Question 2, 9/30/12

I found these articles by Aquinas and Dawkins very funny because I have a friend who is very religious. Not that I judge him for it but he can't wrap his mind about my doubts about god and religion it self. His argument seems to be like Aquinas but I seem to side with Dawkins position more. So I do think his claims about evolution and belief to be incompatible. Honestly I think he would be speechless if he had just arrived due to a time machine. This is because he would have not lived though all those centuries and decades to see how we live and operate as a society. His time was much simpler and not as advanced as we have come. But say he did live all those years, I believe he would actually side with Dawkins. This is due to all the information and other innovative ideas human have come up with. So that is what I thought about if they were able to discuss on the issue.

Heisenberg

Question 1 9/29/12

This was a very interesting question because I really had to think about what my career calls for from a day to day basis. I am currently pursuing a career in Aviation Management, which is a job that will require a lot of critical thinking. As any manager can tell you, one deals with people daily and has to have a reasonable mind set. I do not think I have mastered generalization, deduction, imagination, nor spatial-temporal problem solving. However, I do believe that I am able to perform some of these things now but I will improve as situations arise when each of those components are needed. Overall I know my job will consist of many solutions and problem that I need to be able to solve and critically think of the best decision. My career is tough and gets a lot of heat from everyone to perform but with valuable knowledge that this book proves us with and teaches us it will be useful in my future. I honestly do not know if I have a strength but I know, as of now, that can perform each to a certain degree. I will learn as I gain knowledge I believe.


Heisenberg

Why are we so different? 9/28/12, Question #3

Hello Readers,

After reading Chapter 2, I was still very intrigued with the section titled "Gender, Age, and Reason". As most of you have, I have come across a typical relationship argument and we all know how those end. It seems that after all the fighting and bickering is done, we come to the conclusion that "they (the significant others) don't get us". As the book said we have stereotypes of how women and men think, which are that men think logically and use reason whereas women use emotion. This was at least what people thought for years but some how this notion is sometimes used today. However, I believe that although men and women can have critical thinking abilities the way they use reason is different. I think that men do tend to use facts and logic to argue something whereas women tend to bring up old emotions and situations. Although they are critically thinking i believe that the way they get to a given answer or response is different. This is also why I think that there are arguments between men and women. Not saying that women can't be great critical thinkers I just think they use reason in their minds differently. Those are my two sense about the subject. 

-Heisenberg

9/15/12 chapter 7, question 2

Cause and effect is when something happens because something else happened. Well at least that is how I took it. It can be positive or negative but never the less they go hand and hand. Dr. Novello has a big situation in 1988, which was that more teens were smoking cigarette.  However this is not the source of the problem nor where the kids to blame. When I broke down what she was trying to state was that  kids smoking more was due to the ads that were being targeted towards them that cause the increase. So I came up is the cause being the ads that were being pushed towards teen and the effect was more kids smoking. However, I felt like that wasn't the only cause and effect that I saw. I also saw that another cause was US. Senator Dr. Novello attention was drawn to the problem therefore causing her to change thing. The effect was that she pushed for education and band cigarette ad companies in promoting to the youth. This is how I think she used cause and effect inductive reasoning.


Heisenberg.

Chapter 7, Question 1

I want to talk about a generalization inductive argument, which I made this week. As you have read people fall into generalization easily due to a sample that they are familiar to.

Premise: All Mexicans I know can cook authentic dishes.
Premise: I was invited to my friends house for dinner and his mom is 100 percent Mexican.
Conclusion: Since my friends mom is Mexican she therefore knew how to make authentic meals.

I simply took a preexisting stereotype and made a generalization about my friends mother. I felt really bad after I read this chapter because I feel into an argument that was not truly representative of a population, rather I generalized the people I knew (my sample) and thought that represented all Mexican people. I was wrong to think that because when dinner came out she had prepared food from the east coast like crab-cakes, New England chowder, and much more. I was surprised and asked how she knew how to make this food being that she lived here in California. As it turns out she grew up in the east coast and she grew up with this type of food. I would have generalized that she grew up eating typical Mexican foods but it turned out that my assumption was wrong. I enjoyed the food and I felt bad that I had generalized her. This is the generalization inductive argument I gave this week.




Heisenberg.

9/14/12 Chapter 7, question 3

Hello Readers,

Today I want to focus on "Effect of Question Wording on Responses" a subject that is covered in this chapter. I want to first start by saying that this was really helpful to me because sometime during surveys I just answer what I think the pollsters' want. I have now come to realize thanks to this section that questions on surveys sometimes have that effect on people due to how they are worded. Pollsters' have one of three ways but I just want to focus on 2, which are Slanted question andPush poll. Lets start off by going into a slanted question, which is defined as "a question that is written to elicit a particular response"(Boss, 207). In other words the question has been written in such a way that it provokes you to respond a certain way. For example, if was question ask if gay marriage should be "prohibited"  will make some people mad or happy for the prohibition of gay marriage and would yield less responses. However, if instead of "prohibited" we used "a human right" then more people would be inclined to say yes it should be. The way we ask things really changes the way people react to it. The next way a question can be asked is by using the method called push poll, which states "a poll that starts by presenting the pollsters' views before asking a question" (Boss, 207). This literally mean an opinion or bias statement is stated before a question is asked. For example,  Do you believe there should be a law out lawing the use of fanny pack, or shouldn't there be? I obviously gave my opinion first before asking the question, since I dislike fanny packs. In this was pollsters' give their opinion before asking a question therefore, confusing the reader whether they should agree or not based on the pollsters' view. This was really helpful to me and I hope this was helpful if not give me suggestions of how this could have been better.


Heisenberg

9/9/12 Chapter 8, Question 3. What did I learn.

I want to concentrate on the text from the book Group Communication, Chapter 3. The reason why is because I like the way they approached the topic of leadership. Before reading this text when I would think of a leader I always assumed that he had to have 3 things. Those things that I thought made a leader were a strong voice, strong critical thinking, and strong authority. After reading the text however, I have come to find out that there are different types of leaders that approach leading differently. This has helped me asses what type of leader I was. The text broke down leaders as having one out four types of decision making styles. These four types were authoritarian, consultant, participative, and laissez-faire. I wil go one by one and trying to interpret them as I took them. Lets take a look at an Authoritarian leader, which makes decisions on his own with out the helps of his group. This in one hand is effective because it does not allow for excessive discussion on a given topic. Since the leader is ultimately deciding for the group. Along with positive of an authoritarian leader there are some drawback, which includes less input from the group and unhappy members. Next we move to a Consultive leader, which is a leader that takes his/her members opinion into consideration and decides a final decision based on the given opinions. This decision is once again up to the leader but it at least gives member a chance to speak. Nevertheless group members still do not like this style because some feel that their opinions did not even get consideration in the matter. In my opinion this is no better then an authoritarian leader. The third style of leader is one called Participative leadership, which is one where the leader works along side group members to reach a goal. Meaning that instead of just choosing or collecting opinions, which the two other styles do, in this style of leadership everyone works together to come to a certain goal. The drawback is that this requires time in order to work properly. The last style of leadership is called Laissez-Faire, which is a style where the leader has little to no input. Pretty much he does nothing and tells a group to solve a problem with no guidance nor input. This one is the most unsuccessful form of leadership. Now after reading this I have come to realize what kind of leadership my group will need to be successful for this upcoming group project.

Heisenberg.

9/7/12 Chapter 8, Question 2

When sister Sister Helen Prejean maintains that the death penalty is a violation of human dignity and is contrary to the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, "who taught us to not to return hate for hate and evil for evil". I think that this Spiritual passage does not support nor oppose the death penalty, rather I think it suggest that if we return hate or evil then we are creating more hate and evil. So for those people support the death penalty what are they truly supporting? In my opinion I think that they are supporting death and that does not seems like justice, because rather then help or metal treatment supporters are voicing that it is okay to kill as long as a criminal has caused "hate or evil". Overall the passage came off to me as stop condoning the cycle of hate and evil. As for the deductive argument I am going to attempt so here goes: All Christians believe in Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus of Nazareth followed certain morals, therefore All Christians follow those same morals. This deductive argument then means that if you are a Christian then you have to believe or want to follow in Jesus of Nazareth moral beliefs like the spiritual passage. 






Heisenberg

9/6/12 Question 1: Holmes is a smart guy.

"When it comes to the art of reasoning, many people rely on opinion and unsupported assumptions. The difficulty, he maintains, is to detach the framework of undeniable fact from the embellishments of hearsay and reports." Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes was an incredible detective and one that used critical thinking at its best. Well at least that is how the author of the fictional character described him. Nevertheless, his statement does have a certain significance. I took the quote as people cannot distinguish FACTS from OPINION, but if they can find a way to critically differentiate one from the other then they have truly mastered "the art of reasoning. I also thought that when he said that when he stated "The difficulty, is to detach Undeniable fact from the Embellishment" meant that a person must be able to tell true facts from the extra added details that would make the story or argument more believable. The quote also reminded me about when people that say "Oh yeah last night was crazy man. So many girls were talking to me. You missed out on an amazing night". I thought about this because how much of the story is fabricated to make me believe him and how much of the story is true. Overall I thought Sherlock Holmes was trying to say keep your ears open for the truth and for the opinions of a persons argument or story.


Heisenberg

Third Blog 9/2/12 QUESTION 3

A huge part of an argument is made up of two parts that work hand and hand. One part being the premise, which is "a proposition in an argument that is supportes the conclusion". The second part is the conclusion, which is "the proposition in an argument that is supported on the bais of other proposition (this means backed up by a premise)". These two parts work directly with one another because the premise is trying to convince or provide proof for accepting a certain conclusion. I thought about it as the premise being a sort of wing man to the conclusion that is trying to get a date. Since the conclusion cannot pick up a lady by himself he needs the premise to be by his side to pick him up and highlight his atributes. The premise gives compliments and reasons to date the conclusion or at least give him a chance to talk. The only way the conclusion will get a date is if the premise gives it good support made up of facts not opinion because the premise (wingman) has to be sincere. This wingman however can have many different ways for supporting the conclusion, which can be either Descriptive premise, Prescriptive premise, Analogical Premise, or Definition premise. Descriptive premise means that the support is based on facts and evidence not opinion or bias views of things. Prescriptive premise is one that contain value statements like "we should stand tall and unite." An Analogical premise is one that uses analogies to compare two thing like "you are as beautiful as the full moon on a clear night." and finally we have Definition premise, which simply gives the dictionary definition of a word that can be interpreted in many ways. So next time make sure if your wingman(premise) is doing his job to back up your arguments conclusion.


Heisenberg-----

Second Blog (9/1/12) Question #1

President Barack Obama has an extremely hard job, which is to be able to critically think about every decision that he makes. He has to not only think of things on a personal level but on a presidential level as well. His beliefs might be different then what he decides to promote. This then alludes to what an amazing critical thinker he is. He does not give arguments of same sex marriage based on his opinion because if he did that then he would be criticized for making a decision for everyone, which is not his job. The President is supposed to be the face of our country and is suppose to up hold the countries beliefs. If he chose for us then the country would want to impeach him or riot. So for him to state that he is opposed to legalizing same sex marriage on a federal level means that he is not willing to make a decision on his own without the consent of the rest of the country. As an American citizen he might believe something else but that is personal and he knows that so he does not state that as his federal belief because he is just one man with one opinion not a whole country.

Obama also might agree with Nava and Dawidoff's argument that is "prohibiting same-sex marriage is a denial of the basic rights of gays and lesbians who wish to marry". This however, are just individuals not the whole country. Obama can take opinion and turn them into arguments because then his argument would be filled with bias and fallacies, which would ruin all credibility to his argument. I think Obama is waiting on more people like Nava ana Dawidoff's to voice their opinion on the topic and letting the country as a whole decide before making things legal or illegal. This is a clear demonstration of what an amazing critical thinker President Barack Obama is.