. &YouTube would just go dark immediately,& Google public policy director Bob Boorstin . &It couldn't function.& Tech companies also object to SOPA's &shoot first, ask questions later& approach. The bill requires every payment or advertising network operator to set up a process through which outside parties can notify the company that one of its customers is an &Internet site is dedicated to theft of U.S. property.& Once a network gets a notification, it is required to cut off services to the target site within five days. Filing false notifications is a crime, but the process would put the burden of proof -- and the legal cost of fighting a false allegation -- on the accused.
As the anti-SOPA trade group NetCoalition put it in their analysis of the bill: &The legislation systematically favors a copyright owner's intellectual property rights and strips the owners of accused websites of their rights.&Who supports SOPA, and who's against it? The controversial pair of bills, SOPA and PIPA, have sparked an all-out war between Hollywood and Silicon Valley. In general, media companies have united in favor of them, while tech's big names are throwing their might into opposing them.SOPA's supporters -- which include CNNMoney parent company Time Warner (, ), plus groups such as the Motion Picture Association of America -- say that online piracy leads to U.S. job losses because it deprives content creators of income.The bill's supporters dismiss accusations of censorship, saying that the legislation is meant to revamp a broken system that doesn't adequately prevent criminal behavior.But SOPA's critics say the bill's backers don't understand the Internet's architecture, and therefore don't appreciate the implications of the legislation they're considering.In November, tech behemoths including Google (, ) and Facebook lodged a formal complaint letter to lawmakers, saying: &We support the bills' stated goals. Unfortunately, the bills as drafted would expose law-abiding U.S. Internet and technology companies to new uncertain liabilities [and] mandates that would require monitoring of web sites.&Where does the bill stand now? SOPA was once expected to sail quickly through committee approval in the House. But tech companies, who largely oppose the bills, mobilized their users to speak out.
on January 18, while , San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C. Google (, ) drew more than 7 million signatures for a petition that it linked on its highly trafficked homepage. The bills lost some of their Congressional backers as a result of the backlash. Both
on January 20.If the bills do come back up for discussion, they will likely be extensively reworked. One major tenet of the original SOPA legislation has already been removed. As originally written, SOPA would have required Internet service providers (ISPs) to block access to sites that law enforcement officials deemed pirate sites.But the White House said its analysis of the original legislation's technical provisions &suggests that they pose a real risk to cybersecurity,& and that it wouldn't support legislation that mandates manipulating the Internet's technical architecture.The White House's statement came shortly after one of SOPA's lead sponsors, Texas Republican Lamar Smith, agreed to remove SOPA's domain-blocking provisions.
2:36 What are the alternatives? One option, of course, is that Congress does nothing and leaves the current laws in place. Alternative legislation has also been proposed. A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act (OPEN) on January 18 -- the same day as the Wikipedia site blackout.Among other differences, OPEN offers more protection than SOPA would to sites accused of hosting pirated content. It also beefs up the enforcement process. It would allow digital rights holders to bring cases before the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), an independent agency that handles trademark infringement and other trade disputes. California Republican Darrell Issa introduced OPEN in the House, and Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden introduced the Senate version. OPEN's backers had
and .SOPA supporters counter that the ITC doesn't have the resources for digital enforcement, and that giving it those resources would be too expensive.Smith, one of SOPA's lead sponsors, released a scathing statement about OPEN immediately after it was introduced.&The OPEN Act does not do enough to combat online piracy, and may make the problem worse,& Smith wrote. &
Related stories:Reasoning, and What It Is To Be Rational
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The following are ideas about what reasoning is and about what it
is to be reasonable.& It also offers some conjectures about why many
people don't seem to have good reasoning skills or to be very reasonable.
It is offered here for students whose teachers do not seem to think very
highly of their work, but who themselves do not make very clear what they
think is wrong with it. In some cases students and professors may have
very different ideas about what it is to show good reasoning in a paper
or class or to present a case in a reasonable manner.
If little children are playing with chess pieces and a chess board, but
are making arbitrary moves in what they think is emulation of adults they
have seen playing chess, it is not just that they are playing chess badly.
It is that they are not playing chess at all, regardless of what they think
they are doing or what they call it.&
There are some things that are difficult to distinguish between whether
they are being done badly or whether they are not even being done at all.
It is crucial to understand the difference, for it is often not helpful
to try to improve the performance of someone who is not even doing what
you are trying to get him to do better. He won't see you as improving his
performance but as merely changing it. It will generally not serve much
purpose, for example, to correct the children's chess moves until you explain
to them what chess is and what the rules and goal are. Otherwise if you
try to "correct" a move, they may simply say "but we do it this way."&
There are common exaggerated uses of the distinction between doing something
badly and not doing it at all. If a person dances very poorly, other people
might say they are not sure what he is doing, but he is certainly not dancing.
We say of some people's culinary efforts not just that they are bad cooks
but that they "can't cook at all." And we say some people "cannot sing
a note," though they may think they are singing. These seem to me to be
satirical applications of the distinction rather than real examples of
it, as in the above chess case. But there are some cases where it is not
clear how we might describe the situation. Yet an accurate description
or understanding of the case may be crucial for improving someone's performance.&
Suppose someone does a math problem very poorly, using algebraic language
and symbols but utilizing "reasoning steps" that seem to us very bizarre,
and when asked to explain why he used those steps, says "I am using algebra".
If his steps and reasons were so far removed from anything remotely approaching
GOOD algebraic reasoning, we may be quite tempted to feel that he did not
use algebra but merely what he mistakenly thought was algebra. It may be
not just that he does not understand how to work this problem, but that
he does not understand what algebra "is about" in general. These are two
different difficulties, requiring two different approaches to remedy.&
Or students may write an exam answer or do an assignment in such a way
that it incorporates all the features a teacher requires, but does it in
such a way that shows either the student does not understand those features
well or that he did not get the point of the features. Knowing the cause
of the problem is important to correcting it effectively.&
Recently it occurred to me in one of those all-encompassing revelations
that "reasoning" itself is an activity that some people sometimes seem
to do so badly that it is more accurate and more helpful to think of them
as not actually reasoning at all, though they may mistakenly think they
are, and though they may be doing something that seems like reasoning.
What makes this "all-encompassing" is that it explains a great deal of
what seems to be poor decision-making and poor logical ability on the part
of a great many people, not all of whom are students, and not all of whom
are outside positions of wealth, power, influence, and authority.&
When teaching, I have always concentrated, not just on presenting "factual"
subject content, but, on trying to get students to see logical relationships
in the material and, when necessary, trying to improve general reasoning
skills, so that the conceptual and logical aspects of the subject matter
would make sense to students and so that they could derive needed or new
material, thereby depending less on memory. I pointed out various sorts
of common fallacies and I required myself and students to justify our views
in class, trying to expose fallacious or weak reasoning wherever it appeared.
Many students seemed to catch on and to become skilled, but there were
students who seemed not to get it at all and who were either just debating
to try to score trivial points or who gave reasons that just seemed to
make no sense or were repetitions of points we had just shown flawed. Many
of these students were quite intelligent, as are many quite successful
adults who nevertheless seem quite often not to be very sensible or reasonable
about various matters. I think it is not so much that these people reason
badly as that they are not reasoning at all, but merely emulating the outward
behavior of people they believe to be reasoning. They are behaving like
the above children who are moving chess pieces.&
In teaching my own courses (as opposed to teaching isolated topics in
another teacher's course or in a one-time forum) I had explained what it
was to be logical and reasonable, but I now believe that even when I did
that, I did it too summarily, and incorrectly assumed the students understood
what "being reasonable" is. I thought they only needed to improve or focus
their reasoning skills. I now believe that most people do not know what
it is to be logical or ra and I think that, like children
moving chess pieces or students merely using algebraic lingo without understanding,
too many people are merely mimicking what rational discussion sounds like
to them, but don't have any real understanding of what they are trying
to accomplish. So before one can improve their reasoning skills, one has
to show th i.e., what counts as reasoning and what
its point is. Without doing that, one turns reasoning only into a game
to these people, a game whose point is arbitrary or unclear and whose rules
or methods are external, behavioristic, contrived, and capricious.&
I suspect there are a number of incorrect things people are doing when
they are being what they consider "reasonable". Some seem to think that
being reasonable means merely "having reasons". It does not matter to them
that their reasons are untrue or improbable or that they may not even be
relevant to their conclusion. When you point out problems with their reasons
and their conclusions, they say things like "Well, I have my reasons, and
you have yours." And if you are bold enough to say something like "But
yours are no good! That is what I have been trying to show you!", they
dismiss you with "But they are my reasons!"&
Some seem to think that reasons are only meant to persuade oneself or
others. If they do persuade others, as in a debate, political campaign,
or courtroom, that is all that matters. Truth, for people with this perspective,
is irrelevant or is merely what people can get each other to believe. And
if one fails to persuade others of one's viewpoint, that is unfortunate
but also unimportant if one has the power to do what he wants to do anyway.
Such people see no distinction between good objections to their views and
bad objec they only see persuasive and unpersuasive
objections. One friend of mine was invited to sit in on company discussions
about the purchase of a half-million dollar system of some sort and he
voiced objections, explaining why it would not successfully do what they
wanted it to do. He was not invited the system was
and the company took a half-million
dollar loss. Later he asked why he had not been wanted at the meetings
where the decisions were actually made about purchasing the system and
he was told that he had such good arguments for not buying the system,
they were afraid he would talk them out of it, and it was something they
really wanted to buy. They apparently understood logic as persuasion, not
as something to do with facts or reality which might let them know ahead
of time whether something would actually work or not.&
Some people seem to think that "being reasonable" only means "seeing"
both (or all) sides of an issue. One does not really need to UNDERSTAND
either side or the reas one only needs to recognize
that different people believe different sides, and perhaps know what those
sides are. One may even be able to state both sides and any reasons each
side gives. But the reasons themselves don't actually mean anything to
the third party who simply takes some sort of impartial, uncritical, egalitarian
approach to the whole thing. If he has to decide between them, he often
tends to believe the best decision is one that angers both of the involved
parties, as if something that both sides believe to be wrong is somehow
more likely to be right or better than an explanation of why one side is
more reasonable than another or than an alternative idea that genuinely
satisfies both sides. Hence, if one witness thinks he saw a yellow getaway
car and another thinks he saw a blue one, green is the color the police
ought to n or if one side thinks we need all-out military
action and another thinks we should not use military action at all, the
proper course must be to use limited (insufficient) military action. Government
and business leaders are fond of saying they get criticism from both sides
of various issues, so they assume they are doing the right thing. How reasonable
is such a view? Would they not get such criticism also if they were simply
doing the totally wrong thing?&
Finally, many people, including some scientists and some scholars, tend
to believe that what is reasonable is what conforms to rules, traditions,
or accepted procedures, and it does not matter whether those things have
reasonable justification themselves. Often some reasons are given in attempted
justification of methodologies, rules, or traditions, and they are considered
sufficient regardless of how true or relevant they are. Nor does it matter
whether an alternative too frequently logic seems
to have nothing to do with methodology or with what is right. It takes
years before conflicting "facts" outside of a given methodology are able
to be accepted as facts or evidence, and the "traditional" methodology
then seen to be inadequate in some kinds of situations.&
One person told me he thought that being reasonable was "making things
make sense"; i.e., that "something is reasonable when it makes sense."
That, I believe, is a step in the right direction. Perhaps it needs to
be added that what needs to make sense is ALL the available relevant information,
and that ignoring relevant information is not the same thing as making
sense out of it. However, the notion of making sense out of things is perhaps
vague, and I would like to suggest another way of looking at what it is
to be reasonable. I think that every high school and every college student
needs to be taught what reasoning is and what it means to be reasonable.
I offer the following as such a description. I believe it applies to all
disciplines.&At the end of this essay, there is
an , with commentary, of a position that
is meant to be logical and reasonable stated in a fully explicit manner
to show the various reasoning steps.&
Being reasonable
means holding beliefs and views for which (1) one can give true or probable
evidence that (2) actually (or sufficiently and relevantly) supports them.
And it means also (3) having true or probable evidence about what is wrong
with beliefs that oppose or challenge your conclusions or the truth or
sufficiency of your evidence. For
the only ways any views can be reasonably challenged are by the supported
claim that (1) the conclusion is not true, (2) that the evidence is not
true, or (3) that the evidence is insufficient to justify the conclusion.
The only ways you can have mistaken beliefs of any sort is to have faulty
evidence -- evidence that is not true or that, even if it is true, still
does not support your beliefs. (As an example
of the latter point, the view that the sun moves around the earth does
not follow from the appearance that it does, because that very same appearance
can be explained by a rotation of the earth instead. So even though the
reason for believing that the sun is revolving around the earth is true
-- that we see the sun going from east to west each day -- that reason
does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that the sun is revolving around
the earth.)
Showing evidence to be not true or to be inconclusive
does not, by itself, show a conclusion to be false, but it shows it unreasonable
or unwarranted to believe it on the basis of that evidence.
Other people's evidence that your conclusion
is false must itself be faulty in some way if you
otherwise your conclusion must be false and there must be something wrong
with YOUR evidence for it. Whenever there is evidence that a belief or
a conclusion is true, and other evidence that it is false, there must be
something wrong with at least one of those sets of evidence.
As a corollary, this all means being able to
support your reasons or evidence itself, insofar as is necessary. So, if
someone challenges the truth of any of your reasons, you need to be able
to give the evidence you believe that reason itself is true, and you then
need to show why you think their challenge is itself faulty. In other words,
you will be looking at the reason under attack as a conclusion itself --
a conclusion of a "prior" argument or of prior evidence. In one episode
of the television series "Law and Order", the defense attorney challenged
the eyewitness testimony of an elderly woman who had positively identified
his client as the perpetrator of a crime. He asked her age and he asked
her about failing vision. When she denied any problem with her vision,
he asked her to identify a mural on a far wall in the courtroom. She said
it was some part of Manhattan in the seventeenth century. When he sarcastically
asked her whether she was familiar with 17th century Manhattan, her response
annihilated his attack on her credibility as an eyewitness from the standpoint
of her allegedly having impaired vision: "No, young man, but I can read
the legend at the bottom of the mural." (The legend was in small script.)
As another corollary, it means having true or probable, relevant, sufficient
evidence against other people's conclusions you dispute, or against the
truth, probability, or sufficiency of their evidence. (Whenever possible
and feasible this may include expressing not only what you think is untrue
or irrelevant but what you think the correct or relevant points are. Sometimes,
however, this latter is not possible, as when one knows, and can demonstrate,
something is wrong, but does not know what is right to replace it.) Evidence
and conclusions can be disputed as being either false, unproved, improbable,
unclear, or meaningless.&
Being reasonable, when evidence is only probable at best, does not necessarily
mean being right, just as being right does not necessarily mean being reasonable.
Betting the mortgage on a pair of kings in a high stakes poker game will
be a winning bet in those cases where no one is able to draw a better hand,
but it is not normally a reasonable bet. Oppositely, betting a high, but
affordable, amount on a straight flush may be quite reasonable, but may
lose to someone who has the rare and improbable royal flush. Being reasonable
in situations involving only probable evidence gives you the best chance
of being right, but does not guaranty being right.&
Being good at being reasonable is not easy and may always be prone to
mistake. One of my favorite real life examples is the brochure a pharmaceutical
company put out to give information about, and promote, a flu vaccine they
make. It is a vaccine for a strain of flu called HiB, if I remember the
name correctly. The flu is the disease that causes 95 percent of meningitis.
And the vaccine is 100 percent effective in preventing this flu. My pediatrician
thought that was sufficient grounds to give the vaccine to my children,
but I asked for time to make the decision, since the evidence sounded suspiciously
like some I had heard before in a different context, and which did not
support the conclusion for which it was presented. (That argument was that
since 90 percent of heroin addicts first used marijuana, marijuana use
tends to lead to heroin addiction. That is a fallacious argument since
100 percent of heroin addicts first drank their mothers' milk or formula
as infants, but that does not make mothers' milk or formula lead to heroin
addiction. The important statistic is not what percentage of heroin addicts
took marijuana, but what percentage of marijuana users take, or become
addicted to, heroin.) The pharmaceutical brochure made the same kind of
error even though the reasonable argument that the pharmaceutical company
needed, and which gave strong support to the wisdom of using the vaccine,
was available to them. What is important is not what percentage of meningitis
comes from this flu but 1) what percentage of this flu leads to meningitis,
2) what percentage of the population gets this flu, and 3) what the risks
are from the vaccine. That is, what are the side-effects of the vaccine
and how likely are they? For, if the vaccine is riskier than taking a chance
on getting the flu coupled with the chance of getting meningitis from the
flu, the vaccine is a poor risk. (As I understand it now, smallpox vaccine
is not routinely given any more in the United States since the risk of
dying from the vaccination is greater than the risk of getting smallpox.)
A call to the public health department ascertained no information about
(1) and (2), but sufficient information about (3) to allow a reasonable
decision. After a number of years of vaccine use, there were no known side
effects by any child. Hence, since there was some risk involved with getting
the meningitis and no risk involved with the vaccine, I had my children
given the vaccine. I presume the pharmaceutical company used the fallacious
argument, instead of the reasonable evidence which gave them a stronger
sales pitch, not because they were trying to deceive anyone, but because
they thought they really had a good argument, good evidence, for using
their product.&
Now, not every issue requires long deliberation. What degree of examination
to use is itself a reasonable question. A woman I knew whose EX-husband
was a philosopher used to justifiably resent his examining everything she
said in minute detail. She got tired of explaining things like precisely
what she meant by "medium" toast. Education is one means of teaching the
known pitfalls of irrelevance, untruth, improbability, vagueness, unnecessary
analysis and indecision, meaninglessness, but we may not
have yet discovered all the ways we sometimes, frequently, or even systematically
go wrong, whether in specific subject areas or in general. And it is easy
to make mistakes that one, in some sense, "knows better" but forgets or
does not recognize at the time.&
But however difficult helping someone to improve their reasoning is,
it is infinitely more difficult when the student does not even understand
what you are trying to do. For example, a student may have a view with
some evidence for it, and you may have three different objections, one
about the truth of one of his reasons, one about the truth of his conclusion,
and one about the relevance or sufficiency of his reasons even if they
were all true. If you try to attack one of his reasons, he shifts to others
or to a different argument altogether, or thinks you are attacking the
truth of his conclusion and does not see how your reasons have anything
to do with it. If you try to show his conclusion is false, he falls back
on his reasons. If you try to show his reasons would be irrelevant or insufficient
even if they were true, he cannot understand what you are getting at at
all. And if you try to do this by an analogy he gets distracted by the
analogy and starts arguing about it, or does not see what this totally
different subject matter has to do with his conclusion and evidence at
all. The fact that the form or logic of the argument in the analogy and
the form or logic in his argument are exactly the same, and that the form
is what determines whether the conclusion follows from the evidence and
reasons, mean nothing to him. In short, he does not understand how his
evidence is supposed to relate to his views, if he can even distinguish
concluding views fro and he cannot then understand
how your disputing any elements of his views affects any of the other elements.
Finally, he cannot generally distinguish your conclusions from your evidence
or see how one is relevant to the other. You can draw diagrams of his argument(s)
and your rebuttal to it till you are blue in the face, but the problem
for his seeing it is not the partic it is reasoning
or logical argument in general that he does not understand. Each particular
point about this particular argument just confuses him more, since he just
does not understand what significance all these different points have in
regard to what he believes or wants to believe.&
And each of the numerous students afflicted with this problem has the
same battle in each of his courses every time something conceptual or logical
arises. And each teacher has to face the specific problems because no one
teaches the general concept of what reasoning is. If people understood
what the relationship in general is supposed to be between evidence and
conclusions, if they understood what sufficient relevance is, and if they
understood which kinds of points differing rebuttals are attacking, and
why, there would be far less difficulty in achieving understanding and
agreement. And I think teaching and learning would be far easier tasks.
That is why I think it crucial that students (and teachers) learn in general
the simple idea of what being reasonable is about. The purpose of education
is to produce rational and skilled people, but we seldom teach what it
is to be rational.&
In some of my more optimistic conjectural moments I even tend to think
that reasonable people (seeking truth, not just power or personal gain)
working from the same evidence and spending sufficient time in discussion
(presenting all the evidence and clearing up mistakes, arranging complex
material in ways it can be kept track of, etc.) would logically come to
the same conclusions (even if that means knowing and agreeing there is
insufficient evidence or logical understanding at the time to be definitive)
and that, contrary, to the frequently evoked maxim, reasonable people could
not disagree. I believe most honest disagreements come from different evidence
(often based on different experiences) or from faulty logic. (Sometimes
there is not time or mutual inclination to look at all the evidence with
an open mind or to pursue the logic wherever it might lead, but that should
not be true of rea and when it is, it is a problem
of spirit and honesty, not one of knowledge or reason. The fact that some
people cannot or will not solve problems does not mean those problems are
insoluble.)&
Even in ethics classes, if you first use elemental types of moral situations
(about which there is little disagreement generally) to derive principles
of ethics, then you can discuss extremely complex issues in a way that
tends to foster agreement rather than the kind of discordant, passionate
controversy such issues tend to generate in the media and public at large.
Complex issues can frequently be analyzed in terms of more elemental components
which are not controversial at all, but the public and media do not tend
to do that very often and instead tend to miss key elements or to focus
on different aspects of the issues and erroneously apply the results to
all aspects. It is frequently analogous to people trying to do complex
math, science, or engineering problems without analyzing them into the
individual components for which solutions are readily available. Conflicts
and confusion arise that do not need to.&
Below is one of the arguments designed for the
affirmative side of a debate tournament where the point was to make a case
for the claim that "When there is a conflict between them, a higher value
should be placed on cultural sensitivity than on the commercial use of
free speech." In normal usage, arguments are seldom given spelled out in
this explicit, stilted way, but it is important for you to be able to present
any argument this way, so that you can see whether your reasons make sense,
seem clear and true, and seem to logically lead to the conclusion you wish.
Moreover, you should be able to support each of the reasons themselves
if challenged about their truth. If you can do all this, you also will
be more likely to be able to detect flaws in the arguments made by people
who disagree with you or who question or attack your position. In footnote
1 there is a sub-argument for the first premise that is intended to forestall
any objection that one does not have to be accountable for speech. In footnote
2, an argument is given in support of premise 8. Those were two premises
I felt likely to be challenged during the debate.&
One can never know ahead of time what someone
else listening to or reading your arguments will challenge, so the best
course is normally to be as explicit and complete as time or space allows,
and then to answer any unanticipated objection as it is given. In high
school and college courses, the general problem is that students haven't
had sufficient experience being challenged in their ideas for them to know
when they are not being clear or complete enough. Students tend to
and teachers often grade work without giving
the student a chance to respond to the teacher's objections. Spelling out
one's position in the following manner helps prevent that because it requires
one to be able to examine each reason to see how it is specifically used,
and to see whether it makes sense, whether it can be supported or not,
or whether it needs a modification.&
This was an argument that I helped my daughter develop from the vague
idea she had that "there should be some sort of accountability for companies
that say bad things about minorities". The difficulty was in trying to
show this in a way that made sense and was "solid" in its logic. The gist
of the argument was fairly simple, but it turned out that premises 5 and
10 were the most difficult to figure out how to word in a way that captured
what was needed and that made sure there were no gaps in the logic. It
took me three hours to develop those two premises the way they are. They
can be supported if necessary. The lines of the argument in bold print
are derived from preceding lines within the argument. The lines not in
bold are reasons which are introduced into the argument from outside of
it and would have to be supported, if challenged, by additional evidence
or prior argument.&
1.) Corporations are (and ought to be) accountable
for those actions and behaviors of theirs which cause harm,
whether intentionally, through negligence, or through callous indifference
and reckless disregard for the well-being of others.&
2.) Speech is a behavior that can cause harm.&
3) Commercial, free speech is speech.&
Hence, 4) Corporations are (and ought to be) accountable for that
commercial, free speech of theirs which causes harm, whether intentionally,
through negligence, or through callous indifference and reckless disregard
for the well-being of others.
5.) If any commercial, free speech which causes harm were valued
above or equal to the harm it causes, commercial, free speech would be
a behavior that is not accountable for its harm.&
Hence, 6) any commercial, free speech which causes harm should not
be valued more highly than, nor equal to, the harm it causes.
Hence, 7) harmful commercial, free speech should always be valued
less highly than the harm it causes.
8) Speech which is insensitive to any culture
or minority is harmful (to that culture).&
Hence, 9) Commercial, free speech which is insensitive to a culture
or minority should be valued less highly than its harm.
Hence, 10) whatever prevents the harm of insensitive commercial,
free speech should be valued more highly than insensitive commercial, free
speech itself, if that preventive is not more harmful in some other
way to society.
11) Cultural sensitivity conflicts with, and prevents the harm
of, insensitive commercial, free speech, and it is not more harmful in
any other way to society.&
12) Hence, when in conflict, cultural sensitivity ought to be valued
more highly than commercial free speech. ()&
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1. This is not just true there
are many different crimes based just on speech. Obstruction of justice,
contempt, and perjury are all punishable offenses because they are considered
to harm the administration of justice. Executive commands to employees
to break the law, make those executives responsible for the ensuing illegal
actions of their employees in obedience of those commands. They are not
protected by free speech. Slander and libel are not protected, neither
for individuals nor for commercial entities such as newspapers. Conspiracy
to commit a crime is also speech that is punishable by law. ()&
2. It is harmful, over time, to the culture directly
and indirectly - directly first by being humiliating and emotionally hurtful,
and also by causing the minority not to value itself, as its impressionable
indirectly, by fostering a climate that permits and encourages
a range of harms from minor humiliations to hate crimes against victims
who are considered, because of the message being promulgated, not to be
human beings who are worthy in their own right, deserving of being spared
pain, suffering, and murder. ()&
Although students tend to do it more, or
more egregiously, overgeneralization is easy for anyone to do by mistake.&
I used to have a generalization I was totally sure of until one day I thought
of a counter-example after seeing an actual situation that had relevance
I had to amend my position.& It was meant to illustrate
a point about probability and utility.& The point that I was illustrating
is that one has to take into account not only probabilities but also utilities
(i.e., value) in deciding what is the wisest course to pursue.& For
example, it might be okay to risk a $1 bet to win $1,000,000 if the probability
is one in 500, but it is quite another thing for the average person to
risk $50,000 to win $1,000,000 if the probability is one in 400.&
Even with better odds in the second case, the risk is too great because
the utility or value of $50,000 is much greater than the utility or value
of $1.& (That might not be true for a billionaire, because $50,000
does not mean as much to him/her, but it is true for the average person.&
"Value" has more to do with significance than it has to do with mere numbers
or relative numbers.) You have to judge the value of what you are risking
versus the value of what you are likely to gain, as well as taking into
account the likelihood of success or failure.&
An example I used to illustrate the point was from American football,
where after a touchdown, a team could choose to kick the ball through the
goal posts for one point, or they could choose to try to run or pass the
ball into the endzone for two points.& The kick is much more likely
to succeed, though there is some risk to it.& The specific example
I chose to illustrate the importance of utility, however, was the case
in which a team scored a touchdown at the very end of a game in which there
would be no (further) overtime -- a touchdown that left them behind by
two points with no time left on the clock for any plays after the extra-point
attempt.& For years I pointed out that no coach would ever
opt for the kick even though it had the higher probability, because the
value of the kick was to insure a loss even if it was successful.&
The kick was not worth just one point at t it was
worth a loss.& The only thing of value was to try to tie the game
even if the odds were less you would be successful.& That seemed an
obvious point to me.& However, it occurred to me one day there is
at least one possible situation where a team and coach might opt for the
kick.& That is in a case where their kicker had a chance to break
a college career record for (consecutive) successful field goals, and this
was his last career game.& If the team had a losing record
anyway, and this game did not really mean as much as helping the kicker
set such a prestigious record, the coach and the team might opt to give
him the opportunity.& So what had seemed obviously true to me for
years turned out not to be true for all cases, but just for almost all
cases.& When I use that example now, I explain the exception to it
as well, for the story s but now it does it more accurately.&
It is not difficult to overgeneralize.& One just tends to do it
less the more one thinks and writes about things and is challenged.&
When I write about philosophy of education, I tend to forget sometimes
that I need to point out I may be talking about education in a middle or
above-middle class suburb.& I have clear in my mind what situation
I am discussing, but if I don't convey that specifically to the reader,
they will think I have overgeneralized.& In terms of what I actually
wrote, as opposed to what I had in mind, I will have overgeneralized.&
I wrote a political argument one time against passing a tax increase
(until the school administration changed its proposal) to fund smaller
classrooms in our community because no training was going to be given to
teachers to help them teach using more individualized instruction.&
In the classrooms where size had already been reduced, it made no difference
in the instructional approach the teachers used, and children were
not learning any more.& The paper I wrote fell into the hands of the
opposition before it was printed and distributed, and they hooted at my
claim that teachers did not teach differently in smaller classes, because
their younger children were all receiving much more personal attention
from their teachers, who knew their names and interests, etc. more readily
when classes were smaller.& I had time to revise the argument I gave
before it was published to point out that I was talking about instruction
and not attention, and that although it was true that students might receive
more personal attention in smaller classes, it would not matter for their
instruction if the instruction itself was just as bad as it had been.&
Personal attention did not translate automatically into personalized instruction.
The derision had helped me see that I had not written what I had really
meant, and that essentially I had overgeneralized about the lack of change
in teaching when class sizes were reduced.& ()&
*The following is a merely technical point
that I include in this footnote for those who might be interested in greater
analytic precision than is probably either necessary or interesting for
most people on this topic:
The explanation of what it is to be reasonable above is what makes an
argument or a position be one that is reasonable. For a person to be reasonable,
it must also be that the person sees (or thinks s/he sees) the logic of
the argument, and is not just stating memorized reasons someone else has
given. Stating someone else's argument is not the same thing as reasoning.
There is a difference between giving reasons in which one sees the logic,
and giving what one is told are reasons, even if the list of reasons is
the same, and even if one believes the reasons must be correct because
some expert says so. The value and the strength or weakness of the argument
or the position is the same in either case, and the argument is reasonable
or unreasonable in exactly the same way in either case, but when one gives
the reasons that one "sees" (or thinks one sees) are logically related
to the conclusion, one is then reasoning, whereas when one gives a list
of reasons one has simply memorized and about which one does not really
understand the supposed logical significance, one is not reasoning but
simply verbally copying or reciting an argument, not really reasoning for
oneself.&&
This point is simply to distinguish between reasonable and unreasonable
arguments on the one hand, and, on the other hand, people who are either
reasoning or not reasoning when they give those arguments. When one simply
states a conclusion with a list of reasons for that conclusion, one is
not necessarily reasoning, even if one is stating a reasonable argument.
This is similar to a point in the essay "":
interpreting or explaining anything (whether it is art, literature,
science, experience, or any sort of phenomenon) is different from learning
an interpretation or explanation by being taught or told that interpretation
or explanation. To learn an interpretation of anything is not necessarily,
and not usually, the same thing as interpreting it.}