(Study Guide edited 3/09/10)
Class Outline
Chapt Study Guide

Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson go on a camping trip. After a good dinner and a bottle of wine, they retire for the night, and go to sleep.
Some hours later, Holmes wakes up and nudges his faithful friend.
"Watson, look up at the sky and tell me what you see."
"I see millions and millions of stars, Holmes" replies Watson.
"And what do you deduce from that?"
Watson ponders for a minute.
"Well, astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, I observe that
Saturn is in Leo. Hierologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three. Meteorologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. Theologically, I can see that God is all powerful, and that we are a small and insignificant part of the universe. What does it tell you, Holmes?"

• Holmes is silent for a moment. "Watson, you idiot!" he says. "Someone has stolen our tent!"
This joke was submitted by Geoff Anandappa, from Blackpool in
Britain to a web based study of the funniest jokes: http://www.laughlab.co.uk/

• Local undercover policeman assigned to catching underage students trying to get adults outside a convenience store to buy beer—problem he forgot his handcuffs were hanging from his back pocket.
• Robber with his hand pretending a gun in his pocket forgot and left his thumb out.
• Local teacher brings cold, fried
Long John
Silver’s for lunch everyday because she wants to loose weight and she heard eating fish was a good weight-loss diet.

You have a great job with low chances of obtaining an equivalent job. The problem is your supervisor is both Muslim and homosexual and thinks that you (a
Christian) are a Muslim and a homosexual (you are heterosexual) as well. Are you being unethical to not reveal the truth to your employer and risk loosing your job.
Is it always wrong to lie?

The ‘real” case was somewhat different, the case was a
Jewish, lesbian, academic who saw her job future was dependant on a boss who was anti-Semitic and homophobic.
Would this change your answer? Should it change your answer?
Changing the components of an ethical decision so that it fits our circumstances often clarifies our thinking. Change the religion, sex orientation and job of the academic to yours and the bosses to opposite and see what you think. In politics change the party that committed the act to the opposite and think about your position—did it change? How we should treat captured terrorists? How should our captured troops be treated by their captors. Is it the same?
This program segment, and one answer to the problem, can be listened to at :
NPR Ethicist /

Relativism & Language
• Lots of discussion around the FCCs attempt to control “bad language” before 10:00 but under close scrutiny what is bad language becomes a bit cloudy!
• Making love, having intercourse, having sex, bonking, fornicate… are all acceptable in varying degrees and situations but the F word/Fbomb—never for the FCC!
• We used to refer to dark and white meat on chicken because “breast” and “thighs” was in bad taste. C**t was a medical word referring to part of a female sexual organ but now is unacceptable
• How about these, the same concept in a different language. Do you feel offended or think that the typical American or the FCC would be offended?
Italian: scopata
Portuguese: foda
German: brumsen
French: baise
• What about teenage peer groups? Is the language the same as they would speak around adults?
• Censoring books is another indicator of time and place differences in what is offensive in language: A recent case in language.
It looks like profanity is relativistic!
Don’t go to this link if offended by language or nudity!
http://www.insultmonger.com/swearing/

• Abbreviations: B.O. (body odor), W.C. (toilet)
• Foreign words: faux (fake), or faux pas (foolish error)
• Abstractions: before I go (before I die)
• Indirections: rear-end, unmentionables
• Longer words: flatulence, perspiration, mentally challenged
• Technical terms: gluteus maximus
• Mispronunciation: darn, shoot, gosh darn

• Review week 2: Quiz Topic/issue/Library research/Empirical
(scientific) Research Topic, literal vs. emotive (rhetorical), relativism/subjectivism, definitions, typical (mean, median, mode), semantic vs. syntactic
• Dante’s Inferno – view of sins and your level in hell
• Project Part I will be due next week—will discuss 2 nd class W3 [Print]
• Choose Issue/Debate Topics
• Groups review A02 then Hand In
• Hand Back A02
• Practice on quiz, A02 “Misstatements” from PP w2 &W3S12
• Issue Groups
• C3 Study groups
• Magazine exercise
Part I: Review one set determine beginning criteria
Part II: Review additional sets refine criteria
Part III: Compare one from each set
Part IV: Each group describe one magazine type
• Quiz C3

1 st Slide

C3 8
A Intro Credibility th ed. Study Guide Concepts
1.
Examples of necessity of eval credibility, “ phishing ”, “419”, your examples? [p77,78]
2.
2 grounds for suspicion
[p79]
3. How to judge expertise; Edu., Exp Accomplishment., Reputation,
Position (5)[89m-90]
4. Other considerations about experts: bought experts (FDA), disagreements between experts, experts can be wrong
(Global warming), expert in one area ~necessarily expert
3.
Reasons for being fooled…[p78b] another area (Class ex Vitamin C) [p90b]
E CREDIBILITY AND THE NEWS [p90-]
B THE CLAIM AND IT”S SOURCE [p78b]
1.
Initial plausibility [p78]
Our source for news Class: Medias source for news –press releases not investigations
2.
Degrees of credibility [p79] EX
3.
Irrelevant considerations (10+) [p79b] EX
Reasons for increased skepitcism
GOVERNMENT MNGMNT OF NEWS [p91]
4.
Honest mistakes [80b]
VNR’s DEF/EX [p91b-92t]
5.
Interested party [p81t]
6.
General answer, General Principle [81t] Reporters
“editorialists”
C ACCESSING THE CONTENT OF THE CLAIM
I Conflict with Personal observations? [p81b]
1.
Reasonable position [p81b]
2.
Not infallible-observation [81b] BOX: Eyewitness p84t]
3.
Reliability of memory [81b, 82b] Disk memory ex
4.
Individual variability [82t]
5.
Factors that influence our observation [82t]
1. Beliefs “Wishful Thinking” [Lake 831b]
2. Interests, bias, …
II Does Claim conflict with Our Background Information
1.
Background information DEF/EX [83b]
2.
Response to claims [p83b]
3.
Scale of initial plausibility [p87m]
4.
Most effective way to increase evaluation/CT ability [87]
Iraq film footage BOX:Saving Prvt Lynch
MEDIA FOUL-Ups EX [p94]
BIAS WITEHN THE MEDIA
Political bias?[p94-95] http://www.mediaresearch.org
Important to remember and points [p96m]
TALK RADIO [p97, 98]
THE INTERNET
2 kinds of info sources [p98]EX
Rember..[p99m]
ADVERTISING [p91]DEF (Class: Lucky Strikes 40s)
Use of ads [p98b]
Advertising firms knowledge and ad quality
D CREDIBILITY OF A SOURCE
1. Interested party example [p87, 88]
Response to claim from interested party [p88]
2. 2 kinds of doubts about source credibility
Question to ask [p100]
2 kinds of ads [p100b]
Three types of ads w/o reasons for purchase
Promise ads-what they tell and don’t tell ads and justification for purchase—one case where purchase is justified [p103b]
Exception to use ads as base for buying [p103b]

1 st Slide

Issues for Critical Thought
Fall 2004
This was taken in Pahrump Nevada, Would we see a sign like this in Bakersfield?
What is the term from the text that describes this conclusion?

http://www.cnn.com/2002/LAW/08/columns/fl.ramasastry.detainees/

During the heat of the space race in the 1960's, the U.S.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration decided it needed a ball point pen to write in the zero gravity confines of its space capsules.
After considerable research and development, the
Astronaut Pen was developed at a cost of about $1 million.
The pen worked and also enjoyed some modest success as a novelty item back here on earth.
The Soviet Union, faced with the same problem, used a pencil.

Errors in Writing
• Organization
• Essay types (to avoid)
• spelling
• grammar
• definitions
• Wordiness,(Types:redundancy, prolixity[verbose])
• complexity (pedantic)
• ambiguity (Types: syntactic, semantic, grouping)
• vagueness
• Fallacy of division
• Fallacy of composition
• comparisons
• writing and diversity

“Critical Writing” examples from class: What is the problem? How would you improve these?
1.
The Soviets tried bombs, smoke-outs and even weapons designed to crumble cities with little success.
2.
* Does voluntary castration of child sex offenders have an effect on the decrease of it.
3.
* Whether castration will reduce recidivism for male sex offenders or not.
4.
Castration should be voluntary, if you want to change you should sacrifice something in order to accomplish what you want.
5.
Whether or not castration is right for sex offenders who are in jail.
6.
* The article was short on reasoning as to how the ferry may have sunk.
7.
* Within these to articles one can see how the mass media was immediately sought after to get there heart felt emotions on how someone could kill innocent people for what they believe in and try to make seem as though it was done to fight a never ending battle between terrorist fight for what they believe in.
8.
There isn’t an argument per say, though a scientific study could certainly, if not, definitely use an argument or two.
9.
* The issues of scientific reality are expressed without bias but given with consequences if solutions are not found or followed.
10.
It uses graphs and percentages to back up the information. They also have experts talk in their article.
12.
Below, clearly and correctly, state an issue, a library research topic and an empirical research problem for the topic of cooperate responsibility
13.
No, the approach towards critical thinking was not added to this paper.

Posted on DDH Fall 05

What does a critical thinker think and do?

25
•
40%, 2 of 5 buyers get the rebates they qualify for
•
40% never get mailed
• 20% of rebate applications are disqualified—not filled out, no UPC bar included, etc
What To Do
1.
Make sure dates, product, etc. are correct for rebate.
2.
Make sure multiple receipts, rebate form, UPC Bar code are all there before leaving the store (don’t accept clerks statement the alternatives are OK)
3.
Test the product before sending in the rebate material
4.
Read and follow all the rules exactly
5.
Write legibly
6.
Keep copies so that you know who to contact when rebate
(probably) is late
7.
Staple everything together
8.
If you don’t get a rebate in the stated time, call and ask
Bakersfield Californian 1/11/04 pE3