2. Authorities Are Nice, but …

You are attending a lecture at your university. The lecturer is a prominent physician with an international reputation. Her fi eld of expertise is Preventive Medicine.

She asserts that the main cause of heart attack and stroke is eating red meat. To justify her view, she makes several logical arguments and claims all her colleagues agree with her. If you accept her view on the basis of logic or her national prominence or because her colleagues agree with her, what method(s)

of determining truth are you using? From a scientifi c point of view, is this suffi cient basis to conclude the claim is true? If not, what is missing? Discuss.