Concept

One concept I want to share with the class is “Negative Effects of emotion”. Although emotions do help us proceed to make better decisions, sometimes there are emotions that are based on negative stereotypes or anxieties rising from unresolved past experiences. These emotions that block our critical thinking, can lead to bad decisions or deny that there is a problem. For example, there are shows about couples cheating on them with someone else. By watching that show, people can suddenly fear that there significant other is cheating on them without having any evidence or proof that they are actually cheating. This fear can eventually lead to actions that they soon will regret. Feelings play a big part in decision making. Also, if there is a situation at work where you disagree with a customer, you can easily act angry towards them but you might get in trouble with your boss. Sometimes people let their emotions get ahead of themselves and don’t think before they act. 

Evolution and a belief in God

According to Dawkin, It seems that evolution and a belief in god is incompatible. Dawkin doesn’t agree with God being the “mover” or “cause” to how society has formed over time. He states that people try to put this idea together that god is the one who created everything but if that’s the case, then instead of the word “god”, they could have used the word “terminator” instead. Dawkin believes that the beginning of time should be called the “big bang”, not just a made up name called “god”. If Aquinas was alive today he would respond to Dawkins saying that Dawkins has no evidence either. All Dawkins is doing is denying the fact that Aquinas has a point and how people just made up an unknown human, which is God, and made him the creator of life. Aquinas can easily say how the bible was made and how it is still used today. Using his “Nothing moves without a prior mover” concept, Aquinas can say there had to be a creator for the bible and that person who created it was influenced by Jesus, the man who was sent by God.  

Reasoning

My types of reasoning are based on facts and what I’m best at doing. One of the best ways to reason is to understand the facts. For example, everyone knows the best thing to do is to get a college education and finish with a college degree. A common fact is getting a college degree will give you more opportunities and more job offers. Using this reasoning has pushed me closer to my goals and put me in a good standing with my career. By knowing the facts, I’m currently getting a college education and going to be working as an intern at a top firm in San Jose. My second reasoning is what I know I’m best at. A lot of people say “Do what you enjoy”, but I say “Do what you’re best at”, and that’s what I’m doing. I’m very good at numbers so I’m majoring in Business finance. By engaging in what I do best, I’m going use my strength and be the best in what I can do. As of now, I’m getting A’s in all my finance classes and taking advantage of my skill. 

Topic-Positive Correlation

One topic I want to discuss is “positive correlation”.  A positive correlation is if an incidence of one event increases when the second one increases. There are a lot of positive correlations that occur in the world and in our lives. For example, there is a positive correlation between the more cups of coffee you drink and the number of hours stayed awake. Another example would be the positive correlation between the more factories being built and the amount of carbon dioxide in the air. Another example of a positive correlation is the more companies opening up and the amount of job openings. A positive correlation doesn’t mean the situation has to be positive. For example, the more cigarettes smoked and the risk of lung cancer. So the more cigarettes smoked then the higher the risk of lung cancer. So, as long as the correlations between any two are increasing, then it is considered a positive correlation. 

Dr. Novello

Dr. Novello was a woman of dedication who worked her way up and became the U.S. Surgeon General. Dr. Novello’s main focus was to reduce the causes of the four public health problems: aids, violence, alcohol, and tobacco. Dr. Novella used a type of inductive reasoning referred to as the “cause-and-effect” to try and stop the increasing rates of teenagers smoking.  Two of the ways she tried to stop the smoking among teenagers is increasing the amount of education in schools and the banning of the cigarette advertising towards the youth. Dr. Novello’s effort to put more education in schools would hopefully decrease the amount of teenagers to smoke. So, Cause 1 would be increasing the amount of education in schools, Cause 2 would be banning all the ads of cigarettes and alcohol use that targeted the youth, and the Effect is less teenagers will smoke because of all the school work and minimal advertisement of cigarettes.  Dr. Novello’s actions were a success since the number of reported cases of AIDS and domestic violence declined. 

Inductive Argument that I recently used

As most of you know by reading chapter 7, inductive arguments are slightly stronger or weaker rather than true or false. Inductive arguments claim that their conclusion "probably" follows from the premises, but doesn't necessarily mean it’s true. In the past week I was in this situation where I used an inductive argument. When I was in class my teacher was talking about sports. The main topic was how sport players make a lot of money.  Our class was also talking about how most pro football players are rich and how they are treated like superstars. So my friend was sitting next to me and I whispered to him, “If most pro football players are rich, then my uncle must be full of cash”. So, Premise 1 is that most pro football players are rich and considered superstars. Premise 2 is that my uncle is a pro football player. The conclusion following premises 1&2 are that my uncle probably is rich and considered a superstar. The problem with this inductive argument is that it’s not necessarily true, it could easily be false. 

Pick a Concept

A concept I want to discuss is “argument by elimination”. Argument by elimination is a concept where you rule out different possibilities until only one possibility remains. I use this type of deductive argument a lot when I’m trying to find something. For example, the other day I was walking to my room and realized that I forgot my skateboard. I didn’t know where I forgot it but I had a sense of where I could have left it. The possibilities were either in my economic's class room, my teacher’s office, or at the gym. All these possibilities were chosen because these were the only places I went to during that day. So, first off I went to check my economics class but it wasn’t there. Second place I checked was my teacher’s office but noticed it wasn’t there either. Since neither of those places had it I knew that my skate board had to be in the gym. So once I got to the gym I found my skateboard leaning against the locker that I was using earlier that day.