Saturday, May 14, 2011

Discussion Question Number Three: Part Ten

Concepts in Need of Further Discussion (Generalizations)

Seeing as generalizations have yet to be discussed, I will talk about generalizations (I think all the other previous concepts have had pretty well thought out and talked about). In chapter fourteen, from the Epstein book, there are pre-distinguished premises that are needed for a good generalization to occur. There must always be a big enough sample size, a sample size that is studied well, and a sample size that is representative. (289) However, according to the text, even if the three requirements for a good generalization are satisfied, the result of the generalization can still be a weak and/or bad argument.

The idea of generalizing, without being some sort of professional with scientific reasoning, can lead to bad things, as well as, evidently a bad argument. It is, as shown in some examples in the text, to say because a person has met a certain amount of people from a specific subgroup, leads to the idea that there is some quality or trait that is consistently showing and that, in their perspective, is shown in everyone in that subgroup, which is unlikely especially considering what exactly it is that person is proposing that is shown in that subgroup.

This chapter also covers terms such representative sample (if a sample is unbiased, and represents all subgroups of the entire population equally as all the other subgroups are represented) and random sampling (only correct and valid if the choices that were chosen at random had an equal chance of not getting picked from the rest of the members of the population that could have been chosen instead, and vice versa). (284)

Discussion Question Number One: Part Ten

What I've Learned


There's a lot that I've learned, definitely. I learned that you really have to listen to an argument being told, and really evaluate and analyze whether or not their statements and/or claims are worthy arguments. I learned there are many ways you can distinguish an argument as. There are terms such as "strawman" (refuting a person's claim by putting words in their mouth) and "mistaking the person for the claim" (unjustly assuming that anything relating to that person and the claims they present, because it happens to be them saying them, is false), which I learned about in the different concepts laid out in the Epstein book. I also learned about vague and ambiguous claims, and how it can lead to a weaker and less valid argument, because the argument is vague/ambiguous, which can lead to confusion, as it can say more than one thing without being clear to their audience.

I also learned about the concept of arguing backwards, as well as, cause and effect. The manner in which you decide to argue could be expressed by means of beginning from its result and moving backward, or vice versa. Sometimes, the result of arguing from effect to cause leads to a weak argument. In an instance, it was said that a man wore his jersey to a football game he attended. His team ended up winning, and because of that result/effect, he wore his jersey to every game. The cause to his clothing preference led to the result of the winning game, so to speak. Of course, there are many other concepts unmentioned that I've learned in this course.

Friday, May 13, 2011

Discussion Question Number Two: Part Ten

Group Decision Making: Favorite/Least Favorite Aspects

My favorite thing about the class was the convenience of being able to access everything through the website. This was my first online class, so I was unaware of how everything was going to feel like, and how well I'd be able to handle doing the work versus actually going to class. I enjoyed that everything was planned out ahead of time, and how essentially the professor was so well-organized and polite about everything.

I really enjoyed blogging about the posts and doing comments much more than I originally thought I would. Everything that was expected of us to do was fair; it wasn't asking too much. My least favorite thing about the class was the isolation, because it is an online class, and the fact that we all didn't really get to interact with each other as we would if it were a lecture/seminar. It was difficult at times to maintain motivation in getting started on discussion posts sometimes because it was such a convenience to simply open up the laptop and head to webpage. I don't think there's anything that needs improving in the class.