Question

Consider the following situation and explain what might be a problem with the credibility of the source or the thinking involved: You are researching Queen Elizabeth I and, as you go through the checkout line at the grocery store, you see a tabloid that claims that, although history has proclaimed that she was "the Virgin Queen," there is new proof that she had had a child. Pitfalls in credibility?

Answer 1

key word. tabloid. haha thats like that zombie guy story in miami. you have to have a more credible source than a magazine.
sex scandals.... sigh. what they ran out from our era so they have to mess with the monarchy? wow. nice haha

Answer 2

You have, a priori, no reason at all to doubt the credibility of your source. Recall that the story of former Democratic Senator and 2004 Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate John Edwards's secret out-of-wedlock child and affair was first published by the National Enquirer -- a tabloid, and they were 100% right.

On the other hand, with a single source, and that one with an interest in creating a sensation, you have no reason to trust the credibility of your source, either. The correct empirical attitude is one of cautious skepticism. You have ONE source which claims an interesting, if not impossible, fact.

What you should do next is (1) examine the internal consistency of the story as presented in the tabloid -- do they suggest anything wildly implausible, like QE I had a love-child by an American Indian chieftain smuggled home by Walter Raleigh? Do they give a plausible reason why the child has escaped the history books, e.g. he died within hours of birth? Do they give themselves the sources for their claim, and are there several or just one?

(2) Check their sources to confirm what the sources say for yourself. Is it all consistent?

(3) Check sources that you know, from your own expertise, should have something to say about the subject, e.g. history books, the Encyclopedia Britannia, the online history of the kings and queens of England published by the Royal Family. Even if none of them mention the child, do they say anything that would contradict or cast doubt on the tabloid's story?

It is one of the great mistakes of the modern world, and one of the principal failures of social sciences, that "credibility" of sources is often determined by their "respectability" -- meaning nothing much more than their popularity -- instead of by FACTUAL data that support or do not support the story the source tells. That is poor science, and takes us right back to the day when the primary criterion for truth was considered to be whether or not a hypothesis or observation agreed with The Bible or Aristotle, or some other revered authority.