Post 3 11/19

   Another concept of Chapter 15 which I found useful is the Cause and Effect in Populations section. According to Epstein, cause in populations is usually explained as "meaning that given the cause, there's a higher probability that the effect will follow than if there were not the cause" (320). For example, for this type of cause you could come up with an argument for why people who do not work out or exercise have a much higher probability of being overweight than those that do exercise. Also, there are different types of evidence to use for a cause in population. The first type of evidence is that there must be a control group. The control group is used to isolate any uncontrollable phenomena by not being subjected to the unknown variable being tested. If the experiment is uncontrollable, it is known as cause-to-effect if it starts with the suspected cause and you see if the effect happens. On the other hand, in an effect-to-cause, you start with the effect on the population, then try to figure out how it got there.

Post 2 Mission Critical Website

   The Mission Critical Website is different from the Causal Arguments, in which I thought the Causal Argument website was odd because it started by providing an example before going into detail about what they are. However, both links are helpful in their own way. When first going to the Mission Critical Website, it is somewhat overwhelming because there are too many links on the main menu. After reading through the website and clicking on the different links, I found that this site has so much information related to critical thinking and I will definitely be using it to study for the final. In addition to the many links which provide so much information for the basics of arguments, analysis of arguments, fallacies, and non rational persuasion, there are practice exercises and exit exams provided for each section. Something new I learned from this website is an appeal to vanity, which is a fallacy used to create a predisposition toward agreement by paying compliments, also known as apple polishing. Overall, Mission Critical is a very informative, useful website.

Cause Effect Website 11/17

   I thought that the Cause and Effect Website tool was very useful because it had a lot of information, starting with the main page which focuses on causal arguments. I did not know that using inductive reasoning by arguing causation was such a simple concept to understand, because it is always used in the court room. In the court room, the lawyers of both the plaintiff and of the defendant are constantly making arguments to causation while trying to sway the jury's opinions and reach the verdict. Another example similar to that of the exercises from the link on the main menu is if you and all three of your roommates go out to eat at La Vic's and everyone orders the same thing, a burrito with carne asada. The next day, everyone has to stay at home and miss class because everyone has food poisoning. Therefore, the idea which may be considered the most significant "commonality" in their illness must be the fact that all of the roommates ate a burrito at La Vic's, not they they all went to the gym together.

Ch.12 Post 3

Another concept in Chapter 12 is called Judging Analogies. When judging analogies, it is necessary to survey the similarities and guess on the more important ones so that we can find a general principle that applies to both sides. After this step, the differences are surveyed too see if there is not some reason that the general principle might not apply to one side. According to Epstein, there is a list of questions to ask yourself when evaluating an analogy: Is this an argument and what is the conclusion? What is the comparison? What are the premises? What are the similarities and can we state the similarities as premises and find a general principle that covers the two sides? Does the general principle really apply to both sides and do the differences matter? Is the argument strong or valid and is it good? (pg. 257) Something else to watch out for when judging analogies is a fallacy of composition, which comes about when something is supposedly true of the whole analogy when really only part of the whole is true.

Post 2

A form of reasoning that was somewhat difficult to understand was reasoning by criteria. The question that I had about this form of reasoning is: Can you experience reasoning by criteria by just making decisions based on a set of rules, acting as the criteria? In order to know if someone is using this form of reasoning, you define the criteria by which the outcome of a decision will be judged, and then, given those constraints, you are to identify the best decision. First, you have to establish the standards as being valid for a logical argument, and the criteria which appeal to common values are usually more likely to be easily accepted. An example of this is: "I guess you want something nice to wear when you go out to dinner. How about this outfit?" Instead of just saying "get this," the first example is more accurate for reasoning by criteria because we specifically know that the individual wants a nice outfit. By stating "get this," it does not give any criteria for which kind of outfit it is, and for all we know they could be looking at some gym clothes because there is no criteria for what the individual wants to wear to dinner.

Reasoning By Analogy Post

The first form of reasoning is reasoning by analogy, in which we draw a conclusion on one side of a comparison, so that it will make it easier to draw a conclusion on the other side of the comparison. An example of this is: We don't blame the police for crime. Police and crime are like doctors and injuries. Therefore, we should not blame doctors for injuries. Sign reasoning can be a linked cause and effect reasoning with more certainty. For example, "Where there's a leak, there's a flood in the bathroom." Causal reasoning is the idea that any cause leads to a certain effect. "My tire is flat because I ran over a nail." Reasoning by criteria is comparing against established criteria. An example of this is the way a teacher may grade an essay, based on the criteria they have set for you to follow. Reasoning by example is the use of examples in an argument. "You should work out more often. My friend works out all of the time and says it relieves stress." Also, an example of inductive reasoning is "All of the basketball players we have seen here are tall. Therefore, all basketball players are tall." Lastly, an example of deductive reasoning is "All college students are smart. Bryan is a college student. So, Bryan is smart."

Post 3 11/6

   From exercise #7 in Chapter 10, it asks for an example of appeal to patriotism. An appeal to patriotism is a fallacy which is also known as a type of appeal to authority. In order for someone to be considered patriotic, he or she is showing love and devotion to their country. Therefore, an appeal to patriotism can be considered as a type of fallacy in which someone attempts to gain support for his or her idea by displaying their to devotion and love for their country. In a 2005 online article called "Protesters Make Appeal to Patriotism in Opposing War," Glen Warchol talks about a confrontation that took place in a conservative part of Salt Lake City, Utah between pro-Bush veterans and war protestors. Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson was a large part of the controversy, stating that "we can debate, as we should in a free country, the decisions of our political leaders. But we must always support without wavering, and be grateful toward our men and women in the armed forces." This article can be found at http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0823-04.htm

Pg 195 #6

   An appeal to spite is a type of appeal to emotion which deals with the hope of revenge. When demonstrating this fallacy, someone attempts to win an approval for an argument by taking advantage of the opposing party's feelings of bitterness, or animosity. In other words, an appeal to spite can sway the audience emotionally by associating a hate-figure with opposition to the speaker's argument. Here is an example of an appeal to spite:
Joe: I think that Bob did a great job this year. He was our best player, so I am going to nominate him for the MVP award.
Bill: Joe, did you forget about last year? You put up the best numbers last year but you did not win the award because Bob did not nominate you.
Joe: Oh yeah, you're right. I'm not going to nominate him anymore.
Even though this is not a good argument, the argument is still valid. The premise needed for this to be a good or strong argument is "Do not nominate anyone who has refused to nominate you."

Appeal to Emotion

   An appeal to emotion is a premise that states that you should believe something because it corresponds with how that certain something can make you feel a certain way. According to Epstein, "emotions do and should play a certain role in our reasoning" (191). There are certain types of appeals to emotion, such as appeal to pity and appeal to fear. An appeal to pity is categorized as a fallacy in which somebody tries to win support for an argument by abusing his or her opponent's feelings of guilt. An appeal to fear is when a person wants to create support for his or her ideas by using propaganda to try and increase fear or prejudice toward a competitor.

  The type of appeal to emotion which caught my attention is the appeal to fear because I read that it is very common in politics and marketing. This goes perfectly with election time because there are many different fallacies brought up, but I am unsure of which ones they use when seen on t.v. Appeal to fear corresponds with the ad on t.v. where Jerry Brown was attacking Meg Whitman by showing video clips of her stating the same things that Arnold Schwarzenegger said during his term as governor. Therefore, Jerry Brown was using an appeal to fear by showing that his competitor will not be a good fit for California.