Favorite and Non Favorite thing about the class….

My favorite thing about the class is that it is an online class, and it is a good pace type of class for the summer. You are not overloaded with too many things to do, unlike my Geology 105 online class where they overwhelm you with work and assignments. The professor is great, and very understanding. Coursework applies to what we have to do within our regular lives, so it makes it more useful. We learn how to use it and relate in real life situations. Although, one of my not so favorite thing about the class is the group work; it is not saying that I detest it, but it was a bit of a hassle trying to meet up with group members and get things done. Otherwise, the class over all was great, but maybe next time it would be better if there were more explanation lecture for each chapter from the professor to better explain it, sometimes certain chapters are pretty confusing from the book; and I think many students get boggled by it.

Concepts that might need further discussions….

I think that one concept that needs further discussion is the Aristotelian logic. The concept is quite confusing to me. In fact, I believe that earlier on, there was another concept that uses the whole if S then P theory that confuses me. I really hate these forms of explanations; it just seems to confuse me more than anything. The whole concept is so confusing. If all S are P then No S is are P or some S is or are P, and some S is or are not P. Then there is the some is P and some is S thing. If there was a way to put that in plain simple English instead of a theory form so that it is easier to understand it might help. Or, it might help to have more examples of it. Because reading, it without any further discussion, help, or examples regarding it makes it hard to understand. I have read it at least twice already, and it is still not clear to me.

What I learned…..

Through out this summer, this class has been overall, very interesting. It has made me observe and look at things around me a bit differently. I no longer take things at face value. When I am looking at an advertisement, commercial, debate, argument, or just a regular conversation I now try to decipher and analyze it with all the techniques taught to me within this summer course. How to depict a fallacy or a misleading with numbers and graphs are a few examples of what I have learned through this class. Another thing that this class made me realized is the importance of communication and cooperation within a team; whether in person or virtually, a cohesive team, makes it much easier to get things done. There many challenges that I did not realize that go with working with a team within a virtual sense, and how easy it is. We ran into difficulties with scheduling a free time for our teams to meet, but once we got over that hump, knowing that we can meet with each other online, makes it a bit easier for us to meet online and talking about our projects. This was a bit easier than trying to get everyone to meet in person.

Particular Cause & Effect

Cause and Effect claims is when understand that there is a result due to an action. Within the realm of cause and effect claims, there are different types of cause and effect claims. Examples of a few types of cause and effect claims are normal conditions, general cause and effect, and particular cause and effect. We are going to look at a particular cause and effect claim. It is, according to Epsteins' book of Critical Thinking, when "this happened once, then that happened once."(pg. 303) In general, it is when you have a specific action that causes a specific result.

For example - there was a situation when my brother and sisters were young, where they had gotten into an argument. This was when my brother was 5 and my sister was 7. My sister went up to me and said, "Khoa hit me, and it hurts!" There was a specific action that happened, with a specific result.

Chp. 13 Misleading Claims with Numbers - Apples & Oranges.

Aside from claims that uses emotions, reasoning, fallacies, and general claims, there are also forms of misleading claims dealing with numbers. When we look at advertisements or claims that we see within a statistical arena, those numbers that are used, is used to form a claim. One has to be cautious about claims that comes with numbers or graphs, because sometimes they are not accurate. Just because a claims comes with percentage or numbers of statistical observation, does not make the claim true or a matter of fact. One still has to be very careful in acknowledging these claims with numbers and be able to try to differentiate to see if it is misleading type of claim or not. Here are some types of misleading claims such as two times zero is still zero claim, percentage claims, graph claims, and claims that compare apples and oranges. Claims that compare percentiles or numbers in an apple and orange method, is very misleading. It is not comparing items/situations of similarity, but two entirely different ones.

For example, my mom would sometimes get very upset and disappointed with my brother's and sisters from time to time. When she does, she would say, "even a dog can understand that, i don't know why you can't!" Harsh, I know. But in this comparison, you can see that my mother is comparing apples and oranges, since a human and a dog are two different things.

Another example, and example with apple and oranges and misleading numbers - Sometimes when I am talking to my friends, regarding subjects in life and community, we sometimes run into this problem. There was one time, we had talked about drugs and the changes it cause within our community. My friend had said...."There are twice as many people using ecstasy as there are those who are smoking cigarettes."

Usefulness of Major Assignments

The major assignments that we had done, Critical Thinking in News and Politics ( the first major project) and Critical Evaluation of a Social Organization (the second major project), were very useful. It had helped many of us to better learn how to work within a group environment, especially a more web based one rather than face to face. This was in some sense a bit easier way to meet with groups, from my experience. This is especially true for me and my groups, since many of my group members were on different schedule, having a web base type of meeting sometimes does help, because we do not to have to prolong the meeting time which sometimes slows down the work productivity. Besides this, what else is useful from doing these two major assignments is the re-iteration information that we have just recently learned. The projects are based on subjects that we have learned about within our Critical Thinking book by Epstein, which makes to review and apply it to our project. This helps, in my opinion, remember the information regarding the subjects learned.

Reasoning By Analogy

Reasoning by analogy, according to Epstein in the Critical Thinking book, is when "a comparison becomes a reasoning by analogy when it is part of an argument; On one side of the comparison we draw a conclusion, so on the other side we should conclude the same." From what I understand, this basically means that there are two sides to a comparison and analogy, and from those two sides, you have to make a decision in which way you want to agree upon. Analogies, according to the book, can be a form of a non-argument,they are only forms of suggestions of how a certain situation, idea, law, rule, or logic should be. Either way, it is an important form of reasoning towards an argument, in which we use in everyday life to decide.

For example:
My brother and my dad always gets into arguments, and in on incident, they were debating about how my brother does not pay attention to what they have to tell him when is playing games. In response to that, my brother says: "Talking to me while I am playing games, is like talking to a tree. I won't be able to pay attention to what you had just told me."

This is a form of comparison of a reasoning analogy.