Exam 11: Performance Evaluation Revisited: a Balanced Approach

Evaluate the following analogical argument: He: Let's leave Cincinnati for the golden West! Why don't we move to Los Angeles? She: Well, for one thing, we couldn't afford to buy a house there. He: Don't be such a pessimist. We bought this house here, didn't we? How much more expensive can houses in Los Angeles be?

Evaluate the following generalization(s), identifying sample, population, attribute of interest, and the extent to which the claims involved are knowable. Consider carefully the size and diversification of the sample and the extent to which the population differs or may differ from the sample; remember, what's important is that the sample be representative. Seventeen percent of Winchell State students intend to pursue careers as computer programmers or analysts. That's what a recent survey of WSU students conducted by psychology major Jack Nafarik shows. Nafarik passed out questionnaires to students who voted in the March student election as they exited from the polling stations in the student union. "The results didn't surprise me," Nafarik said. "The figure may seem fairly high, but you'd expect that in a technical school like Winchell State."

Evaluate the following analogical argument: In Great Britain, savings of between 20 and 40 percent in costs have resulted from selling government-run programs and businesses to individuals and companies in the private sector. This argues well for the administration's interest in selling such U.S. government entities as the Bonneville Power Administration, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and various parts of the postal service.

Evaluate the following generalization(s), identifying sample, population, attribute of interest, and the extent to which the claims involved are knowable. Consider carefully the size and diversification of the sample and the extent to which the population differs or may differ from the sample; remember, what's important is that the sample be representative. Victor has just heard somewhere that regular injections of testosterone help improve the memories of men his age, but he can't recall where he heard it. "Probably was on the TV news," he figures. "I don't read the newspaper very often."

Make this inductive (statistical) syllogism into a strong argument by supplying an appropriate premise or conclusion: People who go to Burning Man are not like you and me. Why just look at how odd Greg is!

Make this inductive (statistical) syllogism into a strong argument by supplying an appropriate premise or conclusion: We're going to the home of our Italian friends, Marco and Claudia, for dinner. I suspect it'll be really good.

Mark buys a pair of running shoes that is said to improve the user's speed. When he uses these shoes, he runs faster than he usually does. "It works!" he tells his friend. What causal claim (if any) is stated or implied in Mark's conclusion?

When we generalize from a sample, we draw a conclusion

Johnson is hired by a company to see if a new product, Topocal, will cause hair to grow on the heads of bald men. He recruits one thousand bald men and randomly divides them into two groups: Five hundred men (group A) rub Topocal on their scalps each day; the other five hundred (group B) rub a standard skin lotion on their scalps each day. After two months, Johnson checks to see what the results have been. He finds that there has been hair growth in 7 percent of group A and in 2 percent of group B.What if Johnson had started with 2,000 bald men (1,000 in each group) and got the same 7 and 2 percent figures? Would this have made any difference for the significance of Johnson's results?

Evaluate the following argument in accordance with the criteria discussed in the text. Raphael is troubled by the fact that when he purchases new guitar strings, they seem always to go dead after just a few weeks of use. A friend suggests that he boil the strings in vinegar when they lose their resonance. Raphael tries it, and the strings sound almost like new again. After a few weeks, the strings go dead again, and Raphael boils them in vinegar and gets the same results. He resigns himself to a session with boiling vinegar every few weeks.

Evaluate the following analogical argument: I know somebody good for our band. Her name is Stacy, and she hasn't performed in a band, but she sings in my church choir.

Evaluate the following generalization(s), identifying sample, population, attribute of interest, and the extent to which the claims involved are knowable. Consider carefully the size and diversification of the sample and the extent to which the population differs or may differ from the sample; remember, what's important is that the sample be representative. The cocktail Beatrice orders before dinner is watery, so she decides not to eat there after all. "Don't think they can fix decent dinners if they can't even make a decent martini," she mutters.

Evaluate the following generalization(s), identifying sample, population, attribute of interest, and the extent to which the claims involved are knowable. Consider carefully the size and diversification of the sample and the extent to which the population differs or may differ from the sample; remember, what's important is that the sample be representative. A poll of fifty weight lifters at a southern California gym determined that thirty-three payed close attention to their diets as well as to their exercise. Of those thirty-three, twenty-five (50 percent of the original fifty) made it a point to eat more than the minimum daily amount of protein for large adults, and twenty (40 percent of the original fifty) took vitamin pills and other dietary supplements. The chain of health-food stores that took the poll concluded that weight lifters constitute a substantial market for its products, since it is likely that 40 percent of all weight lifters across the country take vitamin pills and supplements and that an additional 10 percent are at least highly conscious of their diets.

Evaluate the following analogical argument: From a letter to the editor: "Harry Kryshnah lost the last election because he supported handgun control. So now he's changed his tune and claims he'll be the first one to oppose handgun control. I voted for him last June, but I won't vote for him this time, and it's not because I favor handgun control. I just don't want a governor who can talk out of both sides of his mouth like that."

Sloan said Vancouver's laws were made stricter in 1978 but didn't change significantly. -Adapted from Associated Press

Evaluate the following argument in accordance with the criteria discussed in the text. Are body lice a cause of good health? So it seemed to the people in New Hebrides Islands, according to John Allen Paulos's comment in his book Innumeracy. After all, when body lice departed, people became ill.

Evaluate the following analogical argument: I'm sure Kerron will win the tennis finals. He won the racquetball tournament, didn't he?

A) Provide an informal analysis of the following passage; or B) in analyzing the passage, do the following: a. Identify the causal hypothesis at issue. b. Identify what kind of study it is. c. Describe the control and experimental groups. d. State the difference in effect (or cause) between control and experimental groups. e. Identify any problems in either the study or the report of it, including but not necessarily limited to uncontrolled variables. f. State the conclusion you think is warranted by the report. Tiffany Field, a psychologist at the University of Miami Medical School, believes that it is good for premature babies to be given short sessions of body stroking and limb movement. She and her fellow researchers studied forty premature babies in a transitional-care nursery. Although the infants were stable enough to be released from the intensive care unit and none needed extra oxygen or intravenous feedings, they had required an average of twenty days of intensive care, and the heaviest among them was under four pounds. Their average age at birth was thirty-one weeks. Half the group was randomly chosen to receive standardized touch and movement stimulation for three fifteen-minute periods per day over ten consecutive weekdays. Treated infants averaged a 47 percent greater weight gain per day, even though they had the same number of feedings and the same level of calorie intake as did the control babies. The stimulated group also was awake and physically active a greater percentage of the time. "Since the experimental kids were more active, their weight gain was not due to greater energy conservation," Field points out. Infants in the treatment group also outdistanced controls on a number of behavioral measures, and they were hospitalized on the average six days fewer than infants in the control group. -Adapted from Bruce Bower, Science News

Evaluate the following argument in accordance with the criteria discussed in the text. Before every voyage, we toss a drink to the old man in the sea.

Analyze the following study according to the criteria set by your instructor: Dr. Dean Ornish, of the University of California San Francisco Medical School and Pacific Presbyterian Medical Center, wanted to learn whether lifestyle changes could reverse the progress of heart disease. At first, he found little support for his research, and several of his grant requests were turned down. Eventually he secured funding from private contributors. Ornish recruited forty-three men and five women, ages forty-one to seventy-one, all with very serious heart disease. A statistician randomly assigned the subjects either to a group that followed their own doctor's recommendations for diet and lifestyle changes or to a group that would follow a mild exercise regimen coupled with stress-management counseling and a low-fat vegetarian diet with no meats, poultry, or fish and with restricted intake levels of cholesterol and fat. Six people in this group did not complete the testing. Among the remaining twenty-two participants, eighteen showed reversal of the blockages in their coronary arteries after one year. In the comparison group, one person dropped out, and ten of the remaining nineteen developed measurably worse heart disease, while three showed no significant change. Six people in the comparison group showed measurable reversal. This was due, says Ornish, to the lifestyle changes they made on their own. Dr. Alexander Leaf, former chairman of the Department of Preventive Medicine at Harvard University Medical School, says, "For the first time, we have a carefully done scientific study that shows, even in advanced stages, this disease can be reversed with lifestyle changes." Ornish's findings have prompted sizable grants from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and other foundations. -Adapted from Reader's Digest