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Fallacy Hunt Logical Fallacies Are Research Paper

The generalization is not warranted because it is based on an appeal to ignorance argument -- that if we do not know for certain that climate change was involved in a weather event we should assume that it was not involved. Since there are mitigating factors, it is impossible to tell for certain if any one given weather event is caused by climate change, and the evidence commonly presented in support of climate change never rests on a single weather event, so there is a straw man here as well. The fourth fallacy comes from a comment made by a friend, arguing that "The TSA doesn't know what it's doing" and citing as evidence "Pocket knives are okay, but water bottles are not?" This is a false analogy. The pocket knife is the thing; the water bottle is the thing to which it is compared. (Or more precisely, the TSA policy with respect to these objects). The implication in the argument is that these objects are analogous because they were both previously banned from airplane cabins. The conclusion that the TSA doesn't know what it's going stems from the fact that the TSA now treats these two items differently. The things are not analogous, however, because they are banned for different reasons. The argument would have been stronger if the comparison object was a boxcutter, something that is still banned. However, the water bottle (from outside security) is not a cutting object and is banned for somewhat different reasons.

The fifth fallacy comes from the Washington Post, March 8th. The article is by Ryan Enos, entitled How the demographic shift could hurt Democrats, too. The article contains the fallacy begging the question....

The author describes an experiment where two Latino men are sent to Boston to ride the subway, and the author interviews the other passengers before and after the subway ride. The author claims that the interviewees were white (easy to gauge) and liberal, therefore his findings about the way liberals react to ethnic people will translate to more white liberal voters moving to the right. The premise is that responses to the subway experiment showed slightly more negative attitudes towards Hispanics after the subway ride. The conclusion is that white liberal voters will react negatively to the increased diversity in their neighborhoods. The conclusion in this case is equivalent to the premise -- that white liberals react negatively to increased diversity. The premise and conclusion are the same, but the author then draws another conclusion -- that this will translate to voting patterns. That additional conclusion is not supported by the evidence, which begs the question of where that conclusion came from. The author could, of course, have asked his interviewees about their voting patterns in order to reach his final conclusion, but did not in this survey, leaving us to beg the question.
Works Cited:

Enos, R. (2013). How the Demographic shift could hurt Democrats too. Washington Post. Retrieved March 9, 2013 from http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-the-demographic-shift-could-hurt-democrats-too/2013/03/08/de82ab38-8128-11e2-a350-49866afab584_story.html

Knappenberger, P & Michaels, P. (2013). Did global warming prevent a record-breaking DC snowstorm? Cato Institute. Retrieved March 9, 2013 from http://www.cato.org/blog/did-global-warming-prevent-record-breaking-dc-snowstorm

Paul. R. (2013). Filibuster. YouTube. Retrieved March 9, 2013 from http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-transcript-rand-paul-filibuster-20130307,0,876160.story

Taheri, A. (2013). Iran's Latin buddy. New York Post. Retrieved March 9, 2013 from http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/iran_latin_buddy_xvOY7bF5sLfw7OYHfYk8bP

Sources used in this document:
Works Cited:

Enos, R. (2013). How the Demographic shift could hurt Democrats too. Washington Post. Retrieved March 9, 2013 from http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-the-demographic-shift-could-hurt-democrats-too/2013/03/08/de82ab38-8128-11e2-a350-49866afab584_story.html

Knappenberger, P & Michaels, P. (2013). Did global warming prevent a record-breaking DC snowstorm? Cato Institute. Retrieved March 9, 2013 from http://www.cato.org/blog/did-global-warming-prevent-record-breaking-dc-snowstorm

Paul. R. (2013). Filibuster. YouTube. Retrieved March 9, 2013 from http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-transcript-rand-paul-filibuster-20130307,0,876160.story

Taheri, A. (2013). Iran's Latin buddy. New York Post. Retrieved March 9, 2013 from http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/iran_latin_buddy_xvOY7bF5sLfw7OYHfYk8bP
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