Post a link to a web page that you think represents of good example of one of the following: deductive argument, inductive argument, argument by analogy, an enthymeme. Include a brief explanation of how you see the example working and of where it occurs on the page. Complete this by the night before class.
20 thoughts on “Examples of Deductive, Inductive, Analogical and Enthymematic Argument”
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http://metsblog.com/metsblog/wilmer-flores-reminds-people-of-edgardo-alfonzo/
The quote at the top of the page shows a good example of argument by analogy. People in baseball have been torn over whether Flores can be a good ball player. However, drawing a comparison to Edgardo Alfonzo, a former all star player, leads Manager Terry Collins to claim that if this is true, obviously you have to find a position for him to play.”
http://www.pamf.org/parenting-teens/general/media-web/violentgames.html
The above link discusses using an inductive argument how violent video games sequences lead children to aggressive behaviors (ie- acting out the scenes in real life that their video games characters have in a virtual reality.) The example occurs on this page after the initial paragraph introduction with numerous conclusions made from different studies. Adolescents, who have also played violent video games, have committed crimes and even acted out the behaviors they observe in such games, but to imply that video gameplay leads to aggressive behavior is drawing a conclusion from observing particular instances.
In debate over Obama’s health care law, several chief justices utilized reasoning by analogy to make their arguments.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/03/27/149475381/supreme-court-cheat-sheet-a-quick-guide-to-the-day-two-arguments
This is a common theme in our court system when trying to make the case with claims of value or policy. Justice Samuel Alito argues against the healthcare reform by analogy that “we’re all going to die, so why not make everyone buy burial insurance?”
Justice Alito draws on the absurdity of an analogous scenario requiring the general public to buy insurance to cover the cost of their inevitable deaths. If one reasons by analogy that they are comparable—the inevitability of death and the inevitability of getting sick—then one would conclude that mandating healthcare coverage is as unconstitutional as mandating insurance to die.
http://barkpost.com/new-leash-on-life/
This brief article is an example of inductive reasoning. It begins with the premise, “Going To Prison Was The Best Thing That Ever Happened To These Dogs.” That is a pretty outlandish statement. How could going to prison ever be the best thing that happened to a dog? The sentence is immediately followed with, “Here’s Why.” The article proceeds to list why the dogs benefit from the New Leash on Life Program, including increased chance of adoption and behavioral training.
This article (http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/safety_net/2015/02/venmo_security_it_s_not_as_strong_as_the_company_wants_you_to_think.html) from Slate uses argument by analogy to describe issues with the security settings on the app Venmo. The article uses two case studies to display how the security is lax, and provide a “moral” by giving advice on how to protect yourself from theft.
The webpage is a great example of inductive reasoning on how the death penalty is to expensive http://deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=42. The webpage mentioned in the previous sentence is a perfect example of inductive reasoning. This is a perfect example of inductive reasoning because the conclusion is mentioned at the beginning of the paper. With the conclusion there the other premises seek to supply strong evidence for the truth of the conclusion. The rest of the article utilizes the premises to show how the conclusion is true.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/28/world/africa/liberias-president-urges-us-to-continue-ebola-aid.html?ref=science
This article is an example of conditional deductive reasoning. African nations have been fighting an Ebola outbreak fro about a year, and in a meeting with president Obama, Liberia’s president urged him to continue assisting her country in the fight against the outbreak.
The main point at which this article can be identified as conditional deductive is:
“Ms. Johnson Sirleaf asked for help with power projects to keep the country’s hospitals and new treatment centers running, for clean water and sanitation facilities to stop the disease from spreading”
This sentence can be seen as: IF the US continues to help fund projects in Liberia THEN they can stop the disease from spreading.
http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/01/opinion-banks-inequality-and-citizens/
Above is a link to an article that raises serious concerns about the continuous decline of the middle class, rise of poverty and the accelerated pace at which the top earners in the world are amassing wealth.
The article follows a process of ‘Deduction’ by stating many examples, it strengthens its argument. These include statistical analysis to supper the authors premise.
Examples: Paragraph 5 (supporting the drastic rise in wealth of the affluent class, Para 6 and 7 further support the case.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/16/europe/anti-semitism-in-denmark/
This article elaborates on the rise in anti-semitism in Europe, it’s affect on the Jewish community, and whether anti-semitism is to blame on the mass exodus of Jews from Europe.
The article brings statistics to show that as anti-semitic events in Europe rise, more and more Jews are moving abroad. The author notes the rise in Jews moving from France to Israel. He states, “Nearly 7,000 people moved from France to Israel in 2014, making France the top country of origin for immigrating Jews for the first time, the TJA website said. That’s up dramatically from 3,400 French Jews in 2013 and 1,900 in 2012, TJA said.”
If Jews leave their home countries, it is likely to be be because of the rise in anti-semitism. The article applies the consequences of the terrorist attacks in France to the attacks in Denmark.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/24/health/peanut-allergy-prevention/index.html
This article brings to light an argument based on inductive reasoning. The argument is that early exposure to peanut-based products may help children not develop a peanut allergy (contrary to the widely-held notion that children should avoid peanut-containing products), and the evidence is based on the observation of many (in a clinical trial, in this case).
The evidence supporting the aforementioned claim can be found in the middle of the article, under the ‘How it works’ heading. A clinical trial used a sample of 628 babies who were assessed as being prone to developing an allergy to peanuts. Some babies in the sample were given weekly doses of peanut-containing products and some babies avoided peanut-based products altogether. The results were as follows: “For every 100 children that avoided peanuts, 14 would develop the allergy by the age of five. In contrast, only two out of every 100 children on the peanut diet became allergic.” The argument is held up by the observation of several cases.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/nyregion/raising-ambitions-the-challenge-in-teaching-at-community-colleges.html?_r=0
I think the above link represents a good example of : deductive argument. In this article written by Ginia Bellafanted called “Raising Ambitions: The Challenge in Teaching at Community Colleges”, published on December 19, 2014. Gave a brief insight to some of the barriers teaching at a Community College. The writer set a tone that many CUNY students can relate to using their own experience. The first paragraph introduce a student passing the course without speaking the whole semester.
In the deductive argument example, A student that do not talk or participate in the class the whole semester makes it hard for a professor to teach is the major premise. Within it, the classroom is the middle term (C) while participation is the major term. On the other hand, the Professor is the minor premise. Within it, Professor is the minor term. The conclusion is that student do not need to be engaged to successful, nor can a professor challenges be judge in the student’s ambition to participate in class.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/02/for-less-corporate-fraud-add-female-executives/385618/
The linked article “For Less Corporate Fraud, Add Female Executives”, uses an enthymemetic argument to make the argument that placing more women in executive business positions would prevent fraud in companies. The articles cites a study conducted by Wake Forest and the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, which shows that female CEOs were less prone to tax evasion. They are more likely to act morally in business.
The article doesn’t have to elaborate to the audience on how there most of the executive roles in companies are held by men and there is less women in these type of roles. This is common knowledge and is the “missing premise”.
Therefore, through deduction, if we know to be true that women are more likely to act morally in business then by hiring more women in these roles there will be less corporate fraud.
This website:
http://anitaborg.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/The-Case-for-Investing-in-Women-314.pdf
provides an excellent example of several types of argumentation. It begins with a series of deductions, presented as syllogistic bullet points. Through the next several sections, the authors make a series of inductive arguments, providing many specific examples to support their conclusion that investing in women would be beneficial for business.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/03/sports/baseball/a-yankee-hurler-shows-great-mechanics.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=mini-moth®ion=top-stories-below&WT.nav=top-stories-below
The New York Yankees are using a pitching machine at scrimmages instead of actual pitchers. Why? Because the machines have proven not to malfunction, while a pitcher can succumb to exhaustion or injury.
“The Yankees, who this season will be counting on a starting rotation that appears to be held together by duct tape and baling wire, on Monday employed a pitcher who could throw all day (and all night, too) without wearing out knee cartilage, elbow ligaments or shoulder sockets.”
The Yankees use induction to preference the machine over actual pitchers: less of a failure rate, and more consistency. Over time, more cases have shown that the machine is more effective for batting practice.
http://www.europac.com/commentaries/spoonful_sugar
In the article’s first paragraph, the author compares the outgoing federal reserve chairman Ben Bernanke’s press conference speech to a football quarterback who almost gets into the end zone for the team, but leaves the game and hands the ball over to the next quarter back to easily finish the game for him. The analogy is to the multi year stimulus and recovery plan of the federal reserve that Ben Bernanke started but has now handed off to the new Federal reserve chairman Janet Yellen to deal with. It’s a bit of an older article but applies well I think.
http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/category/educating-girls/
This article focuses on why the 143 girls kidnappedby Boko Karam matter. The author, Nikolas Kristof, uses inductive argument to explain the importance of educating girls and the destructive consequences that may arise if they arent. Mr. Kristof makes a clear, convincing argument and elevates the value of women in society without emmasculating men.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/04/us/politics/supreme-court-health-care-plaintiffs.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
In this article Mr. King is arguing that insurance is too expensive and he should have a choice whether he wants to purchase it for himself or does not. However, as per the Obama care act, every person must have health insurance or must pay a fine. Mr. King is using deduction reasoning to argue that “If the insurance is unaffordable, he could qualify for an exemption from the penalty, and then, he said, he could “forgo all coverage without any fear of incurring a penalty under the Affordable Care Act.””
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/03/05/hillary-clinton-says-putins-action-are-like-what-hitler-did-back-in-the-30s/
About a year ago, in a speech at a fundraising event, Hillary Clinton compared Vladimir Putin’s international politics with those of Adolf Hitler in the 1930s. Mrs. Clinton was commenting on the crisis in Ukraine and pointed out that Russia’s campaign of offering Russian passports to ethnic Russians living in Ukraine was similar to Nazi Germany’s appeals on behalf of ethnic Germans living in Czechoslovakia and other countries, prior to invading those countries and commencing the Second World War. However, Clinton noted that the Russian leader is not necessarily as irrational as Hitler, which shows that Clinton herself recognized the limits of her proposition by analogy. Nonetheless, Clinton’s comments caused controversy because of the media essentially simplified her message as “Putin = Hitler.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/02/science/most-doctors-give-in-to-requests-by-parents-to-alter-vaccine-schedules.html
I believe this article shows inductive reasoning. It is based on a survey of pediatricians and family physicians, and their response to parents’ requests to space out and/or delay vaccinations. The article and the underlying study show the different strategies that physicians are using in response to these requests. One of the findings of the study is that these physicians believed these parents were putting their children in danger, but they acquiesced to the parents’ requests to build trust with the families. The conclusion or general principle from the observations is that “evidence-based interventions to increase timely immunization are needed to guide primary care and public health practice.”
The article “Why does the FBI have to manufacture its own plots if terrorism and ISIS are such grave threats?” by Glenn Greenwald (https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/02/26/fbi-manufacture-plots-terrorism-isis-grave-threats/) makes an argument using inductive reasoning, an analogy and presentation of circumstantial evidence to suggest that the FBI could be exaggerating the current domestic terrorism threat level. The article posits that the overwhelming majority of domestic terrorism-related arrests conducted & touted by the FBI in the last decade follow a similar pattern of entrapment/pre-emptory prosecution. It claims that in each of these cases, the FBI designed a dangerous attack (from conception, to funding, to recruitment of operatives) to target young, unemployed loners who exhibit bad political views but no real intent or capability to engage in terrorism. The argument is that if these kinds of ‘manufactured entrapment’ cases make up the overwhelming majority of arrests, then we can make a generalization that the threat level couldn’t actually be that high – otherwise the agency would be spending all of its time disrupting actual existing plots. The article then goes on to consider the circumstantial evidence that the FBI could easily exaggerate the threat level because they have the means, motive and opportunity to do so for their own financial gain. Lastly, it compares this entrapment strategy to a theoretical example of having the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) “constantly warn of the severe threat posed by drug addiction while it simultaneously uses pushers on its payroll to deliberately get people hooked on drugs so that they can arrest the addicts they’ve created and thus justify their own warnings and budgets.”