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Important!

A new specification for Critical Thinking was introduced for first teaching in 2008 / 2009. Although the new course covers similar ground to the old, changes have been made, particularly to the structure of the AS units. The most significant change is that some content that was previously only in Unit 2 is now also in Unit 1, but please see OCR's guide to the changes for more detail.

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Selectivity

Man Holding Fish

The final criterion to use in assessing the evidential value of an image is selectivity.

If an image depicting a single example is used to support a general claim, then we must consider the possibility that the example depicted is unrepresentative.

For example, even setting aside concerns about relevance and significance, the image above falls short of proving the claim “Fred bludgeons fish that he catches to death using his shoe” due to the possibility of selectivity.

The image depicts one fish. Even supposing that Fred did bludgeon this fish to death using his shoe, this could for all we know be the only fish that Fred has ever given this treatment. The very specific image falls short of proving the general claim; this is possible selectivity.