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In Thinking Skills, following with our study of the credibility criteria, we are analysing Bias. Bias is a pre-judgement, when one person takes one-sided arguments, or a source which is not neutral and, therefore, rejects any evidence which is against of his/hers beliefs. This obviously takes to distorting the evidence, so sources end up being unreliable. This is why, it is almost impossible to have an unbiased source due to the fact that everyone has its own viewpoint. To work with this topic, our teacher gave us some activities. In this pictures and fragment, we can see, how Hitler and the media are criticising Jews for the misfortune of Germany after the First World War. They are shown as demons, killers and even trying to poison other Germans. Hitler also made them responsible for the hyperinflation of 1920`s. This is a clear example of a pre-judgement, which helped Hitler to put all the German population against the Jews. This judgements are irrational because there is n...

In the subject Thinking Skills, we are working with credibility criteria, specifically with vested interest. A vested interest is when someone has something to gain from benefiting one side over the other. To achieve this, someone can present one-side arguments, or select some specific evidence. Therefore they may reduce the credibility of  a source. To understand this topic, our teacher showed us part of one of the episodes of the series "Mad Men" (which you can watch below). In this scene we can identify two different moments in which vested interest is used. The first moment is when Peter comes out with an idea for the next propaganda of the cigarettes company. Through his idea, he is telling one side of the story, the one which benefits the company. He compares the risk of dying in a car accident with the risk of dying with cigarettes. In this way, he explains that life is dangerous, so if you are going to die anyway, there is no reason not to enjoy a cigarette. By showi...