Chapter 2 Question 3

One topic that I found rather interesting yet I never really think about is faith. I am confused about my faith. I was brought up as a Christian, but over the years I have lost a lot of my faith. I am just unsure about it. I think one of the reasons I have lost my faith is because I have gotten more educated. I now use logic over everything. I also find it rather interesting how strong a faith people have. They have no living proof that God exists, yet they are very certain and I find that respectable and interesting.  Another thing that I find interesting is that there are so many different types of religions and every one that believes in something all thinks that there faith is the right faith. Overall, I do not have a problem with religions people and I respect different faiths as long as they respect me. 

Chapter 2 Question 1

I believe that my biggest strength is my ability to listen to people’s issues. I am a problem solver and I like to make sure what ever issue is being presented in front of me gets resolved. Listening is a very important trait and I feel that if you are capable of listening and hearing other people, in the end it will be beneficial for yourself. My major is social work. I have always wanted to be a person that helps others. I feel that my listening skills can take me very far in my major. Social workers are helpers for society. To be able to understand a situation, a person must first be able to hear out the problem. From there, figuring out a solution is much easier. I already have put my listening skills into use; when my friends or co-workers have an issue I listen to them first and let them say what they need to say and once they are down, I put in my opinion.  Overall, I feel like this ability will take me far in my career. 

Chapter 7 Question 3

Generalization is one key topic that I found very interesting in this chapter. Generation is basically the act or process of generalizing. One thing that stuck out in my head when reading about generalization was stereotypes. For example, the typical stereotype that all Asians are smart. Although you might see many Asians that are smart, it is not true that all Asians are. Not only is generalization a part of stereotypes it is an everyday thing that every single person does. For example, I work at Tully’s Coffee here at SJSU in the Dinning Commons and I generalize peoples’ order, because they order the same drink every day. Therefore I can generation the fact that they will order it again the next time. 

Chapter 7 Question 2

Antonia Novello as a little girl wanted to become a doctor. Doctors’ goals are to help and save lives. Novello noticed that after Joe Camel ads began to show in 1988 that there was a dramatic increase in of teens and children that began to smoke. Her response to this was to educate schools and she even went beyond by trying to ban cigarette and alcohol ads that targeted the younger generation. She also worked to inform the public on domestic violence and AIDS. Because of what she had done the number of cases in AIDS began to decline and domestic violence. The inductive argument Novello did was as follows. Cause was the Joe Camel ads. The affect was more teens and children began to smoke. The counter argument is the cause is educating the youth and banning the ads. The effect was the dramatic decrease in the youth smoking and drinking. Same rules apply to the domestic violence and AIDS.

Chapter 7 Question 1

I start class on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 9:30 AM every week. A perfect example of an inductive argument came up from this week. My inductive argument is as follows.  I start class at 9:30 AM every Tuesday and Thursdays. I set my alarm clock for class the night before. Therefor I am always on time. On can argue and say that I am not always on time, however based on my argument that I start class at 9:30 AM every Tuesday and Thursday and I set an alarm I must be on time according to my arguments. I find inductive arguments very interesting, because they are in some way very misleading. In my opinion, more facts are needed for things to be valid. I feel like inductive reasoning is a much weaker argument. Meaning, I would not use it.  

Chapter 8 Question 3

One concept that I found to be interesting was “Sound and Unsound Arguments”.  I found the whole concept of an argument being valid, but not true therefore making it unsound was interesting.  It made me think about how we as people use sound and unsound arguments on a daily basis. For example, when dealing with drama with co-workers: “Matt is always late to work, late workers are lazy, therefor Matt is a lazy worker. Although Matt is always late, he really is not lazy; he just has to deal with traffic all the time. People can easily jump to conclusions, epically if people argue with unsound arguments, people can get the wrong information which can lead to further issues. Valid arguments are very tricky, because they are so misleading.  It is only sound arguments that make them valid and true for it to be an actual argument.  It makes me wonder of how many unsound arguments I’ve had recently.