Cause and Effect in Populations

Cause and Effect in Populations is a very useful topic. Cause in populations is defined as “a claim that If the cause is present, there is a higher probability the effect will follow than if the cause were not present(Epstein 392)”. The example in the book is that smoking lots of cigarettes over a long period of time will cause a higher probability that it’ll cause lung cancer. We know that if you do something, there will be an outcome or effect by it. There is a problem with cause and effect that we actually don’t have an idea nor is it likely that we can state normal conditions for smoking. The one thing that we can do in cause and effect is to point out the evidence that we do have that convinces us that’s the effect of causing something, such as smoking or drunk driving. Evidence must be present in order to have a cause an effect scenario.

Cause and Effect

The Cause and Effect website has very good points on introducing us to Causal Arguments. Causation is connecting the relationship between conducting it and having a result. It’s usually dealt with injury cases. The example of the bicyclist moving into the traffic lane in order to pass a truck illegally parked in the bike lane has a good claim if he were to be in court. The bicyclist will probably say the truck shouldn’t have parked. That is why I swerved into the lane of traffic. One good point from the website is that none of the claims that he made fit the pattern of inductive argument because they aren’t observed or experienced. The last part of the website is the most important, which deals with three factors that give strength in a causal argument. They are to accept or demonstrable the implied comparison, the case for causation, and how credible it really is.

Mission Critical

The Mission Critical website has different parts of an argument and everything that consists of it. The section on Fallacies and Non-Rational Persuasion is what I thought was most useful in the website. There are two different types of Appeals. The first appeal is Misdirected appeals which consist of Appeal to Authority, Common Practice, and Appeal to Common Belief. An appeal to fear is that fear and love are two strong emotions. It affects and threatens the safety or happiness of ourselves or someone we love. This was very useful because people are always trying to get into people’s emotions to get something out of them. It is a very strong appeal to use. The second part of appeals is Emotional appeals. One Appeal in this section is Appeal to Spite. Spite is concerned with hatred and indignation to tap into a person’s feelings about people or things. It is a very powerful appeal.

Question 3 Reasoning By Analogy

Probably my most used form of reasoning even though I use it in dumb ways, is reasoning by analogy. I always try to draw parallels to things that have no correlation with the other thing whatsoever. I like how people compare LeBron James to Michael Jordan. The two players are from different places, they are from different times, and they aren't the same person. Michael Jordan is not dead and reincarnated in LeBron people need to get over that. So when people make the argument that Jordan would have never switched teams in the middle of his career like LeBron that doesn't make much sense. LeBron is a grown man who does whatever he likes not following Jordans every footstep. I'm sorry for the sports reference, but it was a good one in my opinion. I use analogy a lot in my reasoning, but as we see from this example bad analogies make for very bad reasoning. just because somethings are in common sometimes doesn't mean you can follow the same path every time. Each time is a different situation. It's like a fingerprint everybody has their own.

Reasoning by Criteria

Reasoning by criteria didn't make much sense to me at first reading it. Even after going online for a while i didn't really get it. Maybe my mind was wondering or maybe I wasn't paying attention the first time. Well now reading it again today it makes way more sense. Reasoning by criteria just means that we set up the criteria for reasoning. It's all about defining what we want to get in an outcome. For example I hate when a teacher says just write a good paper. What does that mean? Serious a good paper for one teacher isn't the same for another. Every English teacher since 7th grade has been different than the others in terms of grading and style so I get so irritated and confused. I want a teacher to say. "I want your to write a good paper that has effective sentences, a lot of vocabulary, and hits the target well. The paper should be as neat as possible with very few mistakes in grammar and spelling." If teachers told me this maybe I'd be more prepared to write better essays in class. This is reasoning with criteria just explain a bit more and set up a criteria for words like good, great, effective.

Question 1 Example Reasoning

Reasoning by analogy

Michael Jordan was a great player

Great players never switch teams

Lebron isn't a great player.

Sign Reasoning

Is your body feeling hot? Do you have a headache and Body aches? Vomiting?

If you answered yes you probably have the flu.

Casual Reasoning

I lost my keys. I retraced my steps and I couldn't find them. I went everywhere except my classroom its probably in there.

Reasoning by Criteria

get a good SAT score? whats "good"? enough so that the colleges will except you.

Reasoning by example

Don't eat a burger king their food got me sick last week so their food isn't safe.

Inductive

All blankets are warm

I bought a new blanket

It must be warm

Deductive

Garbage was picked up every wednesday

Garbage will be picked up this wednesday.

Question 3 Feel Good Argument

How many times have I seen a scene in school where somebody tries to get on the good side of teacher or at work a boss. "You're not a mean person why would you give me a bad grade" or "You're a nice boss you'd give me time off work right?" I don't think all of these people fail, but most do. Sometimes surprisingly getting on somebodies good side and making them feel bad enough for you actually works. I can think of a few people who had to do "extra credit" to pass high school. Such as cleaning, doing meaningless busy work just to prove to the teacher they deserved a passing grade. Sometimes it actually works so being nice might actually get you somewhere. It's never a good reason to be nice but sometimes it works. It's a horrible argument to tell somebody they're nice guys and girls and they wouldn't hurt a fly but some people are really that nice.

Question 2 Appeal To Spite

Up until Tuesday Political ads have been running non stop. Vote Republican Vote Democrat Vote Tea Party. It's honestly kinda crazy how much effort and money they put into these elections. I don't vote because I really don't care for but I am forced to watch insufferable commercials while I watch TV. These commercials go on and on bashing other candidates. Most look at track record and don't focus on the issues. For example Carly Fiorina was CEO at HP for a long time. She ran a very successful company. She happened to lay off a lot of people and outsource a lot of jobs. Barbra Boxer her opponent ran an ad saying she laid off thousands of workers what will she do in the senate? It makes people think, "ohh that fiorina I don't like her she doesn't care about us and she'll do it again." Even though in a way she has done more for the economy that Barbra Boxer ever has by running a billion dollar company.

Question 1 Appeal To Emotion

Appealing to Emotion is appealing to ones emotions. Meaning that you do something to strike a chord in a person with an argument. For example if I know something scares you like terrorists, and I say don't go to him because he is for terrorists. That is an appeal to fear. I like the appeal to fear the best. I think it's because I see it the most often. Political Ads do appeal to spite. Jerry Brown ran many ads against meg whitman that show her as a person very similar to Arnold Schwarzenegger who most people despise and are very hateful towards. I think the appeal to emotion even though a bad argument I still find it very effective. People try to put emotions into an argument but the real thing we need to look at is facts. There are a lot of feelings out there that don't belong in a rational argument. So appealing to ones emotions is a very useful tactic in arguing with a person or promoting something, but it's still wrong.