Analyzing Comparative Inferences: A Comparative Analysis

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Part B: Analyzing Comparative Inferences

The following passages contain comparative inferences, also known as argument by analogy. Each analogy is faulty. Read each passage carefully. Your textbook identifies five (5) criteria for evaluating analogies: familiarity, simplicity, comprehensiveness, productivity, and testability. In a paragraph or two identify which characteristic of comparative inferences the passage is failing at. Explain how the passage is not meeting that criteria and suggest a way the passage could be improved. Each passage is worth ten (10) marks.

5. Police work is like doing quantum mechanics; the particles and perpetrators you deal with are elusive!
- Simplicity
- The comparison between police work and quantum mechanics …show more content…

The topic is driving a police vehicle in a high-speed chase is simple, but why? Comparison 1: “you need to be as fast as a Formula 1 driver” comparison 2:“ be able to look all around you like an owl,” and comparison 3: be able to react faster than a boxer going for the title. In this example none of the comparison’s are comprehensive enough to apply to the entire effort. Comparing a high speed police chase to sporting events and animals is not exaclt the best comprehensive analogy to support the premises that it’s a “simple task”.

7. Police officers are like guardian angels watching over the good people of the land, protecting them from danger.
- Testability
- In this case the comparison is false, inapplicable and unacceptable. This is due to the fact there is no possible way to test if police officer are like guardian angels. Police certianly watch over the good people of the land and protect them from danger, but the premises that they are like ‘guardian angels’ is not something that is testable. There is a reasonable level of comprehensiveness to this example, in the fact many people do believe officers are like ‘guardian angels’ but there is no fiscal way to test if the principle is true, applicable, or appropriate.

Part C: Evaluating …show more content…

The conclusion, which is jumped to, is that due to the statistics of only 30,000 police officers, the majority of Canadians would support the existence of a federal firearms registry for non-restricted firearms. This survey isn’t even close be being representative to the majority of police officers in Canada, let alone the entire Canadian population. The proportions represented in the study do not guarentee the conclusion.

- This example supports the hasty generalization fallacy. Essentially, the argument was too quick to jump to the conclusion based on only a small portion of one particular group, and does not mean that the conclusion is true. In order for the conclusion to be true there would need to be a survey administered throughout Canada to equal numbers of citizens in each province to properly gain a accurate representation to support the conclusion (random sampling), because in this example the premises certainly do not support the conclusion, which creates

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