> Betteridge's law of headlines: Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.
> That's a good rule of thumb, but it's not infallible.
A basic critical thinking skill that helps here is to try to disprove these 'truisms'.
It is easy to prove Betteridge's law is not universally true.
If I wrote an article that Betteridge's Law got right (meaning the headline's question could be answered with 'No') I could then change the title's question to make it 'Yes', intentionally, which would then violate Betteridge's Law.
I get that provocation and outrage are currently the driving force in media, but clearly it is not a Law in a natural sense.
(Sorry to those to whom this is obvious, but if I can help anyone see past the surface it is worth seeming like a pedant to some nerds!)
> That's a good rule of thumb, but it's not infallible.
A basic critical thinking skill that helps here is to try to disprove these 'truisms'.
It is easy to prove Betteridge's law is not universally true.
If I wrote an article that Betteridge's Law got right (meaning the headline's question could be answered with 'No') I could then change the title's question to make it 'Yes', intentionally, which would then violate Betteridge's Law.
I get that provocation and outrage are currently the driving force in media, but clearly it is not a Law in a natural sense.
(Sorry to those to whom this is obvious, but if I can help anyone see past the surface it is worth seeming like a pedant to some nerds!)