Strong vs. Valid Arguments

Even though I've read about strong and valid arguments, I am still confused about it. I wish they would have given more examples of a strong argument versus a valid one. I don't get when an argument can be strong, but sometimes can't be valid or when an argument is valid, but not strong. I can locate weak arguments, but not good, strong, or valid arguments. Every time I feel like an argument is valid or strong, I end up being wrong because they're using some type of fallacy or one of the premises isn't true. I think it's hard to find a strong or valid argument. I question myself every time I think an argument is strong. I end up second guessing myself and questioning whether or not there's something wrong in the argument. I just wish the book could have gone into it more and given more examples of valid and strong arguments.

What I've Learned

I have learned many things throughout the semester. I learned how to argue and the types of fallacies that we use every day in arguments, that I thought were never fallacies. I didn't think that appealing to emotion or fallacies like ad hominem were not valid arguments. They're just so common when we use them, that I would have never guessed them to be fallacies. I now know and can locate when someone isn't using a valid argument or even a good argument. I can use that to my advantage when arguing with someone or when I'm trying to prove a point to be right, especially to people who always think they're right. Other than learning how to argue, I learned how to think critically. I learned how to determine whether something someone says or something I read is justified by the reasons they give. I learned how different people work in groups and how they interact differently and I learned that how people come to their conclusions are all different. I learned from these blogs that writing out your thoughts is very helpful because when you're thinking sometimes you forget about what you think about, and you can go back to these blogs and see what you've analyzed or what you've learned. I've learned about how people think differently and how people think alike. I learned that everyone's opinion matters and I like how easy it was to relate to each other.

Chapter 14 Generalizing

I thought that generalizing was an interesting topic because we use it a lot. According to the Epstein text, "we are generalizing if we conclude a claim about the group, the population, from a claim about some part of it, the sample." There's a lot of generalizing in statistics and in every day life. For instance, I generalize when I say that the pad thai at this restaurant is good, every item on the menu must be good then or when I say that the a sports team won their first 5 games, they're probably going to make it to the playoffs. Another thing I would relate to generalizations is stereotypes. From picking a sample in a group of people sometimes we assume that all of them are the same, like a typical stereotype would be that Asians have chinky eyes. We say this by taking some people of Asian ancestry and seeing that they have chinky eyes, so we conclude that all Asians have chinky eyes. Just by taking a claim on some part of a group or population we assume that the whole group is like that. I don't think we generalize on purpose, it's just easy to assume things for the whole population when some part of that population is exactly what you're assuming.

Cause and Effect in Populations

A concept that I found interesting was cause and effect in populations. According to the Epstein text, "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." If you have no specifics on the normal conditions then you go to statistical conclusions. Just like the example they used in the book about smoking, there are some people who smoke who don't get lung cancer and there are some people who smoke who do get lung cancer and when you're using an argument like "smoking causes lung cancer," we have no normal conditions for this, so we use statistics to better the argument. What I also found interesting about cause and effect in populations were the different experiments like the controlled experiment, uncontrolled experiment, and uncontrolled experiment from effect-to-cause. In an uncontrolled experiment we start with the suspected cause and see if the effect follows, but it's uncontrolled so people in the experiment may be doing something or make their own decisions that changes the outcome, there are more factors to consider. In a controlled experiment, people follow what they're supposed to do and don't do anything that they're not told to do.

Mission Critical Website

What I found useful about the Mission Critical website were all the links to describe everything about arguments. I found it useful because it helps to see the basics of how to form an argument, how to analyze arguments, and their fallacies. It described each in detail and described it in a way that I can understand. I also found it easier to navigate than a book because it divides everything into sub categories that are linked to different pages. You don't have to go through pages to find specific words or phrases because each key word has their own page.

Another thing I found useful were the exercises because instead of just reading things to understand, it helps to actually do them to understand. If you get an answer wrong in the exercise it tells you why it's wrong and if you get it correct then it explains why it's correct.

One concept I found useful on this website to read were about the other common fallacies because I read about them in the book, but it wasn't very clear to me. Reading about these fallacies on the website were more clear, not to mention, the exercises helped.

Cause and Effect

The Cause and Effect reading and exercises helped me to understand inductive arguments where there is only one significant difference or one significant commonality. It helped me to understand that cause and effect can be used in arguments with a mixture of difference or commonality reasoning. Reading about this confused me at first, but doing the exercises helped me to understand it better. The exercises were more clear to help me understand a most significant commonality and a most significant difference in an argument. This is how to argue causation. The reading talking about how lawyers argue a case by using similar arguments and causal arguments also helped me to understand it better. How one thing happened could be the cause of another thing, like if person A leaves the xbox on for a while, then person B comes to play the xbox and presses a button then it stops working. You could argue that it is person A's fault because they left the xbox on causing it to overheat, but you could also argue that Person B might have done something wrong to cause it to break or you could argue that Person B should have turned it off first.

Another example of cause and effect:
10 people in the class passed the test.
The most significant commonality could be that they all studied.
The most significant difference could be that no one else in the class besides those 10 people studied.

Call in your debts

Another concept I found interesting was appeal to spite because I hear it used all the time. According to the Epstein text call in your debt appeals to the opposite of spite: "You should believe or do something if you owe someone a favor." I hear this used a lot from my some of my friends, and it is especially annoying when they offer to do something and tell you that you don't owe them anything and then next thing you know they bring it up like you owe them.

For example:
Person 1: No, it's cool I'll pay for your food.
Person 2: Are you sure? I could pay you back next time.
Person 1: No really it's cool, I got you, you don't have to pay for me.
Next time...
Person 1: How about you pay for me this time since I paid for your food last time? or
Person 1: Since I paid last time you can pay this time.

Example 2:
Person 1: Do you need a ride home?
Person 2: Yea! Thanks!
Person 1: No problem.
Next time...
Person 1: Can you give me a ride home? C'mon, I always give you rides!

Example 3:
C'mon go out with us tonight! Don't flake like you did last week!

I think an argument that calls in your debts is so annoying! If you offer to do something and you say you don't expect anything in return then don't expect anything in return! Don't try to get someone to do something or agree with you by sending them on a guilt trip.

Appeal to Fear

3.) This advertisement uses appeal to fear because it's trying to tell women that if they want to drink like men(binge drink) then they're going to end up looking like that person in the picture. It's trying to tell women that binge drinking will destroy their good looks, therefore scaring women into not binge drinking if they want to keep looking good. It's not giving any evidence or statistics stating that if you drink like a man you really will start looking like one, and what about the people who binge drink and don't look any different at all? It's like saying that if you are a woman you should stop binge drinking...or else you will look like that. It is scary to think that if you binge drink you will look like that, (not saying that men are ugly), and so that's how they are trying to convince their audience, through fear. They know people want to look good and by trying to scare them into thinking that they will lose their looks by binge drinking then they are trying to convey their argument by appealing to fear.

Appeal to Emotion

Appeal to emotion is basically saying that you should believe something because of how you feel about it. It's a premise that is trying to convince someone to believe their argument by appealing to the person's emotion.

There are different aspects of appeals to emotion such as appeal to pity, appeal to fear, appeal to spite, and appeal to vanity.

Appeal to pity interested me the most because I see that a lot. Sometimes people try to convince someone of something by trying to get them to feel bad if they don't agree with what they say or if they don't agree with what they do. There are a lot of advertisements that do this. Just like in the last project we had to do for this class, my group did it on PETA and I found so many articles and ads that were trying to appeal to people's emotions by trying to get them to pity them. I read an article about the Ringling Brothers not taking proper care of their baby elephants that they use for their performances and they showed pictures and stated things to the degree of "if you don't do something now, these elephants will continue to be abused." They're trying to get people to support them by getting others to pity them. They use pictures and say things to get people to feel bad so that people could help them out, and this is implausible reasoning.

General Claims and their Contradictories

General claims help determine if it is part of a collection or if it's separate. There are key words like All, Some, No, and Only.

All can be confusing because sometimes it means every single one with no exceptions and sometimes it means every single one with at least one exception. Some means at least one and is sometimes meant as "at least one, but not all."
No means not even one and is sometimes used by the word "only." Only means all are something, all have to be this.

Example of All: All cats meow.
Example of Some: Some people have black hair.
Example of No: No one is 300 years old.
Example of Only: Only people with bus passes can ride the bus.

The contradictory of each claim is one that makes it false.
Contradictory Examples:
All: Some cats don't meow.
Some: No person has black hair.
No: Someone is 300 years old.
Only: At least one person without a bus pass can ride the bus.
These contradictories make each claim on top false.

Again, this is exactly like discrete math when you negate a statement you get the contradictory of the statement.
All - some are not, not every
Some - No, all are not, not even one
Some are not - all are
No - some are
Only S are P - Some P are not S, Not every P is S

Critical Thinking in News and Politics

For the first major course assignment we had, I found it useful because it helped me to find the premises, claims, and argument within someone else's writing. It helped me to locate where everything was and helped me to understand how someone organizes their argument. It was useful because I learned how to pick holes in a person's argument and learned how an argument can be good or bad. It helped me to determine whether the argument is valid, strong, or weak. It also taught me the usefulness of evidence within an argument, if there is no evidence then you aren't credible enough to be believable in your argument. Just like for the assignment that my group and I did on the health care reform. We found the premises, claims, and argument the author made by reading the whole editorial. Sometimes an argument or a claim isn't stated so we had to assume what the author was trying to get at, and this is also where I found this assignment useful. Sometimes an argument or claim isn't stated and this helped me figure out how to find it when it's unstated or how to find it when it is stated.

checking for validity with diagrams

Using diagrams to check validity is very helpful. According to the epstein text, to check the validity with diagrams:
-A collection is represented by an enclosed area
-If one area is entirely within another, then everything in the one collection is also in the other
-If one area overlaps another, then there is something that is common to both collections
-If two areas do not overlap, then there is nothing common to both collections
-An "a" or a dot in an area marks that a particular object is in that collection
-Draw the areas to represent the premises as true while trying to represent the conclusion as false. If you can, then the argument is invalid. If there's no way to represent the premises as true and the conclusion false, the argument is valid.

It's almost like a venn diagram. It contains one thing which then you have to decide whether what it contains is also contained in something else, which determines whether the argument is valid or not.

I thought drawing a diagram was very helpful because sometimes it's hard to tell where something belongs, like in Discrete math where we had to use letters or statements that included "all" or "for every" or "not" and drawing a diagram for that would make things simpler. Like if I said that all students at SJSU are taking math classes. Suzie is taking a math class. If I drew a diagram for that then I would know that isn't a valid argument because yes, Suzie is taking a math class, but that doesn't mean that she is a student at SJSU.

Bad Appeals to Authority

A lot of times I believe what people say and what they're arguing just because a lot of other people believe them too. A most common thing would be to believe our friends just because they sound like they know what they're talking about or when they peer pressure you into thinking something, like if someone peer pressured someone else by saying "You should smoke, everyone else is." Another example would be gossip, like when some says "Yea he's dating her, I saw them together," and then another friend would add on to that saying "Yea, I saw them together too one time." Then I would believe that friend just because my other friends believe it too. Or sometimes when I hear a smart person say something and they're totally joking around, but I believe them when they say it just because I know they're smart. Well, in evaluating premises bad appeals to authority should be avoided.

Advertising on the Internet

This advertisement is one of the funniest I have seen. It is trying to convince the audience(directed towards women, and men indirectly) to get old spice. According to Chapter 5 in the Epstein text, the criteria for accepting or rejecting claims are our own personal experience and from other sources. The claims they use in the advertisement, we know from experience, that it's not true, that "anything is possible when your man smells like old spice and not a lady." I think the audience all knows that, but the true claim the commercial was trying to give was that men shouldn't smell like women, and with old spice they won't. We can only believe this claim through our personal experience and through other sources. To accept a claim through other sources we have to trust someone who is an authority of the kind of claim. In the commercial I guess you could say the authority figure was the man in the commercial who is wearing old spice. If he looks like that, rides a boat, "give two tickets to the thing you love", gives diamonds, and is on a horse, and wears old spice then isn't that pretty convincing to the audience that they too should get old spice? But the problem with this is that to accept the claim, the authority has to have no motive to mislead, and this commercial is very misleading.

With this advertisement, it is appealing to both our personal experience and other sources. In my opinion, with my personal experience, old spice has a very man-like scent, but I would not listen to the authority figure here because he is misleading. Not every man who wears Old Spice will attribute the same qualities as the man in the commercial, and just because he says that your man will smell like a man because of Old Spice, doesn't necessarily mean he will. He isn't an expert. So I reject the claim in this advertisement because of other sources.

Honestly though, I think this advertisement was depending more on humor to convince the audience to buy their product and not the claim that was given. I think if people were trying to believe what it was saying, they wouldn't buy, but if they were going for humor, it would get them.

Repairing Arguments

You shouldn't play that game because you'll end up not doing your homework.

The conclusion is there, but it need a premise like, "video games are addicting and will take up a lot of your time." Then it needs a sentence to link to the conclusion. "Being addicted to something will prevent you from doing other things." This sentence is the glue that links the premise with the conclusion. It could even use some evidence like if you know that the person you are trying to convince plays games and ends up not doing their homework, then that could back up your conclusion. This follows the rational discussion rules that the person knows about the subject, is able to reason well, and is not lying. To repair the argument, with the claims it makes the argument stronger or valid, the premises are plausible, and the premises are more plausible than the conclusion. So the new argument would be:
"Video games are addicting, and when you play you will get addicted. Being addicted to something will prevent you from doing other things, such as your homework. You shouldn't play that game because you'll end up not doing your homework."
This is now a good argument.

Communication in Organization

Relationships between Superiors and Subordinates

Communication between an employee and their manager/boss is important in their relationship. You have to maintain a professional relationship so you have to be able to communicate well. What is mostly communicated amongst an employee and their superior or subordinate are mostly about work: tasks, issues, projects, how we're doing right now, what we can do to be better, etc. You can't be saying inappropriate things or things that would normally get you in trouble, unless your relationship is that close. I know when I work I have to watch what I say because it could be an HR issue, so either I could get fired/in trouble or my manager or co-worker could get in trouble. I mean, depending on where you work, how you communicate is different. I work at a place where a lot of people can hear what I say and where if they don't like what they hear or see they could report me. If you're working someplace like an amusement park, I imagine it to be less strict. I think you have to have that professional relationship but at the same time don't make it so that it's all professional, you have to have fun too and be able to be yourself. So in a workplace relationship you have to know when to be serious and when to goof off.

How are you gonna tell me to do that when you don't even do it?

Phony refutation

The phony refutation fallacy is like hypocrisy. Someone has an argument but doesn't even follow it. This argument is bad because they don't even believe their argument. It's not consistent with what they're saying and the actions they do. Some of the most common examples that I hear a lot is when my mom tries to convince me to do things like the laundry, or wash the dishes, or clean the house. Her arguments being things like "I think you should wash the dishes because you never do it." I always counterattack by saying "How can you tell me to do those things when you don't even do it?" I dismissed her argument that I should be doing the laundry or washing the dishes by citing that her words are inconsistent with her actions. She tells me to do those things when she doesn't even do it. She says to do the laundry because I never do it. Well how is that argument convincing when she doesn't even follow the argument herself. She never does the laundry either, so maybe she should do it. How can she convince me to wash the dishes when she doesn't even wash the dishes herself? She doesn't even follow her own argument, therefore, the argument is bad.

Complex Arguments for Analysis

1.) My neighbor should be forced to get rid of all the cars in his yard.(1) People do not like living next door to such a mess.(2) He never drives any of them.(3) They all look old and beat up and leak oil all over the place.(4) It is bad for the neighborhood, and it will decrease property values.(5)

Argument? (Yes)
Claims(1,2,5)
Conclusion: My neighbor should be forced to get rid of all the cars in his yard.
Addt'l premises? Since people don't like living next door to such a mess, people won't want to move there, therefore decreasing property values.
The cars leak oil all over the place and (insert reason that it is bad for the neighborhood).
Because it is bad for the neighborhood, and it will decrease property values, my neighbor should be forced to get rid of all the cars in his yard.
Subarguments: People do not like living next door to such a mess.
It is bad for the neighborhood, and it will decrease property values.
Good argument? (No)

This exercise was useful, but very hard to do because there were too many subarguments in the argument. I felt like the premises supported the subargument and the main argument, and the subargument supported the main argument, which was confusing.

Leadership and Decision Making in Groups and Teams

The role of the leader in a group is to direct and influence. In groups, there always seems to be someone who steps up to be the leader, whether it be to assign the other group members tasks or to control the flow of tasks. There are four decision-making styles that leaders usually have: authoritarian, consultative, participative, and laissez-faire. Authoritarian leaders take control without any decisions from the other group members. Consultative leaders make the other group members believe that their input is taken into account before the leader makes their own decision in the end. Participative leaders make sure that they involve other group members and they come up with a decision together. Laissez-faire leaders, or "hands off" approach, don't really do anything, they just go with the flow and do the task. I think that the most common leadership is the participative leader. Well, in most of the groups I'm in, there is a participative leader. What I don't like sometimes is the consultative leader. I know that they're trying to test the waters and getting other people's opinions first, but in the end they're just making the decision on their own, which I think is kind of selfish. Just like when you're doing a group project, someone has to step up to be the leader or else it will be chaos and everyone will do their own thing and no one will know what their role is.

Strong vs Valid Arguments

A strong argument is strong if and only if it is not probable that its conclusion is false if the premises are true. A valid argument is valid if and only if its premises are true then its conclusion must be true. For valid arguments it may or may not have true premises. They sound the same but for strong arguments have probability, while valid arguments have possibilities. A strong argument is strong if there is some way for its premises to be true and its conclusion false at the same time. According to the Epstein text valid or strong arguments don't depend on the whether the premises are true, whether we know the premises are true, and whether the person making the argument thinks the argument is valid or strong.

An argument can be valid even if its premises are false(or can't be proven true), but leads to the conclusion being true.
example of valid argument:
The water is made of pink jello.
I am swimming in the water.
I am swimming in pink jello.

Examples of everyday life:
Valid Arguments:
If you don't eat anything, you'll starve.
Strong arguments:
"If you don't get at least 7-8 hours of sleep, you won't be able to stay awake in class."

Tests for an Argument to be Good

According to the Epstein text for an argument to be good it must pass three tests:
-The premises are plausible
-The premises are more plausible than the conclusion
-The argument is valid or strong

The tests don't depend on each other so if one fails, it doesn't necessarily mean that the others will fail also. If we find that it's possible for the premises to be true and the conclusion to be false then it is not a valid argument. If we know that the premises are true then the argument is good.

In order to be alive, your heart must be beating.
Richelle's heart is beating.
Richelle is alive.

Is there any way for the premises to be true, but conclusion false? Is there any way for Richelle's heart to be beating but she is not alive?

In order to be alive, your heart must be beating.
Richelle's heart is beating. Richelle is not alive. -This cannot be true.

Is the premise plausible?
The premise seems credible, valid, or true so yes, the premise is plausible.
Are the premises more plausible than the conclusion?
The first premise is more plausible than the conclusion because we can say Richelle is alive, but how do we get there? The conclusion seems credible, but the premises are more credible.
Is the argument valid or strong?
Is it possible for the premises to be true and the conclusion false? No, it's not, so then the argument is valid. Are the premises true? Yes, the premises are true, so the argument is strong.

Arguments

People argue all the time. Arguments are almost unavoidable, especially if you're a stubborn person and you always want to be right. An argument must have a number of reasons to back up or convince someone that the conclusion is true. What we need to use to argue should be sentences that are either true or false. An argument is almost like persuading someone. The point is to convince someone that your claim is true. For instance, in basketball when referees call fouls, like when a referee calls a charging foul on someone who didn't commit the foul, the referee might argue with another referee on what the correct call was. Or more simpler, when you are trying to argue what an answer was to a math problem.

The other day, I was arguing with one of my friends who regularly sees a psychic and I was arguing with her that the psychic was fake and is only trying to get her money. I believed that the psychic was just a scam and continued to give premises as to why I think that the psychic is not real and is only out to get her money. I told her that
1) The psychic has never said anything descriptive or personal about my friend or my friend's life whatsoever
2) If the psychic really wanted to help her out then she wouldn't be charging so much for her "services" and other props she uses
3) Everything the psychic tells her is very vague(see post below hahahaha), the psychic tells her things I could tell her or anyone for that matter like (you will become very successful in the future)

So I backed up my argument with reasons as to why the psychic she was seeing is fake and is just a scam. I was trying to convince my friend to believe that the conclusion I was getting it was true.

I think arguments are fun and annoying sometimes too. The little arguments that people have over the most stupid things can get pretty heated, especially if you are trying to be right about it.

Vague and Ambiguous

When I'm watching TV, I always see commercials that provide statistics or facts that are very vague, and I always wonder if what they say is true or not, for instance in commercials that advertise medicine or phone companies that say that their product is better than a competitor's product. Some commercials that include statistics like "4/5 women" or "3/4 people" don't really explain the details. What kind of women? Where are they from? People..? Does that include everyone in the world? I always wonder where they are getting their statistics from, like yesterday I saw a medicine commercial and they stated that this medicine "is the leading brand recommended by doctors." Well what kind of doctors? How many doctors? Doctors from where? Why would they recommend it? Are the doctors certified? These kinds of thoughts pop in my head. Providing such a vague sentence doesn't really convince me that I should get that brand, it also doesn't answer very many questions. Anyone could have interpreted that sentence differently. How can that be proven without clarifying all the questions that need to be answered? Statements like that are too vague to make it a claim. We need the person making that statement to be more clear before we can decide whether it's true or not.

Subjective and Objective Claims

Subjective claims and objective claims are used every day. What separates the two is opinion and fact. Subjective claims depend on what someone thinks or feels; it is whatever their opinion or preference on the matter is. They can't be proven true or false with facts. Objective claims don't depend on what anyone else thinks or feels about it. Objective claims are unaffected by someone's opinion; they can be verified as true or false.

Yesterday I went to Wingstop to eat and one of my friends said: "These atomic wings are hot, but they don't taste very good." This is an example of a subjective claim because my friend is expressing his own opinion. I'm sure that other people have different opinions on the matter, they may think differently. His claim can't be proved with facts. It is his own preference and opinion that the atomic wings at Wingstop don't taste very good. It is a biased statement and is dependent on what someone thinks. Someone else might have a different opinion and to them, might think that the atomic wings taste good.

Yesterday I was also wondering whether or not I should drop a class to add another one. As I was looking through classes to add, I also looked up when the last day to drop classes is. I asked my friend and she said that the last day to drop classes is February 5 on a Friday. The claim that the last day to drop classes is Friday, February 5 is an example of an objective claim because it is unaffected by someone's opinion. It can be proven true or false with facts. I looked it up on the website and it states that the last day to drop a class is February 5 - the claim has been proven. Whether it's true or false doesn't depend on what someone thinks. In this case, proving that it's true doesn't depend on what someone feels or thinks.

Introduction

HELLO!

I am a second year student at SJSU, majoring in Computer Science. I enjoy sleeping and eating. I also like to go shopping, and playing the piano. I enjoy playing sports, my favorite is basketball, and I also like playing video games. And I like to watch TV. I love the Disney Channel! Did I mention that I love sleeping?(...on the rare occasions that I do get to sleep) I also love hanging out with my friends and family.

As far as communication experiences go, I have taken a public speaking class my first year of college, it really helped me get over my fear of public speaking as I don't dread it as much as I used to. It also taught me how other people respect what you have to say, so it helped me to not be as nervous about expressing my opinions. My communication skills are really influenced by my surroundings. I was the shyest person in the world when I was younger, I didn't even want to ask my teacher if I could go to the bathroom because I was so shy. As the years went on though, I have learned to get over it. It helps when you are in a new surrounding, such as a new job, or going to a new school, or going to college, having different classes with different people, so all of those have helped me a lot. I do love meeting new people!

I haven't taken any online classes before so I hope that I'll be able to pass this one. I hope online classes are not as hard or as horrific as I hear other people say they are. I look forward to this class and hope that it will further my communication skills, and I hope it'll be fun!