The Lucky Necklace

Philosophy

This session can either lead to the session here on causation and the post-hoc fallacy (this is a fallacy where someone has a mistaken view of what makes something happen), or you could follow the first stimulus with the Truth and Falsity session, depending on what the class say.

Stimulus 1

"I can make clocks move round just by staring at them." True or false?  

Causation stimulus

Read them the following scenario:

Imagine a girl, Bethany, who is about your own age and who has a test coming up. She is very worried about the test and wants very much to do well. Her teacher and parents help her and she does many practice papers, but she is still very anxious about the test. Her friend can see that she is worried and says, "I have a lucky necklace, take this necklace into the test and it will give you luck."

"Oh, thank you," she says clutching the necklace to her chest.

She takes the test and then, later on, discovers that she did, in fact, do really well. She goes back to her friend and says, "thank you so much for the lucky necklace, it really worked. I shall take it in with me to the next test but this time I won't need to practice so much as I'll have the lucky necklace on my side."

Her friend smiles but inside she feels bad.

Task Question: 

• Does the necklace really work?

Further question:

• Why do you think her friend feels bad?

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