Bad Moves entry

Bad Moves: Concealed caveats and qualifications

By Julian Baggini

"Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us."
Headline in the Observer, 22 February 2004

In Britain at least, we expect newspaper headlines to overstate their case a little. What seems dramatic when printed in 72 point bold across the page often turns out to be much more mundane once the actual article is read.

But in this particular example, the story is just as dramatic as the headline suggests. Apparently, a Pentagon report "warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020."

In a box accompanying the article in the print edition, headed "The key findings", we also discover that "by 2007 violent storms smash coastal barriers rendering large parts of the Netherlands uninhabitable. Cities like The Hague are abandoned."

Pretty unbelievable stuff. The problem is that these are not firm predictions at all. Rather, they are just some of the more extreme scenarios that could happen as a result of global warning. The problem is that the caveats which would make this clear are suppressed so as to be virtually invisible.

The article should have predominantly used a variety of conditional forms - such as "may", "could" and "might" - along with some indication of how probable these outcomes are considered to be. But instead, it is largely written in the future tense - "Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world" - or in the present simple - "riots and internal conflict tear apart India an Indonesia". Phrased in this way, the events described seem to be firm predictions, not merely possibilities among many.

There are a few "coulds" scattered about, but definite indicative verb forms vastly outnumber these. Indeed, you need to look carefully to be sure that the report in question is only dealing with possibilities and not firm predictions. The clearest evidence that this is indeed the case comes in the comment that, according to the report, "an imminent scenario of catastrophic climate change is 'plausible'." To say these outcomes are plausible is very different to saying they are predicted - a word used elsewhere in the article - or even probable. And it is certainly misleading to describe as "findings" scenarios that are no more than plausible.

So few are the expected qualifications that it is actually possible that I have misinterpreted the report entirely and that the Pentagon really is predicting these outcomes are overwhelmingly probable. The failure of the story to make the front page, rather than its actual content, is perhaps the strongest indicator that this is not in fact the case.

This article is an extreme example. But subtler failures to include the caveats and qualifications that are required to make what is said accurate are all too common.

Sometimes, it is arguable whether or not the lack of a qualification is a failure or merely a case of acceptable stylistic economy, since the caveat can be safely assumed. For example, an article in the Guardian included the sentence, "Mynak Tulku, the reincarnation of a powerful lama, is the Dragon King's unofficial ambassador for new technology." It seems too much to say he was the reincarnation of a powerful lama. It would be more accurate to say something like "said to be the reincarnation of a powerful lama". But arguably such caveats can be assumed: we all know that whether he is in fact reincarnated is a matter of opinion. In the context of this particular article, I think the lack of caveat contributes to a general unquestioning acceptance of the beliefs of Bhutan's Buddhists, but I accept that this could be seen as quibbling.

Between the borderline case of the reincarnated lama and the extreme case of global catastrophe starting next year lie many instances where caveats are either missing entirely or played down. As writers, we need to make sure we include all the caveats that are necessary to make what we say true and which we cannot assume the reader will take for granted. And as readers, we need to be aware that many writers as not as vigilant as this, and look out for the signs of concealed or absent qualifications.

Click here so you don't miss an update!