Logical Fallacies Exercise
Answers to fallacy exercise, Part 2.
I. Identify the fallacies of sufficiency committed by the following arguments, giving a brief explanation for your answer. If no fallacy is committed, write "no fallacy."1
1. The Daily News carried an article this morning about three local teenagers who were arrested on charges of drug possession. Teenagers these days are nothing but a bunch of junkies. Hasty Generalization – not enough examples.
2. If a car breaks down on the freeway, a passing mechanic is not obligated to render emergency road service. For similar reasons, if a person suffers a heart attack on the street, a passing physician is not obligated to render emergency medical assistance. Weak Analogy – a physician has taken an oath to help people, but a mechanic hasn’t. 3. There must be something to psychical research. Three famous physicists, Oliver Lodge, James Jeans, and Arthur Stanley Eddington, took it seriously. Appeal to unqualified authority. Physicists aren’t authorities on psychical research. 4. The secretaries have asked us to provide lounge areas where they can spend their coffee breaks. This request will have to be refused. If we give them lounge areas, next they'll be asking for spas and swimming pools. Then it will be racquetball courts, tennis courts, and fitness centers. Expenditures for these facilities will drive us into bankruptcy. Straw Man. The real issue, lounge areas, is distorted to include pools and other things. 5. The accumulation of pressure in a society is similar to the build-up of pressure in a boiler. If the pressure in a boiler increases beyond a critical point, the boiler will explode. Accordingly, if a government represses its people beyond a certain point, the people will rise up in revolt. Analogy – The similarity between psychological pressure and pressure in a boiler seems reasonable, so this one seems relatively strong. 6. A few minutes after Governor Harrison finished his speech on television, a devastating earthquake
I. Identify the fallacies of sufficiency committed by the following arguments, giving a brief explanation for your answer. If no fallacy is committed, write "no fallacy."1
1. The Daily News carried an article this morning about three local teenagers who were arrested on charges of drug possession. Teenagers these days are nothing but a bunch of junkies. Hasty Generalization – not enough examples.
2. If a car breaks down on the freeway, a passing mechanic is not obligated to render emergency road service. For similar reasons, if a person suffers a heart attack on the street, a passing physician is not obligated to render emergency medical assistance. Weak Analogy – a physician has taken an oath to help people, but a mechanic hasn’t. 3. There must be something to psychical research. Three famous physicists, Oliver Lodge, James Jeans, and Arthur Stanley Eddington, took it seriously. Appeal to unqualified authority. Physicists aren’t authorities on psychical research. 4. The secretaries have asked us to provide lounge areas where they can spend their coffee breaks. This request will have to be refused. If we give them lounge areas, next they'll be asking for spas and swimming pools. Then it will be racquetball courts, tennis courts, and fitness centers. Expenditures for these facilities will drive us into bankruptcy. Straw Man. The real issue, lounge areas, is distorted to include pools and other things. 5. The accumulation of pressure in a society is similar to the build-up of pressure in a boiler. If the pressure in a boiler increases beyond a critical point, the boiler will explode. Accordingly, if a government represses its people beyond a certain point, the people will rise up in revolt. Analogy – The similarity between psychological pressure and pressure in a boiler seems reasonable, so this one seems relatively strong. 6. A few minutes after Governor Harrison finished his speech on television, a devastating earthquake