| Homework. For each of the following argument sets, determine whether or not the second argument is a direct or a counter argument, and indicate it as such on the Homework Answer Sheet (If you want extra practice, or you have to make up this homework, do all 10 on the Make-up Homework Answer Sheet 1. Raegan. How can you stand there and protest the war? Don't you know our boys are over there? Rohan. Well, if there wasn't a war, wouldn't they be back here instead of over there? 2. Tyshawn. I think that sex education is a good idea. It would help kids cope with their sexual feelings if they knew where they were coming from and what they could lead to. Magdalena. Ha! Dr. Laura Schlockslinger says that sex education is immoral and dangerous, so we should ban it from schools. That proves sex education is a bad idea. 3. Rocio: Jesse Jackson says that Charleston, S.C. police need better training and better pay. Estevan: We can't take Jesse Jackson's word on political issues. He wears a tie. 4. Aden. I just read a fascinating book by man called Harold Peterson, who spent ten years researching the history of baseball. He says that baseball was brought to America by the British in the 1750's under the name of "rounders." Modern baseball was established and popularized in the 1840s and 50's by Alexander Cartwright and his friends of the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club. Lizette. That's ridiculous. Everyone knows Abner Doubleday invented baseball at Cooperstown in 1839. 5. Regan. Don't you know that Professor Bar Soom says that the Mars Meteorites constitute definitive proof that there was once life on Mars. Madisyn. But Bar Soom is a professor of literature who studies Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars novels! 6. Alessandro. I was just reading a report by some feminist group or other. They took World Health Organization and United Nations statistics for the amount of the world's work that is done by women and compared it to the amount of the world's wealth that is actually controlled by women. It turns out that two-thirds of the world's work is actually done by women while only five percent of the world's wealth is controlled by women. Liliana. That is complete and utter nonsense! Don't you know that PARADE magazine reported that 86 percent of all the personal wealth in the United States is owned by women! 86 percent! Now do you see that those feminists don't know what they're talking about? 7. Cullen. I think it's pretty clear that drinking bottled water causes mopery. A recent study has shown that people who drink bottled water are four times as likely to mope around as people who don't drink bottled water. Sterling. Yes, but the study also showed that there's plenty of people who mope around without ever touching bottled water, so the study doesn't prove that drinking bottled water causes mopery. 8. Roland. Statistics show that once people start using a sunscreen, they almost never go back to sunbathing without it. So obviously use of sunscreen makes people dependent on sunscreen. Since it is bad for people to be dependent, we should abolish sunscreen now. Vilma. Doesn't it occur to you that people continue to need sunscreen because strong sunlight continues to contain dangerous ultraviolet radiation? 9. Toker. I've been smoking marijuana regularly for thirty years. I've been a stable and productive member of society all that time. I've never been in trouble, missed work, or hurt anyone. I've never driven while stoned. You haven't given me any reasons why marijuana smoking is morally wrong. In fact, all the arguments for the immorality of marijuana fail for one reason or another. So it's clearly not morally wrong to smoke marijuana. Citlalli. Can you prove that some time in the future, maybe tomorrow, someone won't come up with a good argument? Can you prove that there's no argument out there waiting to be discovered? You can't, so it is morally wrong to smoke marijuana. 10. Annabelle. I really don't see any reason to assume that Saddam Hussein and Al Queda were not allies before the Iraq invasion. In fact, I think that they were working closely together! Octavio. But what about the fact that Al Qaeda is a group of religious extremists sworn to destroy secular governments like Hussein's and the fact that Hussein vigorously persecuted Islamicists like Al Qaeda whenever he could reach them? |
| Homework 2. Standardize, Context and Analyze each of the following argument sets, and then either turn your results as your second homework, OR select the most correct answers from the choices following the sets on the Homework 2 Answer Sheet (If you want hints, see the SCA hints sheet.) (For contexting you will be graded on whether or not you get the basic question right, since the other stuff can be highly arguable.) 1. Raegan. How can you stand there and protest the war? Don't you know our boys are over there? Rohan. Well, if there wasn't a war, wouldn't they be back here instead of over there? 2. Tyshawn. I think that sex education is a good idea. It would help kids cope with their sexual feelings if they knew where they were coming from and what they could lead to. Magdalena. Ha! Dr. Laura Schlockslinger says that sex education is immoral and dangerous, so we should ban it from schools. That proves sex education is a bad idea. 3. Rocio: Jesse Jackson says that Charleston, S.C. police need better training and better pay. Estevan: We can't take Jesse Jackson's word on political issues. He wears a tie. |
| Writing Homework (For my critical thinking and writing and critical thinking and discourse classes.) Pick three of the above homework dialogs and, for each one, write a paragraph explaining exactly what is wrong with the weaker of the two arguments. If the above homework does not include enough dialogs, pick three dialogs from the exercises that preceed the homework. It is important that you work on three dialogs for this homework. |