Making Wrongful Generalizations

A situation in which i have experienced someone making wrongful generalizations about a characteristic of a population based on a sample from it, is when i was in high school i attended an all girls catholic school. Most people when told that this bit of information would automatically think that i was rich or gay. These people who were ready to make these assumptions were all based off of what they had seen on TV and other medias. Media plays a big role in  the illsuion of what Catholic all girl high schools are. People think there are promiscuous  teenage girls who wear short skirts and wear designer clothes, and drive BMWs and have "daddy" eating out of the palm of their hands, ready to  buy them anything they desire, and if that isnt the case then its the idea that you are gay if you willingly go to an all girls school. Neither which was the case for me, and pretty much everyone who attended my high school, but unfortunately that was the rep we were always given. Everywhere i went to introduce myself people would say "oh you must be rich" and when asked questions on what its like going to an all girls school the question "there must be a lot of lesbians at your school huh?" would always arise. These are all generalizations based on what people havae taken from their own experiences. Just because you might have known of a school with a lot of rich girls or lesbians, does not give someone the right to make a statement that generalizes the whole population.

Discussion #3 Dr. Novello

Ways in which Dr. Novello used cause and effect inductive reasoning in seeking a solution to the problem of smoking among children and teens is figuring out that the amount of kids and teens who smoked had started to rise right around the time Joe Camel ads were first being publicized. In this situation, the first Premise which is the cause that kids and teens are smoking. The second premise is that Joe Camel ad campaign starts off and garnered towards kids. The conclusion which is the effect is the fact that the number of teens who smoked began to increase dramatically the same time the ads were released. Dr. Novello used her inductive reasonings to conjecture that the reason for the dramatic increase is because of the cigarette ads. Another effect that helped resolved this issue is Dr. Novello installing a ban on cigarette and alcohol ads that targeted youth, and working towards educating the youth about the harmful effects of tobacco.

Discussion #1 Inductive Argument

An inductive argument that I have used this past week is when I was away in Louisiana with the basketball team. Our whole team takes up the whole 6th floor of the hotel. Its lights out time, and we are all in our own rooms getting ready to go to sleep, when I hear a shrill voice coming from the hallway. One of my teammates named Marisa is known for having a very clear and defining shrill-like voice. Without thinking I automatically shouted "Marisa keep it down, would ya?" So I automatically figured from my inductive reasoning that Marisa was the voice in the hallway. When breaking down this situation, the premises of this inductive argument is 1. There was a shrill voice be heard from the hallway of the 6th floor where my teammates were housed 2. Marisa, is known for having a very shrill-like voice. The conclusion to this inductive reasoning would be 3. That probably the shrill voice coming from the hallway belonged to my teammate Marisa. This argument is inductive because premise 2 was a generalization about my teammate Marisa, and my conclusion was a claim about a member of the population of what i generalized.

Discussion 3: Ultimatums

Everyone has been given an ultimatum before, whether you heard it when you were as a child from your parents trying to get you to behave, or whether the ultimatum was given from a boss, or even a partner. Most ultimatums are set up like a hypothetical statement or hypothetical syllogisms which are deductive arguments. An example of an ultimatum in the form of a hypothetical statement within a relationship, is if there was a married couple and the husband was an alcoholic. An ultimatum that the wife might give is "If you dont stop drinking and go to rehab, then I'll be forced to end this relationship and leave you." A conclusion that would logically follow from this ultimatum (assuming that the husband truly cares for his wife) he would do as she asked, and quit drinking and check into a rehab center. That would be the logical conclusion but might not always be the most popular. This ultimatum could go either hurt the relationship or enhance it, depending on how each person involved handled the situation. Like most ulitmatums, giving one can be quite arduous on the stability of any relatiosnhip. Its hard to give a threat and stick to it, and its hard to promise to abide by the ultimatum and follow through. Ultimatums can serioulsy enhance a relationship if both partners were serious about fixing the problem.

Death Penalty

In the Old Testament I recall some of the teachings that involved around the saying an "eye for an eye" but most Christian practices are formed from New Testament scirptures and the teachings of Jesus. Because the bible says an "eye for an eye" some Christians may think that should also be applied to for distribution in punishment. Those who disagree with Sister Helen Prejean might be advocates for the ideal of a punishment where its based on equality. Now the scriptural passage that says that in Jesus's teachings he says "not to return hate for hate and evil for evil" does prohibit the usage of the death penalty. If we are to not return the doings of hate against our fellow man, then that simply means we shouldnt be allowed to kill another man because of his wrong doings no matter the reason or rhyme. Because the bible also taught an "eye for an eye" Therefore a killing a murder would be a just punishment, in the eyes of the Old Testament.

Discussion 1: Sherlock Holmes

What I think what Sherlock Holmes means in saying "the difficulty, he maintains, is to detach the framework of undeniable fact from the embellishments of hearsay and reporters" is that it has shown to be quite difficult to get people to let go of what they think, and their own personal opinions rather than just focusing on the plain and simple truth. People tend to lie to themselves, or twist the truth to make it so that it caters toward their goals or intentions. So very often people forget to be unbiased and leave their own personal opinions aside when trying to make tough decisions or judgements. People like to think that they can believe and trust what they know, instead of keeping an open mind and  learning to question what you know. An example of a personal experience about giving into unsupported assumptions instead of believing the truth is about a guy friend i had who was having issues getting his girlfriend to believe that he wasn't cheating on her. The girlfriend had experienced some issues with trust in past relationships and still carried that with her onto her present relationship. Because she was hurt in her past relationship and was treated poorly, she had it fixed in her mind that all other guys would treat her the same way.  The girlfriend automatically deemed anything he could say or do as a chance to hurt her. She would believe all the rumors and the opinions of others rather than look for herself and assess the situation using her own judgements. She wanted to believe what everyone else wanted her to believe rather than see the truth, which was that she had a very faithful boyfriend who loved and adored her.

Discussion #3: Group Roles in Small Group Communication

Group Roles
 In Chapter 2 of the Group Comm book it presented techniques for impoving communicating in small groups. Some efficient ways to achieve successful communication in group setting  it to first set goals. Once the goal is identified, the group will then create an agenda, then the group will work on how best everyone in the group can deliberate and participate effectively and then lastly the group will establish roles and create networks. One of the most important aspects in effective group communication is making roles for the people in the group. Some types of group roles that prove to be helpful in group communication is: Information giver, Information seeker, Elaborator, Initiator, and Administrator. These roles include jobs that either have to do with providing facts, giving supplemental information to those facts, clarifying points to make sense of difficult info, finding solutions, and lastly supervising productivity. All these roles do their own individual part to complete successful group communication.

Discussion #2

2). After reading Chapter 6 in its entirety, answer the following question posed on page 169:  Has there ever been a time when you stood your ground on an issue despite the risk of losing your friends or even a job?  Discuss how your critical-thinking skills helped you to stand firm.

I have never personally been in a situation where I had to be forced to stand my ground on an issue, especially not one that was so controversial that I would have to risk friendships or a job. But I have witnessed friends in similar situations mentioned above. I once had a friend who had no problem with speaking up in class, and voicing her opinon. One day, the class was discussing the subject on abortion, and the popular opinon in the class was pro-choice, while my friend, religious as she was, stood for pro-life. The class had a ball interrogating her, each person adding their own little reason as to why she was wrong. The class quickly became very hostile. Under all that pressuse, I watched as my friend never waivered from her opinion or her beliefs, as her classmates, peers, and friends badgered her. The discussion started to get into personal territiories and I was very impressed with the way she handled herself. She didnt become angry, or frustrated. She was the picture of togetherness. Once she was able to get a word in, and capture the floor of the audience, she held their attention and even got some people to start thinking otherwise. She didnt give into any of the barriers of critical thinking such as Conformity, because easily she could have agreed with all her peers just to be accepted even though she doesnt really feel the same way. Also she couldve given into the barrier of Fear of Challenge, everyone in that class had something to say to everything she had an argument for and that could have gotten in the way of her effectively standing up for an issue she believed in. Without her great critical-thinking skills, I dont think she would have gotten through to some of her classmates who didnt have a stance on the issue. I also feel that it made her a stronger person to stand up against what all your peers think, I feel like if she can do that, then there are few things in this world that she wont be able to do. Standing up to your peers and holding an unpopular position is a difficult task, and one that I to this day still struggle with, but hope to get a lot better in.