Download EFFECTIVE REASONING NOTETAKING RESPONSE SHEET XV

EFFECTIVE REASONING NOTETAKING RESPONSE SHEET XV
Directions: During the discussion of key terms and concepts about effective reasoning, read along in the
teacher side ( the left side) of the notes. Then, where there are blanks, you fill in the missing words on
the student (right side) area and add any comments that help clarify the idea for you.
ESTABLISHING CORRELATIONS
1. Sign arguments are used to infer the unknown
from the know. They use patterns that vary in
relation to each other. The basic inference is that
something can be predicted from the occurrence
of something else. One thing is a sign of another.
Aristotle distinguished between fallible and
infallible signs. But few relationships are sure, and
these inferences tend to depend on probability.
The underlying warrant, therefore, is that there is
a predictable relationship between the variables.
In other words, something can be predictive of
something else.
The main type of sign relationship is a surface
characteristic that is regarded as a sign of some
deeper, underlying essence.
In the “I Have a Dream” speech, Martin Luther
King, Jr. illustrates a sign argument. Dr. King
identifies several surface manifestations of racism
with which he will not be satisfied. He then alludes
to the ‘scriptural injunction’ (this means a formal
command from the bible) that “justice roll down
like waters and righteousness as a mighty stream.”
These statements can be reconstructed into a
___________________________________.
2. CORRELATION Correlation means that in a
predictable relationship given one thing we can
predict the existence of another. There will be a
sign, something that stands for something else. For
example, the GDP (gross national product) is a
sign for the health of the economy. If the GDP
doesn’t grow we say it is a sign of a stagnant
economy. (This is statistical) We can also have a
physical sign.
The parking lot at the mall is crowded on the day
of a sale. Then we drive by another day and see
that the parking lot is again crowded, and we say
‘there must be a sale!” The full parking lot is a
physical ________ for the event going on inside.
3. ARISTOTLE’S SIGNS Aristotle said there were
both fallible and infallible signs. But there exist few
infallible signs. Most things vary. A crowded
parking lot is not always a sign of a sale. Some
would say “does the sun come up in the morning?”
but there could be a cloudy day, or an eclipse.
An invariable sign always stands for something
else. There is no new information and the
correlation is deductive. When you have one you
always have ______________.
Dr. King asks ‘when will you be satisfied?’ He
identifies signs of racial injustice:
-African Americans as victims of police brutality
-Blacks excluded from hotels
-voting denied in Mississippi
-Blacks in NY have nothing on which to vote
Each problem is a surface characteristic that is
identified as a sign of deeper underlying problems.
Stores send catalogs at holidays. I start getting
catalogs in the mail, and I infer that the holiday
season is about to _______________________. It
is a sign of another recurrent pattern.
4. PURPOSE OF SIGN ARGUMENTS One purpose of
sign arguments is to infer the known from the
unknown. For things that are unobservable, we
use other things as signs of those abstractions. I.Q.
tests are signs of intelligence. The Dow Jones stock
average is a sign of the economy. How a person
behaves may be a sign of their personality. You
could infer the nature of a regime from the norms
and policies it establishes.
The three uses of sign arguments are:
 To infer the ______ from the known. This
is helpful with __________________.
 To predict outcomes when it is not
necessary to explain reasons for the
outcomes.
 To rely on the judgments of expert
authorities.
5. PREDICTING OUTCOMES Predicting outcomes
with sign arguments is a common use. We do this
all the time. Whose mother has not said that they
should wear their coat in the winter to avoid
colds? According to sign arguments this makes
sense. The statement is “Those who wear coats
stay healthy in the winter.” We want to avoid
colds so we can stay healthy. But it might be other
factors that why we avoid colds. Bundling up is a
sign of staying healthy.
We can’t be sure the practice causes the outcome.
But we don’t ___________________. We want to
know if it is likely. We base our belief on whether a
given practice and a given outcome
_____________________________.
6. RELYING ON EXPERTS Sign inferences are used
to rely on the judgment of expert authorities. The
assumption is that expertise is a sign of accuracy
with regard to the thing the expert is talking
about. We must be sure that the expert is speaking
in his or her field, however, and is not reflecting
bias or vested interest.
We use these signs frequently on things just
beyond our understanding. We infer it from
something else, & conclude the outward
manifestation is a sign of the underlying reality.
If we know a person has a degree and a highly
regarded position in their field, we take it as a
____________ that the person is probably an
expert.
7. FALLIBILITY All signs are fallible and could be
wrong! If we see a sign relationship we should test
it to see if it is a good relationship.
*Do the sign and the thing represented by the
sign generally appear together?
*Another question is ‘do counter sings exist?’
(These are signs that point the other way, and thus
argue the opposite relationship.)
*Ask can the sign actually show two or more
things, perhaps even opposite things? Have we
established a causal relationship?
(Harding 1920; Roosevelt 1940; Kennedy 1960; Regan (attmpt) 1980)
Prosperity often occurs when tax revenue also
goes up. We will want to ask if there has been a
time when Prosperity occurred and there was no
tax revenue increase. If so, we are less
_____________________ that prosperity is a sign
of an increase in tax revenue. This is a
______________ to see if this was a good sign
relationship.
There was a close correlation between election
years that ended in zero and Presidents who died
in office. Were Gore and Bush crazy to rrun?____