False equivalence & reopening schools: Critical Thinking About COVID

My ninth Critical Thinking about COVID video explores how false equivalence has been used to justify reopening schools. False equivalence is comparing two things as if they’re equal but when you look closer, they’re not equal at all. This fallacy has been used to justify the Trump administration’s wanting to reopen schools. When pressed on how to reopen safely, it’s clear they have no plan and any pesky science is being ignored. Instead of developing plans to reopen safely, Trump resorts to false equivalence: arguing that European countries opened schools safely so it’s safe for the U.S. to reopen their schools. The problem is the two situations aren’t equal. European countries could safely reopen because they’d already crushed the curve.

Check out the full list of Critical Thinking About COVID videos on YouTube. Thanks to Prof. Melanie Trecek-King, Dr. Lori Byron, Dr. Robert Byron, and Dr. Elizabeth Del Buono for their feedback in the writing of this video.