Exam 13: Argument, Reasoning, and Evidence

When three states reinstituted capital punishment, the number of murders went down. In two states where capital punishment was repealed, murder rates went up. "Capital punishment obviously deters murder" is a fallacious claim based on this evidence because

Inductive reasoning is a process of drawing conclusions from specific instances.

You claim that county supervisor Reynolds is corrupt, and you provide convincing evidence to support this claim. Reynolds, however, accuses you of being biased without providing any evidence. This illustrates

The basic structure of an argument in formal logic is called a syllogism.

"The National Anthem is sung by more than 50 million people each year" is an example of

The American Tobacco Institute claims that e-cigarettes are perfectly safe. This source for the claim is

An ad hominem attack and an ad hominem fallacy are really the same thing.

"Studies show" is a perfectly acceptable citation of evidence to support a claim.

You are asked by a speaker to accept her point of view because most people already do, as indicated on several national surveys using random samples of more than 1,000 subjects. She has committed a fallacy called

The more people who support a belief, the stronger is the argument and its validity.

Correlations suggest only possible causations but are not actual causes for phenomena.

Research shows that ideologically leaning Internet news sources have a strong biasing effect that produces a distorted understanding of evidence and promotes inaccurate beliefs.

John Jacobs, astrophysicist, claims that earthquakes can be predicted. This is an example of

A syllogism is a form of informal logic.

Accuracy as an element of credibility of evidence means that what a source of information says and does are in agreement, and accuracy means that the evidence has no error.

Grounds in the Toulmin model of argument represent the backing for the warrant.

A margin of error of 4% means that the poll is never off by more than 4% from the actual results if the entire population were surveyed.

Your latest issue of Cosmopolitan includes a survey of readers on jealousy. You are asked to mail in your responses, and 19,000 responses are received. The results appear in the next issue. The results cannot validly be generalized to a population beyond the readership of Cosmo because

An argument is the thought process of drawing conclusions from evidence.

The credibility of evidence refers to its believability as determined by consistency and accuracy.