Pimply Stress

This mini-article on acne and anxiety raises a combo platter of questions relevant to what we're going over in class.

1) Reverse cause & effect: Does acne cause stress, or does stress cause acne?
2) Questionable statistics: Do you trust the stat that students were 23 percent more likely to experience breakouts around the time of a test? Is it a good study? A reliable source? An undemanding stat?
3) Questionable use of statistics: If the above statistic is true, is it reasonable to conclude that anxiety causes acne? Or is there another plausible explanation?

What say you?

Team Wal-Mart

Here are some links on the ethics of Wal-Mart:

• Is Wal-Mart good for the working class? Here's a great debate between an economist who says yes and an activist who says no.
• How did Wal-Mart become the biggest retailer? Some point to Sam Walton's big idea that lowering prices would increase total sales and lead to higher profits. But another important development was how Wal-Mart streamlined its inventory process.
  
• Yes, Wal-Mart has low prices, and apparently the prices at other stores also go down in the long run when a Wal-Mart comes to town.
• Here's an animated map of the growth of Wal-Mart across America.
  
• Here are many of the common criticisms of Wal-Mart.
  
• Beware of false dilemmas! This isn't a zero-sum game: Wal-Mart doesn't have to raise its prices to raise its wages.
• Here's the full episode of South Park about a "Wall-Mart" coming to town. Below are some clips from the episode.

Team Blaze

Here are some links on marijuana:

• Here's a recent article celebrating the 10-year anniversary of the groundbreaking study on the medical value of marijuana.
• The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency's case against legalizing drugs.
• Another classic defense of keeping drugs illegal.
• A case for keeping pot specifically illegal.
• Legalize Pot? We Think Not!
• Criminalizing pot keeps cops from doing police work, and crowds prisons.
• The two faces of America's drug policy.
• What was the Supreme Court thinking?
  
• A radio show on drug legalization. And another on pot laws.
• Facts on weed, from an organization trying to stop the drug war.
• Slippery Slope? Pot doesn't lead to heroin!

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Better Know a Lobby - Drug Lobby
colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor NASA Name Contest

Team Veggies!

Here are some links and a video on animal ethics:

• Vegetarians Still Love the Smell of Bacon
• David Foster Wallace: Consider the Lobster
• How to Cut Back on Meat Slowly
• What Is The Meatrix?
  
• Animal Research (Peter Singer's Sometimes OK with It!)
• Peter Singer on Michael Vick & Dog Fighting
  
• Audio Interview with Peter Singer
• Michael Pollan's "An Animal's Place"
• Is Worrying About the Ethics of Your Diet Elitist?
• Huge List of Resources on the Moral Status of Animals

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Peter Singer

Ron Paul Interview
Bob Barr Interview

Green Screen
Bill O'Reilly Interview

Fallacies, Fallacies, Everywhere

My best friend the inter-net has some nice examples of the fallacy of equivocation. Here are two good ones:

A feather is light.

What is light cannot be dark.
Therefore, a feather cannot be dark.

Margarine is better than nothing.

Nothing is better than butter.

Therefore, margarine is better than butter.

Also, speaking of non sequiturs, here's a cute cat picture:

Wait, we weren't just speaking of non sequit--Oh. I see what you did there.

Clever.

Homework #2

Homework #2 is due at the beginning of class on Monday, April 6th. The assignment is to answer Problems 1-18 (except DON'T do #6, #7, #9 or #12) in Exercise 4-1 on pages 86-88 of our textbook. Don't worry about explaining why the argument commits the fallacy. Also, these arguments don't just commit fallacies from chapter 4. Some commit fallacies from chapter 3.

(If you read this, write "Why is anything anything?" at the bottom of your homework to receive some extra points on the assignment.)

That's an Ad Hominem, You Jerk

Here's a cartoon on the ad hominem fallacy and hypocrisy. (Click on the comics to enlarge them.)

Get to studying, you ignorant sluts.

Midterm Reminder

Just a reminder: The midterm is this Friday (March 27th). It's worth 15% of your overall grade, and will cover everything we've done in class so far. We'll be reviewing for the midterm in class on Wednesday, so I'll be giving you details about the test then.

BE THERE.

Satan's Fingers? The Hospital Bombers?

OK, before we start rocking all night, perhaps we should come up with a name for our logic band. What's a good name for us? The Why Bads?

Hmmm... hopefully, you can come up with better names than that. Post some names in the comments to this post.

(Extra credit to anyone who knows what the title of this post refers to.)

Midterm & Paper Rescheduled

We decided in class to move the due date of the paper back to Friday, March 13th.

Also, we're pushing the midterm back to Friday, March 27th.

Finally, here are some tips (one and two) on writing philosophy papers.)

Check the Source

-via GraphJam

Begging the Dinosaur

Here is a comic and a video about the fallacy of begging the question. The first is one of Ryan North's Dinosaur Comics on the fallacy. (Click on the comic to enlarge it)

And here's a special video for Mims's logically delicious song "This is Why I'm Hot":

Let's Be Diplomatic: Straw Person

Here's a dinosaur comic on the straw man fallacy (click on the comic to enlarge it):

Another Snow Day!

Class is canceled today, Monday, March 2nd, because of the snow. In fact, all day and night classes at Camden County College are canceled.

Please go sledding! Take pictures!! SHOW THEM TO ME!!!

Penguin Digestion Experts? You Bet!

So you didn't believe me when I said that there are experts on the subject of penguin digestion? Oh, you did? Fine, well, I'll prove it to you, anyway. Here are some academic articles on the topic:

• Adjustments of gastric pH, motility and temperature during long-term preservation of stomach contents in free-ranging incubating king penguins from a 2004 issue of Journal of Experimental Biology
  
• Feeding Behavior of Free-Ranging King Penguins (Aptenodytes Patagonicus) from a 1994 issue of Ecology

Of course, no list would be complete without the often-cited, groundbreaking 1985 Ornis Scandinavica article:

• Differential Digestion of Fish and Squid in Jackass Penguins Spheniscus demersus

Perhaps my favorite, though, is the following:

• Pressures produced when penguins pooh—calculations on avian defaecation from a 2003 issue of Polar Biology
  

If any of these articles are above your head (I think they're all above mine!), you might like this, uh, simpler video demonstration of penguin digestion.