Entry 4_ Nguyễn Thị Kim Thoa

ENTRY 4:

ARGUMENT STRUCTURE AND FALLACIES

ITEM 1:

"Harold maintains that the legal age for drinking beer should be 18 instead of 21. But we all know that Harold is 19 years old and would like to drink legally. Therefore, the legal age for drinking beer should be 21 instead of 18."

Analysis:

- Premise: Harold maintains that the legal age for drinking beer should be 18 instead of 21

- Premise: Harold is 19 years old and would like to drink legally

- Conclusion: The legal age for drinking beer should be 21 instead of 18

 => Personal attack

Explanation: Harold is 19 years old (more than 18 and less than 21) and would like to drink legally. It doesn't mean that Harold has no right to maintain his opinion about the legal age for drinking beer.

ITEM 2:

My father smoked four packs of cigarettes a day since age fourteen, and lived until age sixty-nine.  Therefore, smoking really can’t be that bad for you.

Analysis:

- Premise: My father smoked four packs of cigarettes a day since age fourteen

- Premise: My father lived until age sixty-nine

- Conclusion: Smoking really can’t be that bad for you

=> Hasty generalization.

Explanation: We cannot draw a universal conclusion about the health risks of smoking by the case study of one man.

ITEM 3

…I want to list seventeen summary statements which, if true, provide abundant reason why the reader should reject evolution and accept special creation as his basic world-view. …

"Belief in evolution is a necessary component of atheism, pantheism, and all other systems that reject the sovereign authority of an omnipotent personal God."

                     (Henry M. Morris, The Remarkable Birth of Planet Earth, Creation-Life Publishers, 1972, pp. vi-vii.) 

Analysis: 

- Premise: Belief in evolution is a necessary component of atheism, pantheism and all other systems

( If atheism/pantheism is true then evolution is true: If A then B) 

- Premise: Atheism, pantheism, and all other systems reject the sovereign authority of an omnipotent personal God

( Atheism/pantheism is false : not A)

- Conclusion: Evolution should be rejected. 

(Therefore, evolution is false: therefore not B)

=> Structure fallacy: Denying the antecedent

Source:

http://www.philosophypages.com/lg/e06a.htm

http://www.logicallyfallacious.com/index.php/logical-fallacies/101-hasty-generalization

http://www.fallacyfiles.org/denyante.html