There is no such thing as a neutral question.

Evaluate
this statement with reference to two areas of
knowledge.
Candidate name: Pedro Gmez Montesa
Candidate number:
Words: 1484

1)There is no such thing as a neutral question. Evaluate this statement with reference to
two areas of knowledge.
There is no such thing as a neutral question. I disagree with this statement. I think that all
questions lead us in a certain direction, called leading questions, and is imposible to
investigate knowledge without having thinking before of what you want to find. In order to
answer fully the questions I am going to use ethics and mathematics as Aoks. Before
starting to analyze the question it is essential to give a definition of neutral, something
indifferent, not engaged on either side. A neutral question is a question posed to a
participant during data collection and stated by the investigator in a way that does not
direct or bias the answer provided by the participant. I would argue there is no such thing
as a neutral question, as there is no thing such as a neutral observation. Karl Popper
says "Almost forty years ago I stressed that even observations, and reports of
observations, are under the sway of theories or, if you like, under the sway of a framework"

.1 If you think it in this way, a question is based on a reason from a person that observes
something and perceives the world with an epistemic model.

Questions within different areas of knowledge can lead us in a certain direction. These
type of questions are called leading questions, a question that suggests the answer or
contains the information the examiner is looking for. In these questions witnesses are
often asked questions designed to produce a particular answer that confirms what the
questioner wants to prove, for example in a trial. If you are in a trial because you have
stolen in a sport shop and the lawyer asks you : What did you do that afternoon? you will
more likely answer that you were having dinner with your family in order to make the judge
and the court think you are innocent, that is what the lawyer wants to prove. It is
impossible to investigate knowledge without having thinking before of what you want to
find. For example if you are given : Should euthanasia be permitted? you will have to
either think before answering the question which side you will choose. Before finding
information or answering the questions I would think about the bad or good things about
euthanasia in order to decide which side I will choose, so there is not a neutral question.

Ethical questions for example are asked to confirm ones own moral structure. For
example: a person cheated in a maths exam in order to participate in the football team
because his trainer said that if he failed he would be thrown out of the team. He now feels
guilty because his trainer and his parents are proud of him because of a merit he did not
do and does not know what to do, if he says the truth or stay in the football team. In this

1Myth of the Framework: In Defence of Science and RationalityWritten by Karl PopperI

question the person does not clearly go to one side but because of the situation where he
feels guilty he is involved in a situation where he is more pressed to say the right thing,
that would be to say the truth . Another example that implies the same idea is when
someone finds fifty dollars in the street and one minute later one asks: Sorry, have you
found fifty dollars on the floor ?. This question is not neutral as it makes the receptor think
about the two possible sides, tell the truth or not. The receiver normally will tell the truth
and say:Yes, I found them two minutes ago but he can also say he did not see them.
However he is more likely to tell the truth because of the person who asked it being poor
and needing the fifty dollars to feed his family, showing it is not a neutral question. This
example happens usually with ethical questions, where the subconscious tends to go on
the right side, but never neutral as if you asked a neutral ethical question means you do
not have doubts of what to do and you already know what you have to do. This could be
also explained with confirmation bias. Confirmation bias refers to a type of selective
thinking whereby one tends to notice and to look for what confirms one's beliefs, and to
ignore, not look for, or undervalue the relevance of what contradicts one's beliefs.

This

suggests that when someone asks a question he is thinking about what he believes and
does not think about what contradicts it, so really you are going on one side as you are
avoiding the other one. One example could be when someone asks how was the universe
created ?. Here the person who asks this is already confirming someone created the
universe because of the word created meaning he already had an opinion of the topic
before asking the question, therefore expressing it is not a neutral question as he is
already leading the receiver think the universe was created by someone even if it was not

2http://skepdic.com/confirmbias.html

true. A person responds to the last question

God created the universe because he

believes in God but he avoided other theories that suggest the opposite because of his
beliefs such as if God created the universe, who created God?, or other theories that
demonstrate with evidence the opposite also, as the theory of the Big Bang, the prevailing
cosmological model for the birth of the universe.It states that at some moment all of space
was contained in a single point from which the Universe has been expanding ever since
about 13.8 billion years ago3. This example demonstrates that everyone is biased on what
they believed and even their statement is not true, they will avoid the correct answer. This
confirms there cannot be a neutral question.

We regard maths as a subject not engaged and not aligned .Math is a subject that
everyone sees it in the same way and no arguments can be created by a Maths problem.
All the equations involved in maths such as x+5=10 or 1+1=2 are the same universally but
with the difference that they change the language. Math is a subject of number and facts,
and I think facts are neutral as no opinions are involved in them and facts do not tend to go
one side or another, so that links to the idea that Math is neutral. Moreover when you
answer a Math problem you do not write an argument or give an opinion, it is answered
with numbers that do not go on on side or another but only they answer the question in a
precise form. However the question may push you to a certain formula or method. People
in math tend to use the easiest method or formula, to avoid making the problem more
complicated and to get the wrong answer. For example it is possible to solve simultaneous
equations in three ways: by elimination, substitution and using straight lines graphs.

3http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang

People are more likely to solve the simultaneous equation in the simplest way depending
on the numbers, so they are already leading them to answer the question in one way.

However our number system is Arabic and a lot of our maths knowledge is only European,
from Ancient Greece, so even simple maths we can argue is not neutral. Math is not
neutral, as a person can see a problem with a different perspective and solve it in a
different way even reaching to the same answer. For example when there is a question
where you need to solve a quadratic equation you can tend to go on different sides solving
it in different ways: factoring the equation, using the quadratic formula, or completing the
square. In this way you reach to the same answer but you think and operate it in a different
way which confirms the statement that a math question cannot be neutral.

Overall, there is no such thing as a neutral question. Although number and facts are
involved in math which they do not tend to go on one side or another as no opinions are
involved, all questions are leading ones and all of them involve confirmation bias where
people tend to go on the side of what they believe avoiding the opposite or alternative
point of view. Additionally the subconscious tends to go on the right side of the question
which links to the idea of being biased to something.