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� http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teMlv3rip<br />
SM<br />
� “an argument is a collective series of<br />
statements to establish a definite<br />
proposition…an intellectual process”<br />
(Chapman and Cleese)
Small Group Response<br />
� How is the “Death” essay flawed in terms of<br />
argument?
What’s wrong with these statements?<br />
LOGICAL FALLACIES
What is a logical fallacy?<br />
� A statement that may sound reasonable or<br />
superficially true but is actually flawed or<br />
dishonest
� Why don’t the following statements work in<br />
arguments? (Respond in writing as a group –<br />
you’ll need a note-taker and speaker to share<br />
your group’s discussion):<br />
� “Television can’t be harmful to children<br />
because it occupies their attention for hours<br />
and thus keeps them off the streets” (Engel<br />
167).
� “Marijuana can’t be all that bad. Everyone<br />
knows about barroom brawls, but marijuana<br />
makes people peaceful” (Engel 171).
� “California obstetrician William Waddill stood<br />
trial in 1978 – and again in 1979 – for allegedly<br />
strangling a baby girl delivered alive after he<br />
performed a saline abortion on Mary Weaver,<br />
age eighteen. Waddill admitted that the<br />
thirty-one-week-old fetus was struggling for<br />
breath, but claimed that they were dying<br />
gasps and that “no doctor walking on the face<br />
of the earth could have resuscitated that<br />
baby (News item)” (Engel 173).
The Red Herring<br />
� Topic A is under discussion. Topic B is<br />
introduced under the guise of being relevant<br />
to topic A (when topic B is actually not<br />
relevant to topic A). Topic A is abandoned.
� “Shakespeare cannot have been a great<br />
writer, for he did not even make up his own<br />
plots” (Engel 132).
� “Doctors are all alike. They really don’t know<br />
any more than you or I do. This is the third<br />
case of faulty diagnosis I’ve heard of in the<br />
last month” (Engel 132).
� “Let me warn you that you will find in the world a<br />
few scoffers who will laugh at you and attempt<br />
to do you injury. They will tell you that John D.<br />
Rockefeller was a thief and that Henry Ford and<br />
other great men are also thieves. Do not believe<br />
them. The story of Rockefeller and of Ford is the<br />
story of every great American, and you should<br />
strive to make it your story. Like them, you were<br />
born poor and on a farm. Like them, by honesty<br />
and industry, you cannot fail to succeed<br />
(Nathaniel West, A Cool Million)” (Engel 133).
Hasty Generalization<br />
� The scope of evidence is too small to support<br />
the conclusion.
� “We ought to be guided by the decision of our<br />
ancestors, for old age is wiser than youth”<br />
(Engel 108).<br />
� “The end of a thing is its perfection; death is<br />
the end of life; death is, therefore, the<br />
perfection of life” (Engel 108).
� “If Americans can be divorced for<br />
‘incompatibility,’ I cannot conceive why they<br />
are not all divorced. I have known many<br />
happy marriages, but never a compatible<br />
one. For a man and a woman, as such, are<br />
incompatible (G. K. Chesterton)” (Engel 109).
Equivocation<br />
� Changing definitions half-way through the<br />
discussion
� “Haste makes waste, because hurried activity<br />
is always careless activity” (Engel 147).<br />
� “You can tell that Frank is a disreputable<br />
person by the character of his associates,<br />
because people who go around with<br />
somebody like Frank are the lowest type”<br />
(Engel 171).
� “Comedian W.C. Fields said he knew a sure<br />
cure for insomnia – a good rest” (Engel 148).<br />
� “The new bell in the chapel is louder than the<br />
old one. The old one didn’t make nearly as<br />
much noise” (Engel 147).
Circular Reasoning<br />
� The argument relies on a premise that says<br />
the same thing as the conclusion.
� “I’m surprised at you. A person of your<br />
culture and upbringing – defending those<br />
hoodlums!” (Engel 147).<br />
� “The deplorable deterioration of<br />
governmental efficiency one find here is a<br />
direct cause of a widespread indifference”<br />
(Engel 171).
� “On November 5, three of the accused met at<br />
the house of the fourth defendant, Smith.<br />
There, behind locked doors and heavily<br />
curtained windows, these four conspirators<br />
began to hatch their dastardly plot” (Engel<br />
148).
Loaded Language<br />
� A word or phrase is “loaded” when it has a<br />
secondary, evaluative meaning in addition to<br />
its primary, descriptive meaning.