irenetea看过来关于第六宗罪

10. The following appeared in the editorial section of a local newspaper.

“This past winter, 200 students from Waymarsh State College traveled to the state capitol building to protest against proposed cuts in funding for various state college programs. The other 12,000 Waymarsh students evidently weren’t so concerned about their education: they either stayed on campus or left for winter break. Since the group who did not protest is far more numerous, it is more representative of the state’s college students than are the protesters. Therefore the state legislature need not heed the appeals of the protesting students.”

Discuss how well reasoned... etc.

The conclusion in this argument is that the state legislature need not consider the views of protesting students. To support this conclusion, the author points out that only 200 of the 12,000 students traveled to the state capitol to voice their concerns about proposed cuts in college programs. Since the remaining students did not take part in this protest, the author concludes they are not interested in this issue. The reasoning in this argument is flawed for two reasons.

First, the author assumes that because only one-tenth of the students took part in the protest, these students’ views are unrepresentative of the entire student body. This assumption is unwarranted. If it turns out, for example, that the protesting students were randomly selected from the entire student body, their views would reflect the views of the entire college. Without information regarding the way in which the protesting students were selected, it is presumptuous to conclude that their opinions fail to reflect the opinions of their colleagues.

Second, the author cites the fact that the remaining 12,000 students stayed on campus or left for winter break as evidence that they are not concerned about their education. One obvious rejoinder to this line of reasoning is that the students who did not participate did so with the knowledge that their concerns would be expressed by the protesting students. In any case, the author has failed to demonstrate a logical connection between the students’ alleged lack of concern and the fact that they either stayed on campus or left for winter break. Without this connection, the conclusion reached by the author that the remaining 12,000 students are not concerned about their education is unacceptable.

As it stands, the argument is not well reasoned. To make it logically acceptable, the author would have to demonstrate that the protesting students had some characteristic in common that biases their views, thereby nullifying their protest as representative of the entire college.

不好意思我又想当然了。记得当时是这个错误来着，仔细看看发现又错了。

直接说吧，不找文章了。这种错误就是对survey进行攻击的。

可能出现的错误如下：

1不知道调查的执行者和接受调查者的身份。这将直接影响调查的可信度。因为这可能包含了一个主观色彩在里面。比如对布什的民意测验只在texas进行，那就不可信。

2不知道参加调查的绝对人数。那么表面上很多人赞成或者很多人都反对是没有意义的。2000算不算多？这要相对看，如果总体是2100那是绝对多数如果总体是200000呢？

3其实我给你举的这个例子也算勉强搭边。就是不知道调查的取样方式。是随机的还是有条件的挑选？如果是随机挑选，小样本也可以反映大的统计对象的情况。这道题就是这样。如果那些学生是随机挑出来的，那么不能说明学生大多数是不关心教育的。