Midterm

The midterm will be held at the beginning of class on Tuesday, March 20th. It's worth 15% of your overall grade, and will cover everything we've done in class so far:

• definitions of 'logic,' 'reasoning,' and 'argument'
• evaluating arguments (Chapter 6)
• types of arguments:
  -deductive (aim for certainty, are valid/invalid and sound/unsound) (Chapter 8)
  -inductive (generalizing from examples, are evaluated based how large and representative the examples in the premises are) (Chapter 7)
  -args about cause/effect (correlation vs. causation) (Chapter 7)
  -args by analogy (evaluated in terms of how similar the things compared are, and how relevant the similarities are to the conclusion being drawn) (Chapter 7)
  -abductive (inferences to the best explanation, evaluated in terms of coherence with background theories, simplicity, predictive power, falsifiability, etc.) (Chapter 12)
• the 11 fallacies covered in class so far (Chapter 5)

Get to studying!

Correlatious

Here's yet another stick-figure comic (for those keeping track, that's five total on the blog so far). This one's about correlation.

Our Inductive Minds

Here are some more thoughtful links on inductive reasoning.

• What are the benefits and dangers of generalizations?
• What makes stereotyping illogical?
• Beware: we often make snap judgments before thinking through things. Then when we do think through things, we just wind up rationalizing our snap judgments.

Quiz You Once, Shame on Me

The first quiz will be held at the beginning of class on Tuesday, February 14th. You will have about 25 minutes to take it.

There will be a multiple choice section, a section on understanding arguments, a section on evaluating deductive arguments, and a section where you provide examples of specific kinds of arguments. Basically, it will look like a mix of the homework, extra credit, and group work we've done in class so far.

The quiz is on what we have discussed in class from chapters 6, 8, and part of 7 of the textbook. Specifically, here's a lot of the stuff we've talked about in class so far that I expect you to know for the quiz:

• definitions of: logic, reasoning, argument, support, sound, valid, deductive, inductive
• understanding arguments
• evaluating arguments (truth and support!)
• deductive args (valid & sound)
• inductive args (there will only be a little on this)

The quiz is worth 7.5% of your overall grade.

Inductioneering

Here are two dumb things about inductive arguments. First, a video of comedian Lewis Black describing his failure to learn from experience every year around Halloween:


Next, this stick figure comic offers a pretty bad argument. Why is it bad? (Let us know in the comments!)