Cherry picking facts for kids
Cherry picking is a way of thinking or arguing where someone only chooses the facts or information that support their idea, and completely ignores anything that goes against it. It's like picking only the best, reddest cherries from a tree and pretending all cherries are like that, even if there are many unripe ones still on the tree.
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What is Cherry Picking?
Imagine there are many studies about a new medicine. Let's say 19 out of 20 studies show the medicine works well. But one study says it doesn't work. If someone wants to prove the medicine is useless, they might only talk about that one study that failed. This is cherry picking. They ignore the 19 studies that show it works.
It's a type of confirmation bias. This means a person tends to look for, remember, and favor information that confirms their own beliefs or ideas. They see what they want to see and ignore what doesn't fit.
Why is it called Cherry Picking?
The name "cherry picking" comes from harvesting cherries. When people pick cherries, they usually choose only the ripest, reddest, and most perfect ones. If you only saw the cherries they picked, you might think all the cherries on the tree were perfect. But if you looked at the tree itself, you would see many pale, unripe, or damaged cherries still hanging there.
Using this term often suggests that the person doing the cherry picking is trying to trick others. It implies they don't really care about all the facts.
Why is Cherry Picking a Problem?
When cherry picking is used in subjects like medicine and science, it is seen as "bad science." It can also be a sign of pseudoscience, which is when untrue claims are made to look like they are scientific, even though they are not.
Cherry picking can make people believe things that are not true. It stops people from getting the full picture or understanding all the facts.
Different Ways People Cherry Pick
Cherry picking can happen in a few ways:
- Ignoring evidence: The most common way is when someone only uses facts that support their argument. They completely ignore or hide any facts that go against it.
- Emphasizing certain facts: Sometimes, people give a lot of importance to facts that support their idea. But they barely mention other facts that might challenge it.
- Taking quotes out of context: This is when someone takes a quote from a speech or text and uses only a small part of it. This makes the quote seem to have a different meaning than it originally did.
Cherry Picking and Pseudoscience
Pseudoscience is when people make claims that sound scientific but are not based on real scientific methods or evidence. Many pseudoscientists use cherry picking to try and make their claims seem true.
In real science, it's common for some studies to disagree with others. This can happen because different methods were used, or because of human error or just chance. This means there is often at least one study that someone can use to support their claim. They can then cherry pick that one study, even if many more studies show the opposite.
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Cherry-picking is often used in science denial such as climate change denial. For example, by deliberately cherry picking appropriate time periods, here 1998–2012, an artificial "pause" can be created, even when there is an ongoing warming trend.
See also
In Spanish: Falacia de evidencia incompleta para niños
