FALLACIES

Two ladies were talking to each other one afternoon. one lady said it is freezing outside but i want to wash my car. the other lady replied:

'yes. if you wash your car it rains. thus it will rain if you wash your car so better you don't or else we will freeze to death.'

from these statement we can see that the lady was using POST HOCK FALLACY. She thinks that if the event of washing a car precedes the event of rain then it means that the event of washing a car causes rain, which is not true. washing the car may not always be the cause of rainy weather

TYPES OF QUESTIONS

The man giving instructions, or let me just call him the leader. as he is dividing the participants with the tasks he is asking them questions. he asked one of the members this question:

Whats your name?

This is one of the questions we classify as INTERROGATIVE QUESTIONS. here the leader's intension is to solicit some information from the participants such that the other participant answered back saying "Emily" The other interrogative wuestion he asked is "What did you say?" all he is doing is he wants information from the participants.

This is how we apply critical thinking in our everyday lives without realising that. its just a simple question which is used by a lot of people everyday. little did the leader know that he was applying critical thinking.

CONJUCTIVE ARGUMENT

in the video we see a sign written SLOW DOWN OR DIE. this is a conjuctive argument. its either slow down or u die. you have to choose whether to slow down or to die because if you dnt slow down from the statement, you will die so there are wo options to choose from. we can change this to argument by elimination. and it will be

either you slow down or you die

you dnt die therefore you slow down

STATISTICAL ARGUMENT

the captain mentioned a statistical argument when he said 'over 30% of the passengers have reached their destination' here is how we can apply the knowledge from the critical thinking subject

jim is taking the Egypt airline

therefore Jim will probably reach his destination

UNKNOWN BIOGRAPHY

From this picture i can say a lot of things. this is how my story goes:

This are African leaders. They attended a United Nations meeting. Before this, they stayed up the whole night preparing their speech. Now during the meeting they were all tired and sleepy. they were given water but it couldn't help. They all felt asleep and they didn't benefit anything from the meeting.

After the meeting they were taken to court and everyone of them was asked to apologize to the committee. Only one person agreed to do that but others didn't agree. they were taken to task and were fired from the committee. They were seen in the streets and the media was always after them. Their wives divorced them and they were lonely.

At the end Africa was left without leaders.

Poor Africa Rise And Shine. Show the world what you have!!!

OVER GENERALITY

one day as we walked from campus to hostel with my friends, we saw a snake in the road & it was so big.we were very terrified such that we just coulmd cross to the other side of the road. we ran back to my other friend's house in Cyberia. when we got there we couldn't speak. we were trembling. only one friend could do that. this is how the conversation went:

Sarah: Whats wrong?
Moneyface: we saw a snake in te road & we coludnt cross to the other side.
Sarah: What kind of a snake
Moneyface: one of some kind.
Sarah:Was it big?
Moneyface: yes it was
Sarah: how big?
Moneyface: a lot of centimeters big
Sarah: probably how many?
Moneyface: more than 100 centimeters
Sarah: but you are four, why didnt you kill it
Moneyface: because we couldnt

Now from this argument, my friend was using what in critical thinking is known as overgenerality. we see that Sarah's answers were not specific enough to be satisfactory to Moneyface. take for example Sarah asked Moneyface what kind of the snake we saw but Moneyface replied 'one of some kind' from this answer, we konw that obviously it should be one of the kind but which type exactly? thats what sarah was simply asking.

Again Sarah asked how big was the snake and Moneyface replied 'more than 100 centimeters'. so we ask ourselves was it 200 centimeters or 250 centimeters or 500 centimeters because there are so many numbers more than 100.

we see that in our everyday life we tend to use overgenerality but we dnt ecognise that. now that we know maybe we can go back & start to be specific when answering questions.

ANALYSING AN ARGUMENT(ASSESSMENT)

THE TWINS…

I always thought twins were something for the special and that probably a lot of us could not be ever so special…little did I know.

I have learnt the great truth, that indeed we all have twins. They may not be identical but they are twins right?

The first twin is love, this twin is shy and will never come out in the open until one is ready but given time she’ll paint you life with colours of the rainbow…

She is never wrong but will never make you feel wrong or anything less than beautiful

She cares for you and gives you the best despite that you push her to the side all the time

She is bright but only if you allow her to be…

She is sweet but only if you taste her right…

She is alive but only if you let her shine…

She hides in corners identify her if you can…

She also your best friend, treat her as such…

She wakes up in the middle of the night to be sure your pillow is comfortable

She waters your lovely plants of trust and happiness

She closes the door to keep the cold of the mountains and the rivers outside

She opens the window so you can see the glorious sun shine into your life

She helps pull you together when you think you can’t go on

She is your best friend, treat her as such…

The second twin is challenge, she’ll always be there in you face she is not rebellious but you’ll think she is so take time to understand her she’ll be sure to make you stronger…

She is rather loud you can never miss her…

She is very pushy you will want to die…

She grows with time you will want to kill her…

She never smiles but makes sure you do when she leaves…

She is your best friend treat her as such…

She comes in forms learn to identify her…

She’ll come during a bright day and make it dull…

She’ll dance to the tune of your cry…

She’ll open doors of darkness and make sure you go in…

She’ll live you in solitude to make you feel worthless…

She’ll crush your hope when you need it the most

She is still you best friend treat her as such…

Everyone in life is the twins…

We are your best friends treat us as such…

Love you Jessica & Aznur......have a lovely day

PS:Be sure I’m there with you…

This poem i dedicate it to my critical thinking lecture & tutor. From this poem, i can make a formal contradictory claim. lets look at the sentences starting from line 16. the formal contradictory claim will be as follows:

she does not wake up in the middle of the night not to be sure your pillow is not comfortable

She does not water your lovely plants of trust and happiness

She does not close the door to keep the cold of the mountains and the rivers outside

She does not open the window so you cannot see the glorious sunshine into your life

She does not help pull you together when you don't think you can go on

She is not your best friend do not treat her as such

She does not come in forms do not learn to identify her

neither will she come during a bright day nor make it dull

She'll not dance to the tune of your cry

Neither will she open doors of darkness nor make sure you go in

as this contradictory claim continues then we will reach the climax of the poem now. this is shown by the last four lines of the poems. the contradictory claim will read:

Everyone in life is not the twins

we are not your best friends do not treat us as such

don't love you Jessica and aznur......don't have a lovely day

PS:don't be sure i am not there with you

its not me madam Jessica & Madam Aznur. its your subject. please bear with me. funny huh!

Actually we see that when using contradictory claim which is one of the rour steps of analyzing an argument, sentences can change its meaning to the opposite direction as seen above.

interesting isnt it?

this can be an interesting topic. one day you walk along the road & you find an advert like this one. it reads:


all adverts lie.


now lets look into this statement more carefully.
if its true that all adverts lie, then it means that since this is also an advert, it is also not telling the truth(it is lying) so all adverts do not lie
this statement cannot be trusted because this is also an advert.


again if it is not true that all adverts lie, meaning all adverts do not lie, then it means that since this is an advert it is telling the truth that all adverts lie. huh!! yes i said that. i repeat: then it means that this advert is telling the truth that all adverts lie.


At this point you may be asking yourself how is that possible. in critical thinking it is possible because of the usage of paradox. now you see that sentences that we logically think are simple and straight forward does not necessarily mean they are until after we analyze them more.