Midterm

The midterm will be held at the beginning of class on Monday, November 1st. It's worth 15% of your overall grade, and will cover everything we've done in class so far:

• definitions of 'logic,' 'reasoning,' and 'argument'
  
• evaluating arguments
• types of arguments:
  -deductive (aim for certainty, are valid/invalid and sound/unsound)
  -inductive (generalizing from examples, depend on large, representative samples)
  -args about cause/effect (correlation vs. causation)
  -abductive (inferences to the best explanation)
  
• the 12 fallacies covered in class so far
  

Get to studying!

Correlatious

Here's yet another stick-figure comic. This one's about correlation and causation.

Correlation is a tricky concept. We tend to see the world in all-or-nothing terms, rather than in shades of probability.

Our Inductive Minds

Here are some more thoughtful links on inductive reasoning (or arguments by example).

• What are the benefits and dangers of generalizations?
• What makes stereotyping illogical?
• Beware: we often make snap judgments before thinking through things. Then when we do think through things, we just wind up rationalizing our snap judgments.

Inductioneering

Here are a few dumb things about inductive arguments. First, a video of comedian Lewis Black describing his failure to learn from experience every year around Halloween:


Next, this stick figure comic offers a pretty bad argument. Why is it bad? (Let us know in the comments!)

Quiz You Once, Shame on Me

The first quiz will be held at the beginning of class on Wednesday, September 29th. You will have about 25 minutes to take it.

There will be a multiple choice section, a section on evaluating deductive arguments, a section on evaluating inductive arguments, and a section where you provide examples of specific kinds of arguments. Basically, it will look like a mix of the homework and group work we've done in class so far.

The quiz is on what we have discussed in class from chapters 6, 8, and part of 7 of the textbook. Specifically, here's a lot of the stuff we've talked about in class so far that I expect you to know for the quiz:

• definitions of: logic, reasoning, argument, structure, sound, valid, deductive, inductive
• understanding arguments
• evaluating arguments
  
• deductive args (valid & sound)
• inductive args (which we'll get to in class on Monday)
  

The quiz is worth 7.5% of your overall grade.