LOGIC REVIEW GROUP DISCUSSION

LOGIC REVIEW GROUP DISCUSSIONINSTRUCTION: Identify the premises and conclusions in the following passages, each of which contains only one argument.1A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.The Constitution of the United States of America

PREMISE:A well regulated militia is necessary for the security of a free state.CONCLUSION:The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.2We can avert a majority of cancers by prevention efforts, even if we never get straight on the causes; more research on prevention and les on cure makes increasing sense.Daniel Callahan, Lab Games, New York Times Book Review, 9 April 19953Good sense is of all things in the world the most equally distributed, for everybody thinks himself so abundantly provided with it even those most difficult to please in all other matters do not commonly desire more of it than they already posses. Rene Descartes, A Discourse on Method, 16374Of all our passions and appetites the love of power is the most imperious and unsociable nature, since the pride of one man requires the submission of the multitude.Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 1, chap. IV5Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all.William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part III, act 3, scene 36In preparing for the national census of 2000, intense disagreement arose over whether the U.S. Constitution requires an actual head count of the population, or whether a sophisticated sampling technique might reasonably replace the head count. A letter to the New York Times on 6 September 1998 contained the following argument: With the head count method, the Census Bureau cannot succeed in counting all the people in the United States. Therefore the head count system is itself a sampling method, in which the sample is the portion of the population that actually returns the questionnaire.Keith Bradley, What did the founders expect from the census?7The essence of our admirable economic system is to create wants as fast as, or faster than it satisfies them. Thus the improvement of living conditions, meaning greater consumer satisfaction, is by definition, impossible.J. Maher, Never Better, New York Times, 1 January 19938Because they clear the way for pathogens bio-chemically, as well as giving them a free ride, ticks are among the most pernicious disease vectors in the world.Cynthia Mills, Blood Feud, The Sciences, April 19989He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love1 John 4:810Because light moves at a finite speed, looking at objects that are millions of miles away is actually looking at the light that was emitted many years ago.D. Richstone, University of Michigan Joins Magellan Project, Ann Arbor News, 13 February 199611What stops many people from photocopying a book and giving it to a pal is not integrity but logistics; its easier and inexpensive to buy your friend a paperback copy. Randy Cohen, New York Times Magazine, 26 March 200012Some live to 100 without ever contributing to the improvement of humankind. Some die young in an undertaking that improves humankind. So it is absurd simply to concentrate on some scientific means to extend longevity. William J. Cousins, To a Long Life? But How Long? New York Times, 25 December 199913The theoretical justification of our argument [that the legalization of abortion in the 1970s substantially reduced crime in the 1990s] rests on two simple assumptions: 1) Legalized abortion leads to fewer unwanted babies being born, and 2) unwanted babies are more likely to suffer abuse and neglect and are therefore more likely to be criminally involved in later life. Steven Levitt, www.slate.com/dialogues/, 23 August 199914Todays first year college students have lived the external appearances of an adult life for many more years than their counterparts 50 years ago did. [Therefore], what we have traditionally associated with the intellectual awakening during the college years must now occur in the high school.Leon Botstein, Jeffersons Children: Education and Promise of American Culture, 199815The institution of public education thrives on its own fail failures. The more poorly its charges perform, the more money it asks for (and gets) from the public and the government. The more money it gets, the more it can grow itself.Ian Hamet, School for Scandal, The Weekly Standard, 23 August 199916The ideal audience [for the magician] is one comprising mathematicians, philosophers, and scientists because a logical mind, receptive to a connection between each apparent cause and its apparent effect, is more prone to surprise when an illusion reaches its illogical climax.Martyn Bedford, The Houdini Girl, Pantheon Books, 1999

17Accusations [of sexual harassment] are based on impact not intention; therefore the accused is guilty if the accuser believes him to be guilty.Herbert London, New York University Dean, quoted in Alan Kors and Harvey Silverglate, The Shadow University, The Free Press, 199818It is wrong to tax people on the income they make while they are living and to double-tax them when they die and want to pass their life savings on to their children, grandchildren, or the charity of their choice. The death tax, otherwise called estate tax, is unfair and should be abolished. Representative Bill Archer, Chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means, 3 July 199819Standardized tests have a disparate racial and ethnic impact; white and Asian students score, on average, markedly higher than their black and Hispanic peers. This is true for fourth-grade tests, college entrance exams, and every other assessment on the books. If a racial gap is evidence of discrimination, then all tests discriminate.Abigail Thernstrom, Testing, the Easy Target, New York Times, 15 January 200020Unquestionably, no more important goal exists in medical research today than the development of an AIDS vaccine. Last year (1998) AIDS, caused HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) was the infectious disease that killed the most people around the world, and the epidemic is not abating.David Baltimore, President of the California Institute of Technology, in the Chronicle of Higher Education, 28 May 1999