160 Unit 4 Applied critical thinking
2 How reliable is Akram as a witness?
Consider what he has to say in the light of
other information and evidence available.
What impact should his statement have on
the outcome of the inquiry?Activity
Commentary
Akram claims to be an eyewitness. However,
given what the race official says, and taking
into account his (Akram’s) position on the
track when the collision occurred, it is
doubtful whether he could have seen very
much. Like Farr’s manager, Akram bases his
assessment of what happened partly on
Crowe’s motives, but also on his past record.
He says ‘it stands to reason’ that Crowe did it
on purpose.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t really stand to
reason at all. Akram is unable to say that
Crowe actively ‘swerved’, yet he is prepared to
say he allowed the crash to happen. As a
professional racing driver, we can give Akram
credit for having the expertise to make such a
claim: he would know better than most people
if an accident could have been avoided or not.
But that is not to say that Crowe let it happen
intentionally. It could just have been
carelessness that caused it, or poor visibility.
Akram is not really in a position to make such
a judgement objectively.3 How seriously can you take the evidence
provided by Gudrun Brecht?Activity
Commentary
This evidence cannot be taken very seriously
at all. It is a classic case of hearsay evidence:
she ‘heard him’ boasting that he would do
anything necessary to win. We don’t have any
means of knowing if these were his exactAnswer each of the following questions and
compare your answer with the commentary
that follows. The questions are similar to those
set in Cambridge Thinking Skills Paper 2.1 What is the team manager’s argument
for blaming Crowe for the incident? How
strong is her statement as evidence
against Crowe?Activity
Commentary
The manager’s argument is based on what she
sees as Crowe’s motive. She is pointing out a
fact when she says that with Ed out of the race
Crowe would win the championship. But she
infers too much from it. Besides, she is
probably biased and sounds angry. As Ed Farr’s
manager she has a vested interest in the
outcome of the race. We say someone has a
vested interest in an outcome if they are likely
to benefit, financially or otherwise, if the
decision goes one way rather than the other.
Crowe, Farr and the manager all have an
obvious vested interest in the outcome of this
case. The other witnesses may or may not, but
there is no reason to think they have.
We don’t know if the manager actually
witnessed the incident first-hand, but even if
she did, it would be very hard to say that one
of the drivers had acted intentionally. She uses
the tell-tale phrase ‘of course’ to show that she
is assuming there was intention on Crowe’s
part because it would be to his advantage.
On its own this is not strong evidence. The
fact that someone stands to gain from some
act or other does not mean he or she will
commit that act. However, taken together
with other evidence, motive does add some
weight to the argument. Let’s put it this way: if
he didn’t have a motive, there would be much
less reason to think Crowe caused the crash
deliberately.