Reason/Emotion Essay

Link

Fallacies

Today we're going to discuss 'Fallacies'. These are little 'tricks' that people will use when they're arguing in order to 'win'. Sometimes people don't even know that they're using these fallacies -- they are just a natural danger that comes from 'logical' thinking.

Take a look at this wonderful TOK resource for some more information on Logical Fallacies (by the way, this site is an excellent resource for the entire TOK course).

In groups of 2 or 3, you will choose one of the fallacies we've studied and come up with a 3-minute skit that demonstrates that fallacy. The audience will try to guess what your fallacy is. Try to make it fun, but also difficult.

Then, also in your groups, come up with a 60-second presentation of the fallacies you've been assigned. Try to fit as many examples of your logical fallacy into each minute as you can.

Group 1: post hoc ergo propter hoc, circular reasoning, ad ignorantium

Group 2: Ad hominem, equivocating, the loaded question

Group 3: Ad ignorantium, false dilemma, the loaded question

Group 4: post hoc ergo propter hoc, ad hominem, ad ignorantium

Group 5: circular reasoning, equivocating, false dilemma

 

Reason Definitions

Be aware of the following definitions for Thursday's class.

• Reasoning:
  
  
  
  • The process of reaching conclusions by a process of connected thought
  
  
  
  


• Logic:
  
  
  
  • The science of reasoning, proof, thinking, and inference; as a field of study, logic involves the systematic study of the patterns of argument and in particular—those patterns of arguments that are valid
  
  
  
  


• Logical:
  
  
  
  • Correctly reasoned; an argument is logical if the conclusion follows from the premises
  
  
  
  


• Premise:
  
  
  
  • a basis, stated or assumed to be true, on which reasoning proceeds
  
  
  
  


• Inference:
  
  
  
  • A conclusion derived from premises
  
  
  
  


• Syllogism
  
  
  
  • a series of statements involving premises followed by an inference (or conclusion)
  
  
  
  


• Truth
  
  
  
  • A proven fact
  
  
  
  


• Validity
  
  
  
  • Having general acceptability, based on evidence (can be disproven)
  
  
  
  

Logic

Answer the following questions at your table.

1. Imagine you are in a room with 3 switches. In an adjacent room there are 3 lamps (let's say in lamps which are on a regular table), each switch belongs to one lamp. All are off at the moment. It is impossible to see from one room to another. No help from anybody else is allowed.How can you find out which switch belongs to which bulb, if you may enter the room with the bulbs only once?


2. A table tennis ball (= a ping pong ball) fell into a tight deep pipe - it is about 30 cm long, buried in concrete pavement, having firm metal bottom, only 1 cm of the pipe is above the ground so it cannot be moved. The pipe was only a bit wider than the ball, so you cannot use your hand.How would you take it out, with no damage?


3. How can you throw a ball as hard as you can and have it come back to you, even if it doesn't hit anything, there is nothing attached to it, and no one else catches or throws it?

4. A man lives on the tenth floor of a building. Every morning he takes the elevator down to the lobby and leaves the building. In the evening, he gets into the elevator, and, if there is someone else in the elevator - or if it was raining that day - he goes back to his floor directly. Otherwise, he goes to the seventh floor and walks up three flights of stairs to his apartment. How come?


5. A farmer is standing on one bank of a river, with a fox, a chicken, and a bag of grain. He needs to get to the other side of the river, taking the fox, the chicken, and the grain with him.
   However, the boat used to cross the river is only large enough to carry the farmer and one of the things he needs to take with him, so he will need to make several trips in order to get everything across.
   In addition, he cannot leave the fox unattended with the chicken, or else the fox will eat the chicken; and he cannot leave the chicken unattended with the grain, or else the chicken will eat the grain. The fox is not particularly partial to grain, and may be left alone with it.
   How can he get everything across the river without anything being eaten?

Syllogisms:

Premise 1: All humans are mortal

Premise 2: Einstein was a human

Conclusion: Einstein was mortal

 

Premise 1: All male teachers at SWA are handsome Olympic athletes

Premise 2: Mr Brian is a male teacher at SWA

Conclusion: Therefore, Mr Brian is a handsome Olympic athlete!

 

P1: Time is money

P2: Unemployed people have a lot of time

C: Therefore, unemployed people are rich!

 

Come up with two syllogisms and post them as a comment on my blog

 

 

The Year of the Snake

Image by shoe the Linux Librarian

The Year of the Snake Great Challenge

Your task is to create a Snake, which celebrates The Year of the Snake.

You will be given three technology lessons to design and prepare the snake. You will then make your snake and present it to the school community on Friday afternoon during the Chinese New Year Celebrations. This will begin at 2.30 pm. The parade will be at 4.30 so you have 2 hours to finish the making of the snake.

The rules

1. You can use boxes, bamboo, paint, material, humans, and anything else you think you need to create the snake


2. You must know the type of snake and try and include features of the snake.


3. Your snake should be able to be moved and also should be able to move as we will have a year of the snake parade at the end of the day.


4. All members of your homeroom must be involved in the making of the snake and at least ten members of your class must be part of the parade of the snake.


5. Use this Google Doc to start adding information: SNAKES


6. In your table groups, post some information about the significance of the Year of the Snake. Who are some famous people who fall under this Sign? What attributes do people born in these years typically have? Give some background information on the Chinese Zodiac.

Website Links

http://sites.swa-jkt.com/Nahyeon/Product/Home.html

http://sites.swa-jkt.com/Darian/Product/index.html

http://sites.swa-jkt.com/Yohan/Product/homepage.html

http://sites.swa-jkt.com/Nadia/Product/home.html

http://sites.swa-jkt.com/Gabe/Product/homepage.html

http://sites.swa-jkt.com/Jonathan/Product/Website/Home%20Page.html

ITGS Past Papers

As we discussed on Monday, your job over the next couple of classes is to choose 3 exams from the folder I've shared with you. Complete all questions to the best of your ability and we'll discuss them when I come back.

Here is the link for your past papers.

Remember that all classes will be held in Layang2 for this week (just makes it easier for whichever substitute teacher will be coming).

Home/School of the Future

Home/School of the Future

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DJr8QwgLEA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoCCO3GKqWY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdL8Kjzn_Zo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KfHatr8r8Y

Since I'll be gone for the next few classes, I'm setting up a 3-part assignment for you to complete over the next week.

1. You will design and create a model of a home or school as it will exist in 2063. You must label at least 15 new technologies that will be in common use at that time. Your model can be a blueprint, a Google Sketchup project, or a 3D Shoebox Model (for the Shoebox only, you can work in pairs).


2. You will write up a description of your 15 new technologies. Write out what the function is and give some background on how/why it was invented (ie. cars that don't pollute [how?] or toilets that clean themselves).


3. You will write a one-page narrative (~500 words) that will describe a day in the life of a typical Grade 9 student in 2063. Start at the time they wake up (6am) until they go to bed (10pm). This is a school day, so give some descriptions of both the house and the school (Check out this post from Nahyeon (G12) for some inspiration (but hers is for 2021 - yours is for 2063 so will be even crazier). Example here.)

All three parts of the assignment will be due on Wednesday, January 23. Post all writing on your blogs, and take screenshots or pictures of anything you can (if you're doing the Shoebox, please post on both blogs).

Is Facebook Dangerous?

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/unfriend_VhP9QLXispf2RzznaNHPNK 

Take a look at this interesting post about how Facebook can be a tool that actually SEPARATES us from our friends (rather than connects us). Please write a response post on your blog, talking about your experiences (good and bad) with social networking.

When you're done, find two other blogs to comment on.

 

More Tutorials

Grade 9s

You folks did such a great job making tutorials that I'm going to ask you to do one more (for a total of 3 per person).


- these topics are listed, but many of you came up with topics I didn't think of. Keep doing that!
- if you’re done, comment on two other students’ tutorials
- go back through all your posts and make sure they are ALL categorized and tagged
- Create a new banner for Grade 9
http://www.picmonkey.com/
- dimensions: 969 x 213

Welcome Back to IT!

Photo by Mark Strozier

Hello folks, I hope you all had a restful and relaxing Winter vacation. Time to explore the exciting world of IT! From robots to satellites to movie animation, we'll be covering a lot of territory.

So, please save and open up this document.

The first step is to bookmark my blog. You'll notice that your grade level is listed at the top of the page. That's where you can find all the work that we'll be doing this semester. Remember that we'll be using the Design Cycle for each project, so if you have any questions about it, you can look for the link on the righthand-side of this page.

The next step is to make sure that you have access to your own blog. You'll need to remember the password from last term, and I'll need you to give me each of your ID numbers, so I can set up the links on my page.

Finally, we'll need to make sure you have access to your Gmail account, since that's where we'll be keeping all of your work throughout the course.

I know it's a lot of stuff to get organized so soon, but the faster we do it, the easier it'll make the rest of the year.

Here's a link to the document we used to create our blog last year. Please access it if there's something on your blog that's just 'not right'.

Of course, you can always come to me to help you figure it out, as well.

https://docs.google.com/a/jwaonline.com/document/d/1pEFGKNf17e431LBRy-LJwPY7sjm8yCV6YWjxXAplTPs/edit#

 



 

Your first IT homework will be to create 2 Tutorials and post them on your blog. Include at least three screenshots and one external hyperlink. Look here for an example. Here's another one, too.

Choose two of the following topics and post them to your blog:

• How to log in


• Create Pages


• Create Posts


• Create Tags


• Create Categories


• Create Menus


• Hyperlinks to other pages/documents


• Insert Images (more than one way)


• Creating Drop down menus


• Create a Banner Image for their Blog


• Embedding video


• Or you can come up with your own (related to using computers/blogs at SWA)