Invalid Arguments Research Articles

Choosing PLS path modeling as analytical method in European management research: A realist perspective

Today, there is heightened controversy about the value of partial least squares (PLS) path modeling as a quantitative research method, including within the domain of European management research. Critical lines of argument within the management and psychology literature assert that there is no reason to use PLS path modeling at all. At the same time, authors using PLS path modeling continue to advance fallacious arguments to justify their choice of method. This paper identifies flaws on both sides—invalid arguments in favor of using PLS path modeling and invalid arguments opposing its use—within the context of a unifying framework and a realist philosophy of science.

A popperian approach to rational argumentation in applied ethics

As a consequence of Hume’s famous is-ought problem, it may seem that no rational justification of a moral statement can ever be inferentially provided, and no argument typically used in applied ethics would ever deserve the title of rational justification. This paper aims to propose a fallibilist, non-foundationalist account of rational justification of a moral standpoint based on rational argumentation. This account will be developed within a noncognitivist theory of morality — a framework that seems to constitute the most challenging context for a similar attempt. First, the paper shows how we can have a good rational justification of a moral claim also if its (necessary) moral premises are neither indubitable nor properly inferentially justified, as long as we adopt what is called a Popperian solution to the “problem of prescriptive basic statements”. Second, it argues that a good rational justification of a moral claim does not need to be deductively valid. Using the idea that implicit presumptions introduced by invalid inferences can be monitored by a number of related critical questions, the article distinguishes between fallacious and non-fallacious invalid arguments, and examines how a use of an invalid non-fallacious argument can count as a rational justification of a moral position in applied ethics. However, applied ethics must do its part, and must be explicitly based on rational argumentation.

The King and Prisoner Puzzle: A Way of Introducing the Components of Logical Structures

The purpose of this paper is to provide issues related to student understanding of logical components that arise when solving word problems. We designed a logic problem called the King and Prisoner Puzzle - a linguistically simple, yet logically challenging problem. In this paper, we describe various student solutions to the puzzle and discuss the issues with students’ logic. In particular, it is thought-provoking that invalid arguments in students’ solutions to the puzzle are based on a lack of precise understanding of some basic logical components. This emphasizes the necessity of additional teaching to form mutual understanding of the meaning of the logical components.

The Selective Laziness of Reasoning

Reasoning research suggests that people use more stringent criteria when they evaluate others' arguments than when they produce arguments themselves. To demonstrate this "selective laziness," we used a choice blindness manipulation. In two experiments, participants had to produce a series of arguments in response to reasoning problems, and they were then asked to evaluate other people's arguments about the same problems. Unknown to the participants, in one of the trials, they were presented with their own argument as if it was someone else's. Among those participants who accepted the manipulation and thus thought they were evaluating someone else's argument, more than half (56% and 58%) rejected the arguments that were in fact their own. Moreover, participants were more likely to reject their own arguments for invalid than for valid answers. This demonstrates that people are more critical of other people's arguments than of their own, without being overly critical: They are better able to tell valid from invalid arguments when the arguments are someone else's rather than their own.

An Investigation of Pre-service Middle School Mathematics Teachers’ Ability to Conduct Valid Proofs, Methods Used, and Reasons for Invalid Arguments

The purposes of this study are to investigate Turkish pre-service middle school mathematics teachers’ ability in conducting valid proofs for statements regarding numbers and algebra in terms of their year of enrollment in a teacher education program, to determine the proof methods used in their valid proofs, and to examine the reasons for their invalid arguments. A proof questionnaire containing three proof statements was administered to 115 pre-service middle school mathematics teachers in a large state university in Ankara, Turkey. The results showed that more than half of the pre-service teachers were able to conduct valid proofs for the given statements. In terms of year levels, it was seen that the seniors were the least successful group in conducting valid proofs for each statement. When pre-service teachers’ valid proofs were analyzed, it was concluded that mathematical induction and direct proof were the mostly used methods for the given statements. When pre-service teachers’ invalid arguments were analyzed, it was seen that “inserting numbers to verify the given statement” and “rewriting the givens in the statement” were the common reasons for stating invalid arguments.

Development and necessary norms of reasoning.

The question of whether reasoning can, or should, be described by a single normative model is an important one. In the following, I combine epistemological considerations taken from Piaget’s notion of genetic epistemology, a hypothesis about the role of reasoning in communication and developmental data to argue that some basic logical principles are in fact highly normative. I argue here that explicit, analytic human reasoning, in contrast to intuitive reasoning, uniformly relies on a form of validity that allows distinguishing between valid and invalid arguments based on the existence of counterexamples to conclusions.

Modeling causal conditional reasoning data using SDT: caveats and new insights

Modeling causal conditional reasoning data using SDT: caveats and new insights

Fallacious argumentation in student reasoning: Are there benefits?

This article reports on an analysis of episodes of invalid or controversial arguments that occurred while two different groups of students worked on similar fraction tasks and examine the role that these types of arguments played in the development of students' reasoning. One group consisted of suburban, middle-class, fourth graders who worked on these tasks during the regular school day. The other group was comprised of sixth-graders from an urban community working on similar tasks as part of an informal learning after-school project. The findings of this study indicate that allowing students to share and discuss incorrect arguments promoted rich mathematical discourse and argumentation. The invalid arguments triggered the use of varied reasoning by other students and cleared up previous [mis]understandings.

Modeling for fairness: A Rawlsian approach

In this paper we introduce the overlapping design consensus for the construction of models in design and the related value judgments. The overlapping design consensus is inspired by Rawls’ overlapping consensus. The overlapping design consensus is a well-informed, mutual agreement among all stakeholders based on fairness. Fairness is respected if all stakeholders’ interests are given due and equal attention. For reaching such fair agreement, we apply Rawls’ original position and reflective equilibrium to modeling. We argue that by striving for the original position, stakeholders expel invalid arguments, hierarchies, unwarranted beliefs, and bargaining effects from influencing the consensus. The reflective equilibrium requires that stakeholders’ beliefs cohere with the final agreement and its justification. Therefore, the overlapping design consensus is not only an agreement to decisions, as most other stakeholder approaches, it is also an agreement to their justification and that this justification is consistent with each stakeholders’ beliefs. For supporting fairness, we argue that fairness qualifies as a maxim in modeling. We furthermore distinguish values embedded in a model from values that are implied by its context of application. Finally, we conclude that for reaching an overlapping design consensus communication about properties of and values related to a model is required.

Why should i comply? Sellers' accounts for (non-)compliance with legal age limits for alcohol sales

BackgroundAvailability is an important predictor of early and excessive alcohol consumption by adolescents. Many countries have implemented age limits to prevent underage purchases of alcohol. However, shop-floor compliance with these age limits appears to be problematic. This study addresses the issue of non-compliance with age limits. Which measures do vendors take to avoid underage alcohol sales, and what do they report as important reasons to comply or not with age limits for alcohol sales?MethodsOpen-ended telephone interviews were conducted with store managers selling alcohol (N = 106). Prior to the interviews, all outlets were visited by an underage mystery shopper in order to measure compliance with the legal age limits on alcohol sales. The interview results are compared against actual compliance rates.ResultsSeveral measures have been taken to prevent underage sales, but the compliance level is low. Furthermore, open coding resulted in 19 themes, representing both valid and invalid arguments, that vendors mentioned as relevant to their decisions of whether to comply with the law. Compliance with age limits is dependent on the knowledge of the rules and the ability and motivation to follow the rules. The ability aspect in particular seems to be problematic, but in many cases, the motivation to actively comply with the age limits is lacking.ConclusionsTo enhance compliance, it is important to raise the awareness of the importance of age limits and to connect possible violations of the regulations to negative consequences.

Тестирование драйверов файловых систем в ОС Linux

The paper investigates issues of Linux file system driver testing. Linux file system drivers are implemented as kernel modules, which works in the same address space as kernel core. For that reason, the driver should be very reliable. It should react adequately to incorrect file system images, to faults in operating system, etc. Also drivers should free all resources it requests as far as kernel have to work for long time without restart. Another important feature of file system drivers is that they are programs with multiple entry points, which may be executed simultaneously in respect with each other and with other kernel code. Most of existing test systems verify only driver's behavior in normal situations by calling system calls, which are eventually dispatched by the kernel into the driver's functions. Some of them also check driver in concurrent scenarios but only at very basic level. Some test systems also verify driver's behavior under faulty environment, when request for memory allocation or disk read/write may fail. But fault scenarios used in those systems are probabilistic, which leads to problems with tests' reproducibility and requires to repeat tests many times to achieve better coverage. There is one test system, which checks for memory leaks in the driver under test. The paper concludes by statement of requirements for more throughout file system driver testing. According to the requirements a test system have to cover the following aspects: Normal scenarios on system calls level. Parallel scenarios with additional checks for data races. Fault scenarios with insufficient memory and faulty block devices using such techniques as fault injection. Handling of incorrect file system images. Driver testing on system calls with invalid arguments. Check leaks of memory and other resources requested by driver under test.

Role-Based Panel Discussions to Teach Socio-Economic Consequences of Wastewater Treatment

Wastewater treatment is getting more and more complex. From a biotechnological point of view, numerous new treatment techniques have been established in the past two decades to meet the increasing need to remove harmful substances. In addition, wastewater treatment is governed by socio-economic and geopolitical interests. As discussions outside the scientific community often include irrational reasoning, students need to be trained to react to invalid arguments. By use of a role-based panel discussion, this goal could be reached.

Squib: A deflationary account of invited inferences

This squib reconsiders Geis & Zwicky’s influential proposal on Invited Inference, according to which conditionals are regularly “perfected” to biconditionals. We first show that the “regularity” assumption attached to conditional perfection is doubtful in light of established experimental findings concerning other logical terms, such as Some and or and the conjunction and. We then review existing conditional data with the aim of making them cohere with these other experimental findings. We argue that (a) the process that leaves the impression of a biconditional reading (the acceptance of a fallacious argument such as the Affirmation of the Consequent) arises only after all participants detect a violation on-line from what is essentially a surprising minor premise and that; (b) some participants make an effort to adjust to such unexpected violations at a relatively small cognitive cost in order to accept invalid arguments while others persist in rejecting whatever follows and at a greater cognitive cost. Both of these features of conditional processing undermine claims from Geis & Zwicky’s proposal.

On the design and function of rational arguments

AbstractIt is unclear how an argumentative environment would select for better reasoning given three general findings. First, argument rationality typically fails to persuade poor reasoners. Second, reasoned argumentation competes with more persuasive and less rational arguments for limited cognitive resources. Third, those poor at reasoning fail to distinguish between valid and invalid arguments. Reasoning, therefore, is poorly designed for argument.

Explaining Trends in Body Weight: Offer's Rational and Myopic Choice vs Elias' Theory of Civilizing Processes

Avner Offer argues that the current increase in average body weight arises from a problem of self-control. Self-control is a central concept in Norbert Elias' theory of civilizing processes, but Offer rejects this theory as an explanation for the trend. I show in this paper that Offer's rejection of this theory is based on invalid arguments. Furthermore, considering the empirical data, I demonstrate that the new environment of abundance is not accompanied by a general decline in self-control, as Offer argues, but leads to a differentiated increase in new forms of self-control, as can be explained by Elias' theory. Like Offer, I argue for an explanation for the trends in body weight from an anthropometric historical perspective. The starting point, however, should be social differentiation. Finally, I clarify the concept of self-control, as this is a debated issue.

Kant's First Paralogism

In the chapter of the Critique of Pure Reason entitled “The Paralogisms of Pure Reason” Kant seeks to explain how rationalist philosophers, including thinkers of the caliber of Descartes and Leibniz, could have arrived at what he considers to be certain erroneous, “dogmatic” conclusions about the nature of the self or soul. His diagnosis has two main components: first, the positing of “Transcendental Illusion”—a pervasive intellectual illusion, modeled on perceptual illusion, which predisposes us to accept as sound certain invalid arguments for substantive theses about the nature of the soul; second, the identification of the relevant fallacies. This essay examines Kant's account in the First Paralogism of how these two elements combine to produce the doctrine that the soul is a substance. It is argued that Kant has a novel, ingenious—and even somewhat plausible—account of how the rational psychologist might arrive at such a view. It is further argued that the source of the fallacy in the first paralogism is a confusion about the very nature of conceivability and that, in identifying this confusion, Kant makes a philosophical contribution of lasting value.

Formal and Informal Fallacies in Anaesthesia

Formal and informal fallacies refer to errors in reasoning or logic, which result from invalid arguments. Formal fallacies refer to arguments that have an invalid structure or 'form', while informal fallacies refer to arguments that have incorrect or irrelevant premises. There are many formal and informal fallacies that could theoretically occur in anaesthesia practice or in the appraisal of anaesthesia research. This paper describes several such potential fallacies. It is possible that a greater awareness, recognition and discussion of these logic-based errors will lead to improved patient safety and more informed appraisal of clinical research.

Assessing the belief bias effect with ROCs: It's a response bias effect.

A belief bias effect in syllogistic reasoning (Evans, Barston, & Pollard, 1983) is observed when subjects accept more valid than invalid arguments and more believable than unbelievable conclusions and show greater overall accuracy in judging arguments with unbelievable conclusions. The effect is measured with a contrast of contrasts, comparing the acceptance rates for valid and invalid arguments with believable and unbelievable conclusions. We show that use of this measure entails the assumption of a threshold model, which predicts linear receiver operating characteristics (ROCs). In 3 experiments, subjects made "valid"/"invalid" responses to syllogisms, followed by confidence ratings that allowed the construction of empirical ROCs; ROCs were also constructed from a base-rate manipulation in one experiment. In all cases, the form of the empirical ROCs was curved and therefore inconsistent with the assumptions of Klauer, Musch, and Naumer's (2000) multinomial model of belief bias. We propose a more appropriate, signal detection-based model of belief bias. We then use that model to develop theoretically sound and empirically justified measures of decision accuracy and response bias; those measures demonstrate that the belief bias effect is simply a response bias effect. Thus, our data and analyses challenge existing theories of belief bias because those theories predict an accuracy effect that our data suggest is a Type I error. Our results also provide support for processing theories of deduction that assume responses are driven by a graded argument-strength variable, such as the probability heuristic model proposed by Chater and Oaksford (1999).

General aptitude and the assumption of truth in deductively rational reasoning about probable but false antecedent to consequent relations

Two experiments (N1 = 117 and N2 = 245) on reasoning with knowledge-rich conditionals showed a main effect of logical validity, which was due to the negative effect of counter-examples being smaller for valid than for invalid arguments. These findings support the thesis that some people tend to inhibit background inconsistent with the hypothetical truth of the premises, while others tend to abandon the implicit truth-assumption when they have factual evidence to the contrary. Findings show that adhering to the truth-assumption in the face of conflicting evidence to the contrary requires an investment of time and effort which people with a higher general aptitude are more likely to do.

"It Never Entered My Mind": The Problematic Theodicy of Theistic Determinism

Abstract This article evaluates contemporary expressions of compatibilist theodicy that identify God as the primary agent of evil. The author questions this conclusion by appealing to God's sovereignty in Scripture, the basic semantics of רָעָה, exegesis of crux passages, biblical theology comprehensively understood, and historical theology accurately quoted. In each arena, the author exposes invalid arguments and presuppositions expressive of theistic determinism. The author then arrives at a different conclusion.