Quiz #3 by Saltanat Oral

Phil 141: Critical Thinking

Due on Saturday, April 9th, at 11:30pm.

Instructions:

Each question comes with its own instructions. Please read them carefully. Your answers
should focus on the material from the unit on “Scientific Thinking.” (Material from other
units may be relevant, such as the material on informal fallacies, but there’s no need to draw
upon that. Our goal is just to test you on the “scientific thinking” material.)
________________________________________________________________________

1. I wanted to know how much time university students in Kazakhstan spend studying per
day. So I asked all NU students that were present on campus on January 15, 2022. In
such a survey, what are my target population, sampled population, and sample?

Target population: Students in Kazakhstan

Sampled population: NU students
Sample: Students present on campus

2. In my survey, assume that everyone I asked gave a response. Should we accept the
results of my survey as reliable regarding the general student population? Explain your
answer.

We cannot accept your results as reliable regarding the general student population. We
know that sample should represent the target population, and to do so a sample should
have the same relevant qualities as the target population (Foresman et al., Ch. 6, p. 177).
Your sample is not representative since the NU students who live on campus do not
share the same characteristics with the other students at KZ universities. NU and other
universities have different educational systems, requirements and even application
processes, etc.

3. Should we accept the results of my study as reliable regarding the NU student

population? Explain your answer.

Again, we cannot accept your results of study as reliable regarding the NU student
population also. Since you asked only those who are present on campus, your sample is
not randomized, so they are said to be biased, and do not represent the whole NU
students. Those who do not live on campus might be affected by many factors such as
family, the lack of personal space, time to reach the campus, work, etc. that may reduce
the time they spend for studying per day.

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4. If we want to determine whether cottontail rabbits have teeth, we need to survey how
many of them?

This is a two-step process. Before we sample cottontail rabbits, we need to find whether
this sample represent the whole population of them by identifying relevant characteristics
of these rabbits. In the first step we don’t know whether the external characteristics of
rabbits differ according to various factors such as habitat, age, season, size,
environmental conditions, climate, etc. Therefore, we need to stratify as many rabbits as
possible in accordance with the given factors. But, in this step we test only for their
characteristics in appearance.

Then, if we find out that cottontail rabbits are uniform in their physical characteristics,
we go to the next stage of determining whether they have teeth or not. Foresman et al.
state that “assessing whether or not a sample is representative depends upon what
characteristics are relevant” (Ch. 6, p. 178). Since we now know that all the cottontail
rabbits share the same relevant characteristics, surveying even only one rabbit as a
sample will be enough because this sample of one rabbit is sufficient to represent the
whole population of similar rabbits.

However, if the results of the first stage say that the physical characteristics of cottontail
rabbits differ depending on the tested factors, we need to survey at least one
representative from each category (e.g. different age, habitat, season, size, climate, etc.).

5. “Most nurses in this hospital are burned out, stressed out, and overworked. Just ask the
ones who work in the emergency department. They’ll tell you they’re absolutely
miserable” What is wrong with this argument? (See especially Foresman et al., ch. 6).

From the Chapter 6 of Foresman et al. reading we already know that the sample should
be representative of the target population by sharing the same relevant characteristics
with the target population, or otherwise it’s said to be a biased sample. In this example,
the target population is the nurses of that hospital, while the sample is those who work in
the emergency department. Here, we see the generalization of all nurses based on only
one department. This generalization should be avoided since the sample of nurses from
emergency department do not represent the target group (all nurses) because these nurses
do not share the same qualities. For example, even though emergency department nurses
are burned out, stressed out, and overworked, other nurses of this hospital who work less
might not feel themselves miserable. Emergency department has more calls, patients, so
more work and less time to rest than other department (different characteristics). In this
argument, the author is using biased sample instead of representative sample. I assume
his main goal was to show that all nurses overwork by relying on the sampling of only
those who indeed have more work, and not including those with less work.

6. This is a message posted on the Facebook page of someone who sells healing creams and
balms: “Your balm for varicose veins has truly helped. After one month of application, I
do not feel the pain in my legs!” The owner of the Facebook page posted this testimony
as evidence of the efficacy of their balm. What kind of evidence is this? Should it be
used as a reason to believe that the balm is really helpful? (See especially Foresman et
al., ch. 9, second excerpt.)

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 This is the example of the personal experience, and the testimony is the anecdotal
evidence. But this case should not be used as a reason to believe that the balm is helpful
indeed because, as Foresman et al. state, “we cannot rationally infer from one or two
instances something about whole population” (Ch. 9, p. 295).

First of all, there is no evidence that the pain in this man’s legs disappeared exactly
because of this cream. Foresman et al. say that human body is exposed to thousands of
different compounds daily. We do not know what exactly contributed to the treatment of
varicose veins. The human body itself can heal diseases over time.

Second, the human body is complex and unique, which means that even though this
cream cured one person it may not be effective when someone else will try it.

Third, according to Foresman et al., a sample of one is too small on the basis of which to
draw general conclusion. A sample of one case when balm for varicose helped doesn’t
represent the whole population with the disease. In order to examine whether these balms
and creams work, we need to provide experiments with control and treatment groups.
These experiments can be repeated several times to get the most accurate results.

7. Suppose we looked up the data on household incomes in Brazil and found that three
standard deviations captured about 75% of the data on household incomes. Suppose we
wanted to know what the average middle-class household income is in Brazil. (Define
the “middle class” as the middle third of the total number of households, when all
households are ordered by income.) The question is this: Given that three standard
deviations capture 75% of the data, would the average of all household incomes be a
good approximation of the mean middle-class income? Would the median or mode of all
household incomes be a better approximation? Explain your answers in detail.

If three standard deviations captured only 75% of the data, the data is not distributed
normally, so the average of all household incomes cannot be a good approximation of the
mean middle-class income. 75% is too small and seems unrealistic to represent the whole
middle-class income. Ideally, in order to be a good representative, these three SD’s
should capture 99.7% of the data.

Moreover, we cannot rely on the given data to examine what is the average middle-class
household income since these data represent the whole population of Brazil including
lower and higher classes. These classed share different characteristics, so sample should
be taken only from the middle-class in order to be representative and not biased.

Regarding the median and mode, I don’t think that the mode of all household incomes
would be a better approximation since if one value from lower/middle/upper class is
repeated several times, the conclusion will be made in favour of this number, and one
class would represent the whole population. But, if we consider the value in the middle
as the median and take into account the given definition of middle-class, I dare to suggest
that median number can be better approximation of the middle-class income.

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8. Describe in detail what a controlled experiment is. Please put this in your own words; do
not simply copy the description from our reading. Do not forget to define the different
kinds of variables and the different kinds of groups.

A controlled experiment is the experiment where our independent variable is

manipulated by researcher in order to examine the effect of different variables on our
dependent variable, which stays the same. Independent variable is the factor that
supposed to have an effect on/change something (dependent variable). Dependent
variable is the factor that we expect to be changed when our independent variable is
applied. In controlled experiment, researchers change the value/amount/rate/degree of
independent variable every time, while keeping the dependent variable the same. We call
this sample an experimental group. In contrast, we also have the control group, the
sample in which the independent variable does not vary, and we take this sample as the
standard.

For example, let’s assume that we are testing whether the temperature affects a person’s
mood. In this case, our independent variable is the temperature, whereas the dependent
variable is a person’s mood. The state of person at the room temperature is our control
group. We need to apply experimental group with different temperatures in order to
conduct a controlled experiment. At first, we need to keep everything else under control:
same person, day, room, place, pressure, light, and isolate other factors that might affect
person’s mood except for temperature such as pets, other people, calls, news, food, etc.
Then, we have to change temperatures and observe how a person’s mood changes every
time. This is how we conduct a controlled experiment.

9. “When TT theorists suggest that the placebo effect is irrelevant, this is a problem
because it entails that their theory is …” (Besides the TT reading, see especially the
handout “What makes for a good scientific theory?”)

When TT theorists suggest that the placebo effect is irrelevant, this is a problem because
it entails that their theory is … unjustified and not supported by verifiable
observations. Let’s check if TT theory is unjustified or not by using the guidelines
provided by Ted Parent (p. 3):

1. Unjustified theories advocate their views via the media and popular culture.
Indeed, many ideas that support TT theory and advocate it can be found on the
works/books of the proponents of TT, but not in scientific journals.

2. They tend to commit the appeal to the majority/authority fallacy.

According to Rosa et al. (1998), the proponents of TT try to prove the
effectiveness of it by stating that “more than 100,000 people worldwide have
been trained in TT technique” or “many professional nursing organizations
promote TT” or the past president of the American Nurses’ Association “has
written editorial defending TT against criticism” (p. 1005). Here, they are
committing both the appeal to the majority and authority fallacies. Even though
these much of people have practiced TT or this particular person defends TT, it
has nothing to do with actual efficiency of this technique.

3. They exhibit biases and ignore unfavourable evidence.

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 Gorski and Novella (2014) claim that various clinics have already tried to test
therapeutic touch with the help of RCTs and concluded “there is no evidence that
this [TT’s] healing energy even exists” (p. 473). This implies that despite the lack
of evidence that this method works, the proponents of TT continue to ignore this
fact and defend their theory.

4. They provide low-quality/anecdotal evidence.

Rosa et al. (1998) in their article criticize the research done by the supporters of
TT for complying “anecdotes,” and mention that many other scholars “seriously
questioned” the methods, credibility, and significance of these studies (pp. 1006-
1007).

These four criteria of unjustified theory show that TT theory is unjustified.

10. What are some grounds for doubting scientism?

a. We do not use scientific experiments to confirm that torturing cats is morally
wrong; however, it is still reasonable to believe that this is morally wrong.
b. Scientism conflates rejecting an unfalsifiable hypothesis with suspending
judgment on the hypothesis.
c. Science presupposes (without prior scientific verification) that human observation
is reliable and that “nature is uniform.”
d. Scientism itself seems not to be verified by scientific experiment.
e. These are all grounds for doubting scientism.