LOGIC REVIEW

GROUP DISCUSSION
INSTRUCTION: Identify the premises and conclusions in the
following passages, each of which contains only one argument.
1
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of
a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms
shall not be infringed.
The Constitution of the United States of America

PREMISE:
A well regulated militia is necessary for the security of a free state.
CONCLUSION:
The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
2
We can avert a majority of cancers by prevention efforts,
even if we never get straight on the causes; more research
on prevention and les on cure makes increasing sense.
Daniel Callahan, Lab Games, New York Times Book Review,
9 April 1995
3
Good sense is of all things in the world the most equally
distributed, for everybody thinks himself so abundantly
provided with it even those most difficult to please in all
other matters do not commonly desire more of it than they
already posses.
Rene Descartes, A Discourse on Method, 1637
4
Of all our passions and appetites the love of power is the
most imperious and unsociable nature, since the pride of
one man requires the submission of the multitude.
Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
vol. 1, chap. IV
5
Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all.
William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part III, act 3, scene 3
6
In preparing for the national census of 2000, intense
disagreement arose over whether the U.S. Constitution
requires an actual head count of the population, or whether
a sophisticated sampling technique might reasonably
replace the head count. A letter to the New York Times on
6 September 1998 contained the following argument: With
the head count method, the Census Bureau cannot
succeed in counting all the people in the United States.
Therefore the head count system is itself a sampling
method, in which the sample is the portion of the
population that actually returns the questionnaire.
Keith Bradley, What did the founders expect from the
census?
7
The essence of our admirable economic system is to create
wants as fast as, or faster than it satisfies them. Thus the
improvement of living conditions, meaning greater
consumer satisfaction, is by definition, impossible.
J. Maher, Never Better, New York Times, 1 January 1993
8
Because they clear the way for pathogens bio-chemically,
as well as giving them a free ride, ticks are among the
most pernicious disease vectors in the world.
Cynthia Mills, Blood Feud, The Sciences, April 1998
9
He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love
1 John 4:8
10
Because light moves at a finite speed, looking at objects
that are millions of miles away is actually looking at the
light that was emitted many years ago.
D. Richstone, University of Michigan Joins Magellan
Project, Ann Arbor News, 13 February 1996
11
What stops many people from photocopying a book and
giving it to a pal is not integrity but logistics; its easier
and inexpensive to buy your friend a paperback copy.
Randy Cohen, New York Times Magazine, 26 March 2000
12
Some live to 100 without ever contributing to the
improvement of humankind. Some die young in an
undertaking that improves humankind. So it is absurd
simply to concentrate on some scientific means to extend
longevity.
William J. Cousins, To a Long Life? But How Long? New
York Times, 25 December 1999
13
The theoretical justification of our argument [that the
legalization of abortion in the 1970s substantially reduced
crime in the 1990s] rests on two simple assumptions: 1)
Legalized abortion leads to fewer unwanted babies
being born, and 2) unwanted babies are more likely to
suffer abuse and neglect and are therefore more likely to
be criminally involved in later life.
Steven Levitt, www.slate.com/dialogues/, 23 August 1999
14
Todays first year college students have lived the external
appearances of an adult life for many more years than
their counterparts 50 years ago did. [Therefore], what we
have traditionally associated with the intellectual
awakening during the college years must now occur in the
high school.
Leon Botstein, Jeffersons Children: Education and Promise of
American Culture, 1998
15
The institution of public education thrives on its own fail
failures. The more poorly its charges perform, the more
money it asks for (and gets) from the public and the
government. The more money it gets, the more it can grow
itself.
Ian Hamet, School for Scandal, The Weekly Standard, 23
August 1999
16
The ideal audience [for the magician] is one comprising
mathematicians, philosophers, and scientists because a
logical mind, receptive to a connection between each
apparent cause and its apparent effect, is more prone to
surprise when an illusion reaches its illogical climax.
Martyn Bedford, The Houdini Girl, Pantheon Books, 1999

17
Accusations [of sexual harassment] are based on impact
not intention; therefore the accused is guilty if the accuser
believes him to be guilty.
Herbert London, New York University Dean, quoted in Alan
Kors and Harvey Silverglate, The Shadow University, The Free
Press, 1998
18
It is wrong to tax people on the income they make while
they are living and to double-tax them when they die and
want to pass their life savings on to their children,
grandchildren, or the charity of their choice. The death
tax, otherwise called estate tax, is unfair and should be
abolished.
Representative Bill Archer, Chairman of the U.S. House
Committee on Ways and Means, 3 July 1998
19
Standardized tests have a disparate racial and ethnic
impact; white and Asian students score, on average,
markedly higher than their black and Hispanic peers. This
is true for fourth-grade tests, college entrance exams, and
every other assessment on the books. If a racial gap is
evidence of discrimination, then all tests discriminate.
Abigail Thernstrom, Testing, the Easy Target, New York
Times, 15 January 2000
20
Unquestionably, no more important goal exists in medical
research today than the development of an AIDS vaccine.
Last year (1998) AIDS, caused HIV (Human
Immunodeficiency Virus) was the infectious disease that
killed the most people around the world, and the epidemic
is not abating.
David Baltimore, President of the California Institute of
Technology, in the Chronicle of Higher Education, 28 May
1999