七宗罪的出处和原文分享.

　　GMAT考试中我们平时说的GMAT七宗罪也就是这一篇后半截的七种武器,而前面部分是讲常见GMAT逻辑错误的,结合起来看效果应该最好，今天我们就来看一下七宗罪的出处以及原文的分享，希望对大家备考GMAT有所帮助。

　　Finding Errors for Argument Analysis

　　Common Logical Fallacies

　　1. Circular Reasoning Here, an unsubstantiated assertion is used to justify another unsubstantiated assertion, which is used to justify the first statement. For instance, Joe and Fred show up at an exclusive club. When asked if they are members, Joe says “I’ll vouch for Fred.” When Joe is asked for evidence that he’s a member, Fred says, “I’ll vouch for him.”

　　2. The Biased-Sample Fallacy The Fallacy of the Biased Sample is committed whenever the data for a statistical inference is drawn from a sample that is not representative of the population under consideration. The data drawn and used to make a generalization is drawn from a group that does not represent the whole. Here is an argument that commits the fallacy of the biased sample: In a recent survey conducted by Wall Street Weekly, 80% of the respondents indicated their strong disapproval of increased capital gains taxes. This survey clearly shows that increased capital gains taxes will meet with strong opposition from the electorate. The data for the inference in this argument is drawn from a sample that is not representative of the entire electorate. Since the survey was conducted of people who invest, not all members of the electorate have an equal chance of being included in the sample. Moreover, persons who read about investing are more likely to have an opinion on the topic of taxes on investment that is different from the population at large.

　　3. Insufficient Sample Fallacy The Fallacy of the Insufficient Sample is committed whenever an inadequate sample is used to justify the conclusion drawn. Here’s an argument that commits the fallacy of the insufficient sample: I have worked with 3 people from New York City and found them to be obnoxious, pushy and rude. It is obvious that people from New York City have a bad attitude. The data for the inference in this argument is insufficient to support the conclusion. Three observations of people are not sufficient to support a conclusion about the entire population of a city.

　　4. Ad hominem One of the most often-employed fallacies, ad hominen means “to the man” and indicates an attack that is made upon a person rather than upon the statements that person has made. An example is: “Don’t listen to my opponent, he’s a Semite.”

　　5. Fallacy of Faulty Analogy Reasoning by analogy functions by making an unsubstantiated assumption when comparing two similar things. The fallacy assumes that since two things are alike in many ways, they will share another trait as well. Faulty Analogy arguments conclude that one similarity results in another, when in fact, there can be no way of inferring this extra similarity. Here’s an example of a Faulty Analogy fallacy: Ted and Jim excel at both football and basketball. Since Ted is also a track star, it is likely that Jim also excels at track. In this example, numerous similarities between Ted and Jim are taken as the basis for the inference that they share additional traits.

　　6. Straw Man Here the speaker attributes an argument to an opponent that does not represent the opponent’s true position. For instance, a political candidate might charge that his opponent “wants to let all prisoners go free,” when in fact his opponent simply favors a highly limited furlough system. The person is portrayed as someone that they are not.

　　7. The “After This, Therore, Because of This” Fallacy (Post hoc ergo propter hoc) This is a “false cause” fallacy in which something is associated with something else because of mere proximity of time. One often encounters – in news stories- people assuming that because one thing happened after another, the first caused it, as with “I touched a toad; I have a wart; the toad caused the wart.” The error in arguments that commit this fallacy is that their conclusions are simply claims and are not sufficiently substantiated by the evidence. Here are two examples of the After This, Therore Because of ThisFallacy: Ten minutes after walking into the auditorium, I began to feel sick to my stomach. There must have been something in the air in that building that caused my nausea. The stock market declined shortly after the election of the president, thus indicating the lack of confidence the business community has in the new administration. In the first example, a causal connection is posited between two events simply on the basis of one occurring bore the other. Without further evidence to support it, the causal claim based on the correlation is premature. The second example is typical of modern news reporting. The only evidence offered in this argument to support the implicit causal claim that the decline in the stock market was caused by the election of the president is the fact that election preceded the decline. While this may have been a causal factor in the decline of the stock market, to argue that it is the main cause without additional information is to commit theAfter This, Therore, Because of This Fallacy.

　　8. The Either-or Thinking This is the so-called black-or-white fallacy. Essentially, it says “Either you believe what I’m saying or you must believe exactly the opposite.” Here is an example of the black-or-white fallacy: Since you don’t believe that the earth is teetering on the edge of destruction, you must believe that pollution and other adverse fects that man has on the environment are of no concern whatsoever. The argument above assumes that there are only two possible alternatives open to us. There is no room for a middle ground.

　　9. The “All Things are Equal” Fallacy This fallacy is committed when it is assumed, without justification, that background conditions have remained the same at different times/locations. In most instances, this is an unwarranted assumption for the simple reason that things rarely remain the same over extended periods of time, and things rarely remain the same from place to place. The last Democrat winner of the New Hampshire primary won the general election. This year, the winner of the New Hampshire primary will win the general election. The assumption operative in this argument is that nothing has changed since the last primary. No evidence or justification is offered for this assumption.

　　10. The Fallacy of Equivocation The Fallacy of Equivocation occurs when a word or phrase that has more than one meaning is employed in different meanings throughout the argument. “Every society is, of course, repressive to some extent – as Sigmund Freud pointed out, repression is the price we pay for civilization.” (John P. Roche- political columnist) In this example, the word repression is used in two completely different contexts. “Repression” in Freud’s mind meant restricting sexual and psychological desires. “Repression” in the second context does not mean repression of individual desires, but government restriction of individual liberties, such as that in a totalitarian state.

　　11. Non Sequitur This means “does not follow,” which is short for: the conclusion does not follow from the premise. To say, “The house is white; therore it must be big” is an example. It may be a big house but there is no intrinsic connection with its being white.

　　12. Argument ad populum A group of kindergartens are studying a frog, trying to determine its sex. “I wonder if it’s a boy frog or a girl frog,” says one student. “I know how we can tell!” pipes up another. “All right, how?” asks the teacher, resigned to the worst. Beams the child: “We can vote.”

　　This is argumentum ad populum, the beli that truth can be determined by more or less putting it to a vote. Democracy is a very nice thing, but it doesn’t determine truth. Polls are good for telling you what people think, not whether those thoughts are correct.

　　7 Weapons to Beat GRE AWA Analytical Argument EssayYou can put or explain the flaws to rute down the argument in the following ways. Don’t go for rote memorializing of these constructions; just try to understand the framework or structure of putting the analysis of flaws in your essay.

　　First Weapon: Causal Oversimplification The author commits a fallacy of causal oversimplification. The line of the reasoning is that because A occurred bore B, the former event is responsible for the latter. (The author uses the positive correlation between A and B to establish causality. However, the fact that A coincides with B does not necessarily prove that A caused B.) But this is fallacious reasoning unless other possible causal explanations have been considered and ruled out. For example, perhaps C is the cause of these events or perhaps B is caused by D.

　　Second Weapon: Insufficient-sample The evidence the author provides is insufficient to support the conclusion drawn from it. One example is logically unsounded to establish a general conclusion (The statistics from only a few recent years are not necessarily a good indicator of future trends), unless it can be shown that A1 is representative of all A. It is possible that…. In fact, in face of such limited evidence, the conclusion that B is completely unwarranted.

　　Third Weapon: Based on a False Analogy The argument rests on the assumption that A is analogous to B in all respects. This assumption is weak, since although there are points of comparison between A and B, there is much dissimilarity as well. For example, A…, however, B…. Thus, it is likely much more difficult for B to do….

　　Forth Weapon: Gratuitous Assumption The author falsely depends on gratuitous assumption that…. However, no evidence is stated in the argument to support this assumption. In fact, this is not necessarily the case. For example, it is more likely that…. Therore, this argument is unwarranted without ruling out such possibility

　　Fifth Weapon: Either-Or Choice The author assumes that AA and BB are mutually exclusive alternatives and there is no room for a middle ground. However, the author provides no reason for imposing an either-or choice. Common sense tells us that adjusting both AA and BB might produce better results.

　　Sixth Weapon: All Things Are Equal The author commits the fallacy of “all things are equal”. The fact that happened two years ago is not a sound evidence to draw a conclusion that…. The author assumes without justification that the background conditions have remained the same at different times or at different locations. However, it is not clear in this argument whether the current conditions at AA are the same as they used to be two years ago. Thus it is impossible to conclude that….

　　Seventh Weapon: Survey Is Doubtful The poll cited by the author is too vague to be informative. The claim does not indicate who conducted the poll, who responded, or when, where and how the poll was conducted. (Lacking information about the number of people surveyed and the number of respondents, it is impossible to access the validity of the results. For example, if 200 persons were surveyed but only 2 responded, the conclusion that…would be highly suspect. Because the argument offers no evidence that would rule out this kind of interpretations,) Until these questions are answered, the results of the survey are worthless.

　　以上就是澳际小编分享的GMAT七宗罪的出处和原文分享，不知道是否对大家有所启发，最后也预祝大家在GMAT考试中取得佳绩。