Refuting a claim can be a challenge but it is a challenge that can be practiced at every age. As a Christian, you might refute an evolutionary claim using good science. As a home-learner, you might refute a claim for traditional classroom education using excerpts from educational philosophy. As a teen you might refute a claim that candy bars are a protein food by using facts from Canada's Food Guide.
Before you can refute any claim, however, you will first need to be very familiar with both the claim and your own belief system. You will need to understand the argument, find its weak points, build arguments against the weak points, and present relevant facts to suport your views. Presenting irrelevant facts or shoddy "proof" only serves to make you and your position look foolish.
Detailed instructions:
How to Refute an Argument
"In order to refute an argument, you first have to understand it. Otherwise, you're going to look
pretty foolish, when the other side stands up and explains how you've totally missed the point..."
How to Refute a Myth
"People believe the strangest things. Sometimes it is difficult to show someone the truth, especially if they have taken a peculiar liking to a one-sided tale. Here are a few tips to help get you started....."
An example contributed by Heather Neels.
The following has been circulating on the internet for several years.
It Takes a Village...
If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like the following:
There would be:
- 57 Asians
- 21 Europeans
- 14 from the Western Hemisphere, both north and south
- 8 Africans
- 52 would be female
- 48 would be male
- 70 would be non-white
- 30 would be white
- 70 would be non-Christian
- 30 would be Christian
- 89 would be heterosexual
- 11 would be homosexual
- 6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth and all 6 would be from the United States
- 80 would live in substandard housing
- 70 would be unable to read
- 50 would suffer from malnutrition
- 1 would be near death
- 1 would be near birth
- 1 (yes, only 1) would have a college education
- 1 would own a computer
When one considers our world from such a compressed perspective, the need for both acceptance, understanding and education becomes glaringly apparent.
Source: Phillip M Harter, MD, FACEP Stanford University, School of Medicine
At first read, it seems very impressive. After all the source is cited... but is it really true? Read what Snopes has to say and see an example of one way to systematically refute a claim.