Easy to jump to wrong conclusions

Screen shots show a tourist being attacked by a Siberian tiger in Badaling Safari World in Beijing, July 23, 2016. [Photo/IC]

Recently there has been heated debate online about the incident in Badaling Wildlife Park in northern Beijing, in which tigers killed one woman and injured another after the women got out of their car in the park. Xinhua Daily Telegraph commented on Tuesday:

In the field of public opinion, when something happens, even when they only possess a fraction of the information or believe in hearsay, many people will try to conclude the root cause and assign responsibility.

In this incident, some people have attributed it to problems arising from the women' irritability and made assertions such as "do not get married to people who get angry easily", even though there is no information about whether or not the woman who first got out of the car was quarreling with her family.

Media reports say the husband denies they were quarreling, but still the rumor they were has spread on the internet.

Some people, under the illusion that they know exactly what happened, focus only on interpreting facts that suit their conclusion ignoring any that might lead to another.

But in doing so, their conclusions go beyond the extent permitted by the evidence. The true facts can only be judged to such extent that they permit. So before we jump to any more false conclusions about this incident, we need more facts.