Chapter 8 Question 1

In the story “Silver Blaze”, Sherlock Holmes tells Watson that when it comes to the art of reasoning, many people rely on opinion and unsupported assumptions. From my understanding, I think he means people should not believe whatever others say. That will be stupid and naive to rely on something which is unsupported assumption. Nowadays, people in the country are brainwashing by the environment. No matter what the public news is, people in the country tend to follow like a trend. One example from my personal experience happened after the earthquake in Japan few years ago. I still remember at that period of time, people rumored that salt could prevent the radiation caused by the earthquake. As a result, business people especially those profiteers, they were trying to raise the price of salt rapidly. Since salt is the basic daily necessity, this sudden change of price had direct affected to common people. People should be educated and understand when and what to believe. However, people seem like to follow what majority do. Now is the time to clear our minds and be wise.