Chapter 10 Flashcards
Casual Inductive Arguments
Q: What is Correlation?
A: An association of two characteristics, A and B. If more A’s than non-As are B, there is a positive correlation between being A and being B. Note: It is important not to confuse correlation with causation.
Q: What is Mills method of agreement?
A: Way of estimating a cause in which we seek a factor, C, that if present in all cases in which effect, E, occurs. If we find such a factor, we have evidence that C is a necessary cause of E
Q: What is Mills method of difference?
A: A way of estimating a cause in which we seek a single factor C That is absent in all cases in which E is absent. If we find such a factor, we have evidence that C is a sufficient cause of E.
Q: What is Mills method of agreement and difference?
A: Way of estimating a cause in which we use both argument and difference. We examine both cases in which an effect E is present and cases in which E is absent, looking for a factor C that is present whenever E is present and absent whenever E is absent. If we find such a factor, we have evidence that C is a sufficient cause of E.
Q: What is an inference to the best explanation argument (IBE argument)?
A: Argument in which a hypothesis in inferred from some data on the grounds that it offers the best available explanation of the data.
Q: What is plausibility (of a claim or hypothesis)?
A: Reasonableness or likelihood of being true, judged by consistency with relevant common knowledge and scientific theory. The hypothesis that a person who has eaten excessively during vacation has gained ten pounds is more plausible than the hypothesis that, during his absence, someone snuck into his home and adjusted his bathroom scales so that they will give a false reading.
Q: What is Falsifiability?
A: Openness of a hypothesis to disconfirmation on the basis of empirical evidence. If nothing could count against a hypothesis, then it is falsifiable. Note: To say that a hypothesis is falsifiable is not to say that it is false. Falsifiability is a desirable characteristic, not an undesirable one.
Q: What is Explanatory power (of a hypothesis)?
A: One hypothesis has more power than another if applies more data and more situations than the other and serves to explain more of them.
Q: What is simplicity (of a hypothesis)?
A: One hypothesis is simpler than another if it requires fewer supplementary assumptions and posited entities than the other.
Q: what is a post hoc fallacy?
A: To infer, from the fact that A was followed by B, the conclusion that A caused B. Typically, A and B are singular events. In effect, the post hoc fallacy is an argument that “after this, therefore because of this.” (For example, I broke a mirror and then crashed the car into a post. So, breaking the mirror brought me bad luck.) Such arguments are not cogent because the G condition is not satisfied.
Q: What is a fallacy of objectable cause?
A: The fallacy committed when someone argues to a casual conclusion on the basis of evidence that is too slight. It may be committed by inferring causation from correlation alone, or by simply imposing one sort of explanatory interpretation on events and failing to consider others.
Q: What is the causal slippery slope fallacy?
A: Argument in which it is asserted that a particular action, often acceptable in itself, is unacceptable because it will set off a whole series of other actions, leading in the end to something bas or disastrous. The casual claim that such a series will be the result is not backed and is typically implausible on close analysis. Such arguments are not cogent because the sweeping casual premise is not acceptable; the A condition of argument cogency is not satisfied.
