One concept that I found interesting in Chapter 14 of Epsteins text was random sampling because I always found this interesting when I learned about this in my science class.

Random sampling is a sample chosen randomly where that at every choice there is an equal chance that any of the remaining members of the population is picked (Epstein, 284).

For example, when you are trying to determine the average number of individuals who like playing sports and who those who don't in San Jose State University. It wouldn't be reasonable to pick a sample group from those of the athletic department because they may all like to play sports, that would not be a good sample. But, to pick individuals at random would be a more better sample because the group wouldn't be concentrated in one area. The average would be weighted equal and not lean towards one side.

This is my first online class, and I really like how it doesn't consume too much of my times from my busy schedule. I also like that we were able to blog about our thoughts and insights about the topics without having to think of punctuation and/or grammar as much. And we wouldn't be criticized by what we had written. The fact that we needed to comment on three posts made us read our peers blogs which in return possibly helped us understand certain topic even more. This course helped me a lot on finding claims and fallacy in arguments, and that helped me on rebuttal on making a better counter argument. Also, I liked that we were able to stay with our groups throughout the projects. With keeping the same groups it was easier because we had already met each other previously.

The least favorite thing about this class was the last project. It was a little inconvenient to gather many people up because a lot of people have different time schedule.

Coming into this class I didn't know what to expect. I struggled in debates and discussion that were held in and outside of school. But after taking this class I found it easier for me to rebuttal against what other people are arguing about. I have learned to further expand my thoughts about the subjects. There are certain ways to convey your point or lure people into thinking what your stating is plausible or a reasonable explanation. I learned to communicate my thoughts clearly to other people by reading, understanding and placing the concepts in class into real life scenarios. With learning the critical thinking concepts I was able to figure out what certain advertisements and political figures are using to attract more consumers/ followers.

Now, every time I watch a commercial about something I'll connect it to one of the many fallacies that we have learned about. Most advertisements or commercials now-a-days use appeal to emotion. There were more things that I have learned from this class that I have started to use in everyday life. Critical thinking and expanding the thought of certain things has made me become a better writer.

In Chapter 15, Epstein talks about "The Normal Conditions" and goes and relates to the example he gives of spot and dick. Epstein goes on and explain why the normal conditions are important to cause an argument or example to be valid or strong. According to Epstein, Normal Conditions are "for casual claim, the normal conditions are the obvious and plausible unstated claims that are needed to establish that the relationship between purported cause and purported effect is valid or strong" (303). Epstein uses the example about Dick and Spot to show how the concept of normal conditions is use and the example is:

"Dick was sleeping soundly up to the time that Spot barked.
Spot barked at 3 a.m.
Dick doesn't normally wake up at 3 a.m.
Spot was close to where Dick was sleeping.
There was no other loud noise at the time...." (303).

Epstein explains that its important to leave or exclude the obvious and normally we assume that things are the "normally" just like that. For instance in the example above, Dick normally doesn't wake up wake up at 3 a.m. and we need to assume that things are normally like this that Dick never tends to wake up at 3 a.m. but this time he did. This concept was just interesting to me and made sense when Eptein conclude the normal conditions in his example of Dick and Spot.

Since both of these websites are from the same SJSU source I would have to say that both were helpful. However the main Mission Critical homepage offered more information and I liked how the concepts were broken down by categories, some of which we have read in class. Although we had already covered concepts such as: vagueness, ambiguity, premise, conclusion, validity and burden of proof, it was interesting to read the alternate definitions and use of the concepts.

In addition, it appeared there were concepts not covered like: universal statements, but this was another term for the concept of general claims using “all” and “none”. There were some concepts that were unfamiliar such as: universal and non- universal syllogisms and a more familiar, but so far undiscussed concept of hasty generalizations – a fallacy that draws a conclusion (or assumption) about a population based on a sample that is not large enough.

Example: I read where there have been no reported cases of HIV infection in Liberty Lake. The people of Liberty Lake must be free of the HIV virus. These examples as well as the exercises are always helpful, because they can clarify the concepts, give you detailed feedback for incorrect answers and give you a way to see how the concept is correctly used.

Who's fault?

I felt the Cause and Effect to be a confusing website to understand in one gulp due to all the information being splayed throughout the web page. If they had condensed it by narrowing down and outlining the important information of casual arguments, it may have been clearer for me to understand and grasp the information for the first time. However, there were some interesting examples on the website that helped me to understand the concept of casual arguments.

The most confused part to me was the example of the bicyclist and the illegal truck. First, it explains the claims given by the bicyclist and illegal truck to defend their cases "seems to fit the pattern of an inductive argument, because none of them seems based on observation or experience. But, in fact, they do fit that pattern. “And then the website explains to that inductive reasoning is based on observed instances; however this argument didn’t require such observations because of the similar arguments that the lawyers came up with. That part got me confused in seeing when a causal argument can make do without using observational instances to defend a stance.

analogies in the law

In Epsteins book, Chapter 12 discusses analogies in the law, I found that concept of the chapter interesting. Epstein mentions how most analogies that are made are not detailed and understandable to be good arguments, but when it comes to the law it’s completely different.

Analogies in law are presented as detailed, explicit, and clear which are carefully analyzed arguments that point out important similarities to which a general principle is stated. Laws that are unclear or are vague have to have their similarities and difference pointed so that it is easy to reason with it.

These general principles that are enunciated have to be respected by other judges. It doesn’t state that it is law for a judge to follow/respect other judges’ decisions. The books talks about how judges use this general principle to conclude cases that are thrown at them. They take into account all the differences of each case and make a new decision. They need to decide whether or not to respect or overthrow the previous judges decision.