Answers to Practice Problems 6.5 1. This philosopher coined the term abductive reasoning. a. Karl Popper b. Charles Sanders Peirce c. Aristotle d. G. W. F. Hegel 2. Sherlock Holmes is often said to be engaging in this form of reasoning, even though from a logical perspective he wasn t. a. deductive b. inductive c. abductive d. productive 3. In a specific city that happens to be a popular tourist destination, the number of residents going to the emergency rooms for asthma attacks increases in the summer. When the winter comes and tourism decreases, the number of asthma attacks goes down. What is the most probable inference to be drawn in this situation? a. The locals are allergic to tourists. b. Summer is the time that most people generally have asthma attacks. c. The increased tourism leads to higher levels of air pollution due to traffic. d. The tourists pollute the ocean with trash that then causes the locals to get sick. 4. A couple goes to dinner and shares an appetizer, entrée, and dessert. Only one of the two gets sick. She drank a glass of wine, and her husband drank a beer. What is the most probable inference to be drawn in this situation? a. The wine was the cause of the sickness. b. The beer protected the man from the sickness. c. The appetizer affected the woman but not the man. d. The wine was rotten. 5. You are watching a magic performance, and there is a woman who appears to be floating in space. The magician passes a ring over her to give the impression that she is floating. What explanation fits best with Occam s razor? a. The woman is actually floating off the ground. b. The magician is a great magician. c. There is some sort of unseen physical object holding the woman.
6. You get a stomachache after eating out at a restaurant. What explanation fits best with Occam s razor? a. You contracted Ebola and are in the beginning phases of symptoms. b. Someone poisoned the food that you ate. c. Something was wrong with the food you ate. 7. In order to determine how a disease was spread in humans, researchers placed two groups of people into two rooms. Both rooms were exactly alike, and no people touched each other while in the rooms. However, researchers placed someone who was infected with the disease in one room. They found that those who were in the room with the infected person got sick, whereas those who were not with an infected person remained well. What explanation fits best with Occam s razor? a. The disease is spread through direct physical contact. b. The disease is spread by airborne transmission. c. The people in the first room were already sick as well. 8. There is a dent in your car door when you come out of the grocery store. What explanation fits best with Occam s razor? a. Some other patron of the store hit your car with their car. b. A child kicked your door when walking into the store. c. Bad things tend to happen only to you in these types of situations. 9. A student submits a paper that has an 80% matching rate when submitted to Turnitin. There are multiple sites that align exactly with the content of the paper. What explanation fits best with Occam s razor? a. The student didn t know it was wrong to copy things word for word without citing. b. The student knowingly took material that he did not write and used it as his own. c. Someone else copied the student s work. 10. You are a man, and you jokingly take a pregnancy test. The test comes up positive. What explanation fits best with Occam s razor? a. You are pregnant. b. The test is correct. c. The test is defective. 11. A bomb goes off in a supermarket in London. A terrorist group takes credit for the bombing. What explanation fits best with Occam s razor? a. The British government is trying to cover up the bombing by blaming a terrorist group. b. The terrorist group is the cause of the bombing. c. The U.S. government actually bombed the market to get the British to help them fight terrorist groups.
12. You have friends and extended family over for Thanksgiving dinner. There are kids running through the house. You check the turkey and find that it is overcooked because the temperature on the oven is too high. What explanation fits best with Occam s razor? a. The oven increased the temperature on its own. b. Someone turned up the heat to sabotage your turkey. c. You bumped the knob when you were putting something into the oven. 13. Researchers recently mapped the genome of a human skeleton that was 45,000 years old. They found long fragments of Neanderthal DNA integrated into this human genome. What explanation fits best with Occam s razor? a. Humans and Neanderthals interbred at some point prior to the life of this human. b. The scientists used a faulty method in establishing the genetic sequence. c. This was actually a Neanderthal skeleton. 14. There is a recent downturn in employment and the economy. A politically far- leaning radio host claims that the downturn in the economy is the direct result of the president s actions. What explanation fits best with Occam s razor? a. The downturn in employment is due to many factors, and more research is in order. b. The downturn in employment is due to the president s actions. c. The downturn in employment is really no one s fault. 15. In order for an explanation to be adequate, one should remember that. a. it should agree with other human knowledge b. it should include the highest level of complexity c. it should assume the thing it is trying to prove d. there are outlying situations that contradict the explanation 16. The fecundity of an explanation refers to its. a. breadth of explanatory power b. inability to provide an understanding of a phenomenon c. lack of connection to what is being examined d. ability to bear children 17. Why might one choose to use an inductive argument rather than a deductive argument? a. One possible explanation must be the correct one. b. The argument relates to something that is probabilistic rather than absolute. c. An inductive argument makes the argument valid. d. One should always use inductive arguments when possible.
18. This is the method by which one can make a valid argument invalid. a. adding false supporting premises b. demonstrating that the argument is valid c. adding true supporting premises d. valid arguments cannot be made invalid 19. This form of inductive argument moves from the general to the specific. a. generalizations b. statistical syllogisms c. hypothetical syllogism d. modus tollens Questions 20 24 relate to the following passage: If I had gone to the theater, then I would have seen the new film about aliens. I didn t go to the theater though, so I didn t see the movie. I think that films about aliens and supernatural events are able to teach people a lot about what the future might hold in the realm of technology. Things like cell phones and space travel were only dreams in old movies, and now they actually exist. Science fiction can also demonstrate new futures in which people are more accepting of those that are different from them. The different species of characters in these films all working together and interacting with one another in harmony displays the unity of different people without explicitly making race or ethnicity an issue, thereby bringing people into these forms of thought without turning those away who do not want to explicitly confront these issues. 20. How many arguments are in this passage? 21. How many deductive arguments are in this passage? 22. How many inductive arguments are in this passage?
23. Which of the following are conclusions in the passage? Select all that apply. a. If I had gone to the theater, then I would have seen the new film about aliens. b. I didn t go to the theater. c. Films about aliens and supernatural events are able to teach people a lot about what the future might hold in the realm of technology. d. The different species of characters in these films all working together and interacting with one another in harmony displays the unity of different people without explicitly making race or ethnicity an issue. 24. Which change to the deductive argument would make it valid? Select all that apply. a. Changing the first sentence to If I would have gone to the theater, I would not have seen the new film about aliens. b. Changing the second sentence to I didn t see the new film about aliens. c. Changing the conclusion to Alien movies are at the theater. d. Changing the second sentence to I didn t see the movie, so I didn t go to the theater.