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.