Assignment Requirements

Part 1: Enumerative Induction

1. At a January 2005 home game of the Miami Heat, a National Basketball Association team, the first 100 attendees who arrived were handed unofficial survey ballots asking them to select their choice for the top basketball player in the entire NBA for the season to date. 45 ballots were completed and returned by the end of the game, and 40 of the 45 selected Miami Heat star Shaquille O’Neal as the league’s best player. At the end of the game, the President of the Heat proclaimed that the poll results clearly showed that O’Neal was going to be the top vote-getter in the NBA All-Star Balloting process. (However, when the official votes of fans worldwide were tabulated by the NBA, O’Neal came in second place, with 100,000 fewer votes than Houston Rockets’ star Yao Ming.)

A. What is the target group for this survey?

B. What makes up the sample for this survey?

C. What is the conclusion that is being drawn from the data collected?

D. What specific things are wrong the data collected that make this argument weak and unreliable?

2. “Dewey Defeats Truman”: the 1948 Presidential Election

More than 50 years ago, in the 1948 Presidential election, the incumbent Harry Truman was running against Thomas Dewey, Governor of New York. All the major polls predicted Dewey would win.

In mid October, Gallup completed its final survey of the campaign for the forecast that was released just before election day; the poll showed Dewey with a lead of 5 percentage points over Truman, 49.5 percent to 44.5 percent. An earlier Roper Poll of September 9 showed Truman trailing Dewey by 13 points. Roper then announced that he would discontinue polling, since the outcome was already so obvious.

The final election results on November 2, 1948 were Truman with 24,105,812 votes, Dewey with 21,970,065, and two other candidates, Henry Wallace and Strom Thurmond, each with a little more than 1,100,000 votes.
A. What is the target group for this survey?

B. What makes up the sample for this survey?

C. What is the conclusion that is being drawn from the data collected?

D. What specific things are wrong the data collected that make this argument weak and unreliable?

Part 2: Analogical Induction

3. Here is an analogy developed by Judith Thompson to address the moral permissibility of abortion in a case of a pregnancy which is the result of rape:

Opponents of abortion claim that fetuses have the same moral right to survive that you and I have, while many abortion proponents reject this. My point here is more limited: Even if, for the sake of argument, we grant that the fetus should be treated as a full person with the right to life, there would still be one case in which abortion would be morally permissible, namely in the case of pregnancy due to involuntary sex.
Let me ask you to imagine this. You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist’s circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. The director of the hospital now tells you, “Look, we’re sorry the Society of Music Lovers did this to you-we would never have permitted it if we had known. But still, they did it, and the violinist now is plugged into you. To unplug you would be to kill him. But never mind, it’s only for nine months. By then he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you.” Is it morally incumbent on you to stay in this situation? No doubt it would be very nice of you if you did, a great kindness. But are you morally obligated to? No, you are not. Even though the violinist has a right to life, you are not morally obligated to allow your body to be used for his survival.

A. What does the author conclude about whether it is morally permissible to unplug yourself from the violinist?

B. What does the author therefore conclude about whether it is morally permissible to have an abortion if the pregnancy is due to rape?

C. What are the relevant similarities between the two situations (being hooked up to the violinist and pregnancy due to rape)?

D. What are the relevant differences, if any, between the two situations?

E. Do the differences, if any, between the two situations make the argument weak? Explain.

4. John Fischer has reservations about the worth of Thomson’s violinist analogy. Fischer provides another analogy that he claims is a counter-example to the conclusion drawn by Thomson from her violinist analogy:

I do not agree with Thomson that abortion is morally permissible cases of rape, and I will explain my point by means of an analogy similar to hers. Suppose you have planned for many years to take a trip to a very remote place in the Himalaya mountains. You have secured a cabin in an extremely remote and inaccessible place in the mountains. You wish to be alone; you have enough supplies for yourself, and also some extras in case of an emergency. Unfortunately, a very evil man has kidnapped an innocent person and brought him to die in the desolate mountain country near your cabin. The innocent person wanders for hours and finally happens upon your cabin.
You have the following problem. You can radio for help, but because of the remoteness and inaccessibility of your cabin and the relative primitive technology of the country in which it is located, the rescue party will require nine months to reach your cabin. Thus, you are faced with a choice. You can let the innocent stranger into your cabin and provide food and shelter until the rescue party arrives in nine months, or you can forcibly prevent him from entering your cabin (or staying there) and thus cause his death (or perhaps allow him to die). (It is evident that he will die unless you allow him to stay in the cabin.)
It seems to me that it would be morally impermissible for you to prevent the innocent stranger from coming into (or staying in) your cabin. Even though it is your cabin and allowing the stranger in would cause considerable inconvenience, you may not let him die on your doorstep.

A. What does the author conclude about whether it is morally permissible to prevent the stranger from coming into your cabin?

B. What does the author therefore conclude about whether it is morally permissible to have an abortion if the pregnancy is due to rape?

C. What are the relevant similarities between the two situations (a stranger in need at your doorstep and pregnancy due to rape)?

D. What are the relevant differences, if any, between the two situations?

E. Do the differences, if any, between the two situations make the argument weak? Explain.

Part 3: Causal Arguments and Correlations

5. An Italian study lends credence to speculation that low cholesterol may make people depressed. Researchers found that hospital patients who had attempted suicide had lower cholesterol levels than other patients. The findings “seem to support the hypotheses…that low cholesterol concentration could precede depression and consequently enhance the risk of parasuicide (suicide attempts),” concluded Dr. Massino Gallerani, one of the researchers at the St. Anna Hospital in Ferrara, Italy.

A. What are the two things that are correlated in this study?

B. Which of these two things does the article suggest is the cause, and which of these two things does the article suggest is the effect?

C. Offer an alternative hypothesis to explain how these two things are correlated.

6. Soccer players who repeatedly hit the ball with their head suffer a mild form of the same mental impairment that afflicts boxers who have received multiple concussions, according to a new report presented Saturday in New York. Skilled soccer players who head the ball at least 10 times a game score an average of 9 points lower on a standard IQ test than do their peers who head the ball infrequently, psychologist Adrienne Witol of the Medical College of Virginia told a meeting of the American Psychological Association. And 10 of the 17 players in this highest heading category scored among the bottom 5% of all Americans in a frequently used test of concentration and attention, she said, suggesting that years of having a 13-oz. ball hit their heads at 60 m.p.h. have produced significant damage.
The current study by Witol appears to be the first scientific investigation of the problem. Witol studied 60 male soccer players over the age of 14 and compared them to each other and to a control group of 12 males of comparative age and educational attainment. On the IQ test, the average in the group that did not head the ball was 112, compared to 103 for the group that headed it most frequently; score differences were similar for the concentration tests as well.

A. What are the two things that are correlated in this study?

B. Which of these two things does the article suggest is the cause, and which of these two things does the article suggest is the effect?

C. Offer an alternative hypothesis to explain how these two things are correlated.

Part 4: Inference to the Best Explanation

7. Police have begun to think that foul play was probably involved in the mysterious disappearance of Arkansas truck driver Danny Hamilton. A California Highway Patrol officer found Hamilton’s rig, abandoned but left running with its windows open and radio on, Thursday evening on the shoulder of the southbound lanes of Highway 86 near Salton City. The truck still contained Hamilton’s wallet and clothes. Hamilton’s employer, Bob Alumbaugh, told investigators that this does not look like a case of a trucker simply quitting his job and leaving his vehicle behind. “When they do that they leave the truck at a truck stop where they can get a ride,” Alumbaugh said. “They do not just leave the truck out in the boonies, like what happened here.” Alumbaugh also said that Hamilton has a wife and children in Batesville, Arkansas, and that his family sometimes rides with Hamilton on shorter trips. They did not ride with him on this trip, however.

1. What is the situation that the investigators are trying to find an explanation for?

2. What is the explanation that the investigators are accepting ?

3. What is the other explanation that is mentioned in the article but rejected?

4. What is the information in the passage that leads the investigators to reject this other explanation?

8. Sten Forshufvud, a Scottish professor of forensic medicine, has recently completed his re-examination into the death of Napoleon Bonaparte. Forshufvud, who inherited his lifelong fascination with Napoleon from his father, embarked upon this investigation because he was unconvinced by the accepted version of Napoleon’s demise. In pursuit of the truth, he scanned the intimate records of the valet who accompanied Napoleon into exile on the island of St. Helena, where Napoleon died.
According to Forshufvud, Napoleon did not die of stomach cancer, as is commonly believed, but was poisoned to death by the weekly ingestion of small doses of arsenic. Forshufvud first thought of this possibility when he noticed that the valet’s records mention several times that Napoleon was swollen grotesquely. This amount of swelling is a symptom of arsenic in the system, and it is the opposite of the normal effects of cancer. Forshufvud then obtained samples of Napoleon’s hair that were cut during the last months of his life. Most people believe that the samples were cut by the valet who accompanied Napoleon, likely at Napoleon’s own suggestion. This is not as strange as it may seem, since saving locks of hair was an early 19th Century obsession. The analysis of the hair revealed that Napoleon has many hundred times the amount of arsenic in his body than was normal for the time. Furthermore, the arsenic appeared in waves, as if it were administered in weekly doses.
Forshufvud also points out that in 1840, when the emperor’s body was exhumed for reburial at Les Invalides in Paris, it was discovered that the body was as fresh as when it originally buried 19 years earlier. At the time, this was attributed to a miracle. But arsenic is a preserver of flesh and is, indeed, the principal ingredient used by taxidermists to preserve animal pelts.

1. What is the situation that this person is trying to find an explanation for?

2. What is the explanation that the person is accepting ?

3. What is the other explanation that is mentioned in the article but rejected?

4. What is the information in the passage that leads the person to reject this other explanation?

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