Read Attachments:Answer the following questions:Illustrate each of the nine fallacies by showing how each can be used to “explain” obesity.Identify the social scientific research method you think

1: Dramatic Instance

2: Retrospective Determinism

3: Misplaced Concreteness

4: Personal Attack

5: Appeal to Prejudice

6: Circular Reasoning

7: Authority

8: Composition

9: Non Sequiter

Fallacy 1: Dramatic Instance

The first fallacy is the fallacy of dramatic instance, which refers to overgeneralization.  It is appropriate to generalize the results of studies when the research methods used to conduct such studies warrant generalization of the results.  For example, if the sample size is representative of the population from which it was drawn and is large enough, the results can be generalized back to the population from which the sample was drawn.  More specifically, research studies have been conducted to determine the extent to which people in the entire country are abusing the welfare system.  If 70% of the population on welfare is white and female, 20% is African American and male, and 10% is Hispanic and female, then the sample needs to reflect the same percentages as those in the population in order for the sample to be representative of the population.  If the sample is representative of the larger population from which it was drawn and the results of the sample show that most people on welfare in the sample are not abusing the system, then the researchers can generalize their results back to the entire population on welfare and state that most people on welfare across the country are not abusing the system.

However, most people have a tendency to overgeneralize their beliefs/assumptions/claims about other people.  Overgeneralization refers to beliefs, assumptions, or claims based on one, two, three, or a handful of people, or a very small number of people, usually less than thirty.  Many people believe and claim that most people on welfare are abusing the system, do not need the help, and are lazy, and do not want to work.  The people who believe this claim do so because they are overgeneralizing based on knowing a few people personally who are on welfare, and the few people that they know on welfare are abusing the system.  When one is in line at the grocery store behind someone else (with children in tow) who is paying for her groceries with food stamps, and the person next in line gets checked out and sees the woman on welfare in the parking lot getting into a new and expensive SUV, the person seeing her get into this SUV with her children may overgeneralize about people abusing the welfare system based on the one person/case that he/she saw in the grocery store and in the parking lot.  He or she may think to himself/herself, “She does not need to be on welfare, she is lazy, does not want to work, and keeps having more and more children so that she can get more and more money from the government, etc.”  Then, he/she may think to himself/herself, “If she is abusing the welfare system, then most people on welfare must be abusing the system.”  In short, overgeneralization means that one is basing his/her assumptions/beliefs/claims on a very small sample size, like one, two, three, or a handful of people.  When research is conducted to test these assumptions/beliefs/claims, then the results can be generalized, not overgeneralized, because the sample sizes from which the populations are drawn are much, much larger and represent the populations from which they were drawn.

It is important to note that sociologists identify commonly shared patterns of behavior within groups of people, but there will always be exceptions to these patterns.  In other words, not every single person on welfare will fit the overall pattern of legitimately needing the help.  There will always be some people, or a small percentage of the whole group, who is abusing the welfare system.  Sociologists, however, focus on the overall patterns of commonly shared behaviors, and not so much on the exceptions to these behaviors.  The few people that one knows personally who are abusing the welfare system, for example, may not be representative of the typical cases of people who are on welfare.

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Fallacy 2: Retrospective Determinism

“The fallacy of retrospective determinism is the argument that things could not have worked out any other way than the way they did” (Lauer and Lauer, 2014, p. 16).  This fallacy is similar to believing in fate over free will, but it is applied to the past, not necessarily the future.  Those who believe in fate over free will believe that everything that has happened in the past was inevitable; it had to have happened the way it did.  As a result, if this fallacy is accepted, current social problems are seen as inevitable.  In addition, if this fallacy is accepted and applied to the future, then social problems would be perceived as beyond one’s control, which results in feelings of apathy.

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Fallacy 3: Misplaced Concreteness

The fallacy of misplaced concreteness refers to the idea of making something abstract into something concrete.  For instance, society is an abstract concept, but even so, many people blame problems on society.  People will claim that poverty is society’s fault or juvenile delinquency is society’s fault.  However, blaming society for all of its problems will leave one helpless because he/she will not know how or where to begin to resolve any current problem.  Society is made up of many different institutions, so instead of blaming society for all of its problems, it is more useful to recognize that the institution of the family helps to perpetuate delinquent behavior.  Both parents in most two-parent households work outside the home, and most single parents work outside the home, as well.  Therefore, many juveniles are left unsupervised between the time school lets out in the afternoon and the time that their parent/s return home from work.  By making this problem concrete, parents could try to find organized activities for their juveniles during these hours on weekdays.  By identifying the specific institutions and some of the specific factors that contribute to a particular problem, one makes the problem concrete and becomes able to resolve the problem more readily by making changes to those concrete factors that contribute to the problem.

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Fallacy 4: Personal Attack

The fallacy of personal attack means that one attacks another personally.  Personal attacks are attacks against the intelligence and/or character of an opponent and usually occur as a result of one not being able to support his/her position through the use of logic, rationality, reason, or facts.  Most presidential candidates and vice presidential candidates engage in this kind of fallacy during their debates and through their campaign activities.

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Fallacy 5: Appeal to Prejudice

The fallacy of appeal to prejudice refers to making arguments by appealing to popular prejudices/beliefs or passions.  Many opponents during debates use this fallacy to gain favor over their opponents by using such prejudices/beliefs, or passions to convince the voters that they are right/correct and their opponents are wrong.  Popular slogans or myths are used to convince people emotionally when social problems are the topic.  One example of this fallacy is that some people continue to believe that women are to blame when women are raped because they must have been behaving in sexually provocative ways towards the men who raped them; otherwise, they would not have been raped.  People who continue to believe that rape is the fault of the female victims have either never seen any evidence to the contrary or dismissed any evidence as invalid.  Myths like these, unfortunately, become ingrained as beliefs in many people, and even when people are confronted with evidence to the contrary, they continue to hold on to their incorrect or invalid beliefs.  People in general have an extremely difficult time changing their beliefs, even when the evidence is contrary to their beliefs.  In sum, judgments about social problems must be made on the basis of factual evidence, not on the basis of opinions or beliefs.

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Fallacy 6: Circular Reasoning

The fallacy of circular reasoning refers to the use of conclusions to support the assumptions that were necessary to make the conclusions.  For instance, Larry is an alcoholic because he drinks too much.  Larry drinks too much because he is an alcoholic.  Another example is that single mothers are on welfare because they are lazy and do not want to work.  Single mothers are lazy and do not want to work, which explains why they are on welfare.  Circular reasoning does nothing to enhance the understanding of social problems.

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Fallacy 7: Authority

Virtually everything that everyone knows (unless they are the authority figures who hold positions of leadership or scholarship, etc.) is based on the authority of someone else’s or other experts’ research, beliefs, or experience.  The fallacy of authority means that the argument is based on an illegitimate appeal to authority.  There are four ways that this fallacy interferes with thinking about social problems.

First, the authority on which beliefs are based may be ambiguous.  For example, there are contradictions between the Old Testament and the New Testament with regard to the death penalty, among other issues.  If people appeal to the Old Testament, they are appealing to that particular interpretation of the Bible over the other interpretation of it, and vice versa.  People must find other bases for making judgments, since the interpretations are contradictory.

Second, the authority may be irrelevant to the problem.  Most people cannot have expertise in most disciplines or in every discipline.  In other words, because one is an expert in the field of quantum physics or metaphysics does not mean that he or she is an expert on sex inequality in society.  People who have expertise in one area should not speak about issues or problems outside of their area of expertise.

Third, the authority may be pursuing a bias rather than studying a problem.  For instance, the food guide pyramid put forth by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in August of 1992 includes the number of servings of different food groups that Americans should eat on a daily basis.  These food groups, from the largest portions Americans should eat to the smallest portions, include: (1) bread, cereal, rice, and pasta; (2) vegetables; (3) fruit; (4) milk, yogurt, and cheese; (5) meat, poultry, fish, dry beans, eggs, and nuts; and (6) salad dressing, ketchup, mustard, steak sauce, soy sauce, salt, dill pickles.  According to this pyramid, Americans should be eating more portions of bread, cereal, rice, and pasta than any other food group.  However, this authority is pursuing a bias rather than studying the problems of lack of health and nutrition, disease, and obesity among the American population.  This authority is pursuing this bias probably for political and/or economic reasons.  The food industry makes a whole lot more money selling breads, cereals, rice, pasta, and animal products than it does selling produce.  However, several medical doctors who specialize in nutrition today, like Dr. Joel Fuhrman (2011) and Dr. David Kessler (2009), contend that Americans should be eating more vegetables, fruits, beans, nuts, and seeds than bread, cereal, rice, and pasta. These doctors study the problems of lack of health and nutrition, disease, and obesity among Americans, as opposed to pursuing a bias.  These doctors are not making any money by selling produce or by writing prescriptions because they are helping their patients to regain their health such that they no longer need any kind of prescription medication.

Fourth, the authority may simply be wrong.  Sometimes one authority will cite another authority or source without verifying the facts in the initial source.  When the “facts” of the initial source are not verified, it is possible that the information in the second source is wrong or inaccurate.  Conclusions should not be drawn based on information in sources that cite each other; conclusions need to be drawn based on information in original sources.

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Fallacy 8: Composition

The fallacy of composition asserts that what is true of the part is necessarily true of the whole.  In terms of social problems, that which is true for the individual is not true for the group.  We all hear stories about individual people like J.K. Rowling (author of the Harry Potter series), and Jewel (the singer/musician) who were homeless, poverty-stricken, etc., and literally went from “rags to riches.”  According to this fallacy, if they were able to become wealthy, then everyone should be able to become wealthy.  However, these two individuals and a small percentage of others were able to resolve their problem of homelessness and poverty for themselves, but the solutions they employed to rise above poverty are not available to all members of the group.

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Fallacy 9: Non Sequitur

The fallacy of non sequitur refers to something that does not follow logically from what has preceded it.  Non sequitur literally means, “it does not follow.”  This fallacy is used when people interpret statistical data.  For example,

Table 274 of the 1996 edition of the Statistical Abstract of the United States reports that in 1995 only 8.3 percent of students earned 600 or more on the verbal portion of the SAT test. The very next edition, in 1997, however, holds a pleasant surprise. Table 276 tells us that it was really 21.9 percent of students who scored 600 or higher in 1995. Later editions of this source retain the higher figure (Henslin, 2010, p. 514).
     In the twinkle of an eye, we get another bonus. Somehow, between 1996 and 1997 the scores of everyone who took the test in previous years improved... (Henslin, 2010, p. 514).

These statistics make it appear as though students were increasingly smarter with each cohort that took the test, beginning in 1997 and every year thereafter.  However,

It certainly is easier to give easier tests than to teach more effectively.  And this is what has happened to the SAT.  he results were so embarrassing to U.S. educators that the SAT was made easier. Not only was testing on antonyms and analogies dropped, but the test was also shortened and students were given more time to answer the fewer questions. The test makers then “rescored” the totals of previous years to match the easier test. This “dummying down” of the SAT is a form of grade inflation...(Henslin, 2010, p. 514).

There is always more than one way to interpret statistical data, so it is easy to fall into this fallacy of non sequitur.  The improvement of the SAT scores of all of the students who took it in previous years makes it seem as though students were really smarter than they were in previous years, and that perhaps mistakes were made in the scoring of the SAT tests.  Instead, we learned that the SAT was made easier in 1997, and the tests of the students who took it in previous years were recalculated according to the newer, easier test in 1997.  Instead of the next cohort of students who took the SAT test in 1997 and every year thereafter being smarter, the SAT test was made easier.