Arguments by Analogy:
1.
Mary won the Powerball last week. She lives on the same block as I do,
her
husband and my husband were born the same year, we have the same number
of
children, drive the same make of car, went to the same high school, go
to the same
church, her last name starts with "P" and so does mine, we have so
much in common, so it only seems natural
that I will win the lottery too!
2.
My boss ordered me to buy a computer powerful enough to do complicated
3-dimensional terrain modeling. LandStar Engineering does the same type
of work
my boss wants me to do, and they use a computer with a large amount of
RAM, the
fastest Intel Processor available, and a powerful Nvidia Graphics card
dedicated to 3-D rendering. Tigerdirect sells a computer with the same
configuration for less than local stores, so
if I buy their computer, I should have a computer powerful enough to do
complicated 3-dimensional terrain modeling.
3.
I have learned to distrust Costa Ricans! Jerry is a Costa Rican, and he
recently
short-changed me at the bar. Maria's parents are Costa Rican, and she
was just
convicted of shop-lifting. Jose's Auto-Mall, which has 4 Costa Ricans
working
for them, is under investigation for consumer fraud, and the State
Department
has a standing warning about tourists visiting Costa Rica because of
the
wide-spread police corruption there. So I
think Costa Ricans in general are not to be trusted!
4.
Between 1840 and 1960, all U.S. presidents elected in even-numbered
years in
multiples of 20 died in office: Harrison 1840, Lincoln 1860, Garfield
1880,
McKinley, 1900, Harding 1920, Roosevelt 1940 and Kennedy in 1960. Therefore someone elected in an
even-numbered year which is a multiple of 20 will also die in office.
5. If
there are laws requiring people to wear
motorcycle helmets then there should also be laws requiring people to
buckle up
in their cars. Since the primary reason there are laws requiring
people to
wear motorcycle helmets is because such helmet use saves many lives,
and
wearing a helmet is not inconvenient or causes the wearer a great deal
of
discomfort, and people would rather live than die in accidents, all of
these
reasons apply to wearing seat belts too, so the law should be extended
to seat
belt use as well.
6.
When the risk of lung cancer from smoking was first announced in the
mid-1960s,
approximately 25 percent of Americans smoked. Since then, the number of
smokers
dropped to 23 percent. So the number of
smokers is on the decline.
7.
The alumni office at the U of A has discovered that 93 percent of last
year’s
graduates had a job within six months of graduation. Since both our
sons
graduated from the U of A this month, they should have a 93 percent
chance of
getting a job within 6 months.
8.
All propositions are either true or false. All coin
tosses are
either heads or tails.
When one tosses a coin, it lands
either on the head side or the tail side, and the chances for either
are 50/50.
So it is with propositions. Since they are either true or false, then -
as
Blaise Pascal the famous Philosopher argued, the proposition, "God
exists" is either true or false. Since if it is true, and one
disbelieves
in God, they are damned, while if it is false and one disbelieves they
have
lost nothing, then it is much better to
believe in God than disbelieve in God.
9.
Ever since Galileo, scientists have know that all objects are affected
by
gravity in the same way, such that if one drops a light-weight ball
versus a
heavy ball they will reach the ground at
the same time. Therefore, when I hold a
bucket full of water, and a bucket empty of water, and jump down a
small height
with the buckets in different hands, they will feel as if they
"weigh" the same amount while we are all falling together (since I -
like the buckets, will be effected by gravity in the same way!)
10.
Medical doctors searching for a common ground in the recent food
poisoning
outbreak in Tucson have discovered that the only thing in common
between all
victims of food poisoning was they ate mayonnaise made by Helmans
marked lot #
45DC12B. Therefore, the cause of the food
poisoning must be related to the mayonnaise from those lots!
11.
Every male in the Logic class got a grade higher than average, while
every
female in the same Logic class received a grade less than average. Therefore, females perform on average poorer
in Logic than do males.
12.
Certain cultures have a lower incidence of heart disease than other
cultures.
Japan is one culture which has a much lower incidence of heart disease
than the
same comparative population in the United States. Since the Japanese
eat more
fish and sea-food than the average U.S. citizen, then if
U.S. citizens changed their diets to include more fish and
sea-food, they would in general, lower their chance of getting heart
disease.
13.
Generic drugs contain the same ingredients and their Brand-name counter
parts,
but cost on the average 40% less. Therefore
this generic version of Lipitor will be just as effective as the brand
name
version of Lipitor.
14.
It is a false conclusion that the ocean
levels will rise due to ice-bergs melting due to global warning.
Just as
the water level in a cup of ice does not change when all of the ice is
melted,
the same is true of the ocean when all of the floating ice is melted
too.
15.
Every particular thing (rocks, animals, nations, stars, moons,
galaxies,
people, cars, shoes, etc etc) we have ever experienced or encountered
in the
Universe at some time did not exist
Therefore, if the Universe had existed an infinite amount of
time before
NOW, there would have been a time in which every particular object had
ceased
to exist. Since nothing can come to be from nothingness, and since
things do
exist now, the universe could not be infinitely old - which means there
must
have been a first moment in time.
(Philosophy
students will recognize this as a form of one of Thomas Aquinas'
arguments for
the Existence of God, and will recognize perhaps the Latin phrase, Ex-nihilo, nihil fit - from nothing,
nothing comes to be)