Joe Lau's wiki: Courses/2008b GRSC 6010 Ans
Take home test
- Everyone has passed - some after revisions.
- Your answer scripts will be sent to the Graduate School and it will tell you when you can pick them up (if you want to).
Suggested answers
- If ABC is necessary but not sufficient for X, then every X is ABC, but not every case of ABC is X. In other words, the definition is too wide (some ABC is not X). An example: pig = a mammal.
- Good arguments cannot be circular, but a sound argument might be.
- Premises and conclusions are statements, and they can be true or false, but an argument is not a statement and should not be described as true or false. We should instead evaluate an argument in terms of validity, inductive strength, etc.
- There are many reasons. A hypothesis in the form of an existential claim cannot be falsified on the basis on negative observation, e.g. we cannot prove that "there are green bears" is false just because we haven't seen any. Also, probabilistic claims cannot be falsified (in Popper's sense).
- Not necessary. In some special cases, C can cause E even if C in general does not correlate positively with E. A balloon popping might happen to cause someone to have a heart attack, but in general there might not be any correlation between the two.