Required reading: Textbook, Chapter 2; also (in Additional Material folder): "Facile Assumptions." And: Textbook, Chapter 3; also (in Additional Material folder): "Deduction vs. Induction" and "Hints on Validity."Due Friday, May 13, NOON.
I. For each of the following arguments, provide one basic assumption that is interesting, important, or significant (not "facile"). Type your answer starting at the point of the arrow. Two points each, total 10.
1. In University City, all public acts of excretion are prohibited. Hence, spitting is prohibited, given that spitting is excretion. To be consistent, barfing should be prohibited as well, in University City.
2. The Earth is surely spherical. After all, spheres cast curved shadows. Further, the Earth casts a curved shadow on the moon during an eclipse.
3. No one who endangers his health is rational. It follows that students who smoke cigarettes are irrational, because cigarettes endanger their health and they darn well know it.
4. The moon influences the water in our bodies by moving it around. Isn't the water in our bodies water that is also on the Earth? And isn't it true that the gravity of the moon influences, by moving it around, all the water on the Earth?
5. Standard aptitude tests are culturally biased. That means that the standard aptitude tests are unconstitutional, since cultural bias is discrimination and discrimination is prohibited by the Constitution.
II. For each argument below, indicate whether it is Deductive (use the abbreviation DED) or Inductive (abbreviation IND). Put your abbreviation at the tip of the arrow. Also indicate the conclusion of the argument, by putting [brackets] around it. Two points each, total 10.
6. The Boss: "John has been absent from work every day this week. The portfolio he was supposed to turn in never arrived, although he did send me by email the Phillies' schedule. Yeah, I guess he's goofing off again."
7. You won't get a solid C in this course. It doesn't matter whether you get an F or a D on the final exam. If you get an F, your final average will be only a D. Or if you get a D, your average at most will be a C-. And I know you won't do any better than that on the final exam. So there.
8. Look through this telescope. The sun is causing the light that passes close to the sun to bend. That's awesome. Would you have supposed that a large round smelly gaseous object could exert gravitational pull on photons?
9. Whenever I come across a turtle walking across a road, I stop my car and wait for it to cross safely. See, I'm a good-natured dude. And if I see a cat caught in a tree by a ferocious dog, I'll get it a Big Whopper so it will leave the poor pussy cat alone.
10. If Roger is taller than Jose, and Jose is taller than Nusrat, and Nusrat is taller than every ferret, then Roger must be taller than every animal which is shorter than a ferret.