chap 3 Flashcards
Overheard in a laundry: “What makes me think abortion is murder? When my pediatrician refused to perform an abortion on me, she said she wouldn’t be party to murder. Babies and childbirth are her business, you know.”
appeal to authority
John Boehner, then House minority leader, had this to say about a minor provision to expand Medicaid family-planning services in President Obama’s Stimulus plan. “How can you spend hundreds of millions of dollars on contraceptives? How does that stimulate the economy?”
strawman
When Barak Obama was a presidential candidate, he included in his policy agenda a plan to “establish a new public insurance program available to Americans who neither qualified for Medicaid or SCHIP nor have access to insurance through their employers.” After Obama was elected and healthcare reform was passed without a public option, he said, “I didn’t campaign on a public option.”
inconsistency
Joe Morgan announcing a Giants-Marlins baseball game and commenting on the Marlins pitcher: “He’s been a little erratic, which explains why he hasn’t been consistent.”
begging the question
When New York Knicks’ star forward Amar’e Stoudemire visited Israel in 2011, he said it was a “spiritual and educational” experience that motivated him to practice Judaism for cultural and spiritual reasons, not religious ones. “For me,” he said, “it’s about learning the total culture. If you research history, I think we’re all Jewish. It’s the original culture.”
questionable premise
appeal to authority
Excerpt from the second President Bush’s 2004 State of the Union address: A strong America must also value the institution of marriage… Congress has already taken a stand on this issue by passing the Defense of Marriage Act signed in 1996 by President Clinton. That statute protects marriage under federal law as the union of a man and a woman, and declares that one state may not redefine marriage for other states. Activist judges, however, have begun redefining marriage by court order, without regard for the will of the people and their elected representatives. On an issue of such great consequence, the people’s voice must be heard. If judges insist on forcing their arbitrary will upon the people, the only alternative left to the people would be the constitutional process. Our nation must defend the sanctity of marriage.
either or
questionable premise
Eric Jubler, in an article in which he argued that America should “open up” its wilderness areas: “The purist [conservationist] is, generally speaking, against everything…the priest believes that those who do not agree with him desire to ‘rape the land.’”
strawman
either or
At a San Francisco fundraiser in May, 2009, Barack Obama explained and defended the attitudes of Midwest workers in small towns that had undergone steady job loss for 25 years: “it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
questionable premise
straw man
Calvin Coolidge is alleged to have been the first to say this: “We must keep people working- with jobs -because when many people are out of work, unemployment results.
begging the question
In an interview with Sarah, Duchess of York, Larry King asked whether she was friends with Prince Charles. She replied, “Well, Larry, the important thing is that I have great respect for the royal family.”
evading the issue
Argument in a student essay: “Prostitution should not be legalized because it encourages the breakdown of the family. Nevada, where prostitution is legal in ten counties, has the highest divorce rate in the nation, almost twice as high as the national average.”
suppressed evidence
Notice from the Hyatt Regency Hotel in New Orleans: “we are pleased to confirm your reservation. It will be held on a space-available basis.”
inconsistency
It is reported that when Socrates was condemned to death his wife cried out, “those wretched judges have condemned him to death unjustly!” To which Socrates is said to have replied, “would you really prefer that I were justly condemned?”
false dilemma
The American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology select doctors who are experts in their field to make independent evaluations of cardiovascular science and issue guidelines to doctors in clinical practice. But a study published in 2011 by the Archives of Internal Medicine revealed that more than half the doctors (56 percent of 498) had conflicts of interest. Among those who led the panels, 81 percent had financial interests in companies affected by the guidelines. When the Institute of Medicine (the health branch of the National Academy of Science) recommended that the doctors responsible for setting guidelines cut ties with conflict-of-interest companies, the president of the American Heart Association said that this could limit the number of doctors available for the work, adding that what makes it difficult is that some well-regarded experts in their field have conducted medical research by sponsored companies.
appeal to authority
In a segment of the CBS television program 60 Minutes on April 21, 2007, Leslie Stahl questioned Lou Dobbs about a report aired on his program by one of his correspondents that there had been about 900 cases of leprosy in this country over a 40-year period, but 7,000 cases over the past three years. The report was part of a segment on his April 14, 2005 program in which he claimed that “the invasion of illegal aliens is threatening the health of many Americans.” When Leslie Stahl said there didn’t seem to be much evidence to support these statistics, he replied, “Well, I can tell you this. If we report it, it’s a fact.”
questionable premise
