It’s a fact: Research shows that kids who shop at stores with tobacco marketing two or more times a week are 64% more likely to start smoking than their peers who don’t.In what sense is this a fact? Facts are usually thought of as consisting of objects and properties. In this case, the objects are kids. But what is the property? Is it "being 64% more likely to start smoking if you shop at stores with tobacco marketing two or more times a week"? If so, do all kids have this property? Or perhaps only kids that shop at stores with tobacco marketing have this property? If the latter, then when do kids acquire this property: after shopping at stores with tobacco marketing once or twice, for one week or two weeks, etc.?
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
[PHI 3000] Facts about tobacco marketing
From an ad for Tobacco Free NYS:
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A fact is defined in the dictionary as something that is “indisputably” the case; it is something that is real, true, or something that actually exists. The relationship between “objects” and “properties” in facts can be shown in an easier, less complex example. For instance: I, Catherine Joan Koenderman, was born in the year 1992. This statement is indisputably true. (I have a birth certificate, witnesses of my birth in this year, etc.) The object here is myself, the “I,” and the property that relates to it is that I “was born in the year 1992.”
ReplyDeleteHowever, the example of “fact” that is shown above, “Research shows that kids who shop at stores with tobacco marketing two or more times a week are 64% more likely to start smoking than their peers who don’t,” is different from my example. It is a fact in the sense that, like mine, it has a relationship between object and properties. The object is not just kids, but it is “kids who shop at stores with tobacco marketing two or more times a week.” The property is that this specific group of kids are “64% more likely to start smoking than their peers who” do not shop at stores with tobacco marketing two or more times a week. This statement, this fact, is specific to a group of kids. If I were to say that the object of the fact is just “kids,” and that their property is that they are “64% more likely to start smoking than their peers who don’t,” then the statement would be very confusing. Thus, you would be asking... wait, which kids? All kids are not 64% more likely to start smoking than their peers because their peers are kids as well. Therefore, the property is specific to a certain group of kids.
Yet, another problem may still arise; it is also unclear how frequent the group of kids needs to shop at stores selling tobacco. What I mean is that it seems highly unlikely and also unreasonable to say that a kid who shopped at a tobacco store twice in only a single week is likely to be a smoker. Rather, it would seem more likely that a kid who frequently, as in shopping at the store two times a week for multiple weeks at a time has the property as explained in the statement. Thus, the object that supposedly contains this property is not specific enough. It should be “kids who shop at stores with tobacco two or more times a week for x consecutive weeks…”
Therefore, I would conclude that although this statement is said to be a “fact,” it is only a fact in the loose sense of the word, if even at all. Yes, this statement has a supposed connection between the object and the property. However, it is not necessarily a reality or true because the object is not clearly stated. As it is now, the object contains too many children under its umbrella of “future smokers.” It must be narrowed down in order for the fact to actually be a true fact.