Item 1

 

      Smith, who is from England, decides to attend graduate school at Ohio State University. He has never been to the US before. The day after he arrives, he is walking back from an orientation session and sees two white (albino) squirrels chasing each other around a tree. In his next letter home, he tells his family that American squirrels are white.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/hasty-generalization.html

 

Analysis:

 

* Structure

Premise1: Two white squirrels are in America.

Premise 2: What is true for some members is true for the whole group

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Conclusion: American squirrels are white.

 

* Fallacy of presumption : Hasty generalization

The 2nd premise (What is true for some members is true for the whole group) is a false premise. Hasty generalization is committed when a person draws a conclusion about a population based on a sample that is not large enough. In the example, ”Two white squirrels chasing each other around a tree” which are very small samples taken from graduate school at Ohio state University_ a small part of America. However, Smith hastily concluded that  “American squirrels are white” based on these small samples.

Item 2

 

“America – Love It Or Leave It”

http://atheism.about.com/od/logicalfallacies/a/falsedilemma_5.htm

Analysis:

 

The sentence is a popular false dilemma. The dilemma suggests that a true patriot must embrace everything ever done by America, or become un-American. However, since America as a nation was founded on the concept of respectful political dissent, one must doubt the premise of this false dilemma very seriously. Only two options are presented: leaving the country, or loving it – presumably in the way that the arguer loves it and wants you to love it. Changing the country is not included as a possibility, even though it obviously should be. In fact, there are other possibilities such as staying but not loving it, and leaving but still loving it.

Item 3

 

Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan believes that spiders are insects.

Therefore, spiders are insects.

http://www.philosophypages.com/lg/e06a.htm

 

 

Analysis:

 

* Fallacy of Relevance: appeal to authority

 

– Appeal to authority:  the opinion of someone famous or accomplished in another area of expertise is supposed to guarantee the truth of a conclusion.

 

–  As a pattern of reasoning, this is clearly mistaken: no proposition must be true because some individual (however talented or successful) happens to believe it. In this case, this is Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan.  Even in areas where they have some special knowledge or skill, expert authorities could be mistaken; we may accept their testimony as inductive evidence but never as deductive proof of the truth of a conclusion. Personality is irrelevant to truth.