Inductive Logic Journal Assignments

At the beginning of the semester create a Google account, and then create a single Google doc titled last name Inductive Logic.  The title of the document is up in the left hand corner.  All of your written work for the semester will be put into this document.   

Video:  Creating a Google Doc    

Each week, you will add a writing assignment to this document.   (Do not create separate documents for the different assignments).   There are detailed instructions about Google accounts and documents on the syllabus. You will have one Google doc and all of these journal entries will be added to it.  Each week, put the new one at the top of the document and give that section the whole, exact title from the instructions in bold print.  So for the first one, the title would be:  1 The Planning Fallacy.  

Grading Criteria for the Journal:  There are too many students and too many video project entries for me to give many individual comments or grades on the Video Projects.  I will give some feedback early in the semester, but after that, it will be up to the student to follow these instructions:

1)  All of the entries must be completed.  Any missing projects will result in a proportional reduction in the overall grade.  

2) Use multiple, indented paragraphs, with clear thesis sentences and developed answers to the questions.  

3)  All of the journal entries must be completed on time.  The time and date when it was submitted is available to me in the Revision History tab of Google Docs.  Any revisions that occur after the due date will also be evident in the Revision History view.  Late assignments will not be accepted.  

4)  All of the questions in the individual projects must be addressed.  And they must be addressed specifically and thoroughly.  Copy and paste the full particular assignment directly into the document, then answer each question directly and at length.  Entries that fail to quote and answer each question will be graded down.     

5) It will vary from project to project, but doing a thorough and acceptable job of addressing the questions will typically take at least 300 words.  A few sentences or two short paragraphs won't be sufficient.   

6)  The entries must be completely free of spelling, grammar, and structure errors.  They must meet the standards of written college English.  Any entries that have spelling, grammar, and writing structure errors will not receive credit.  Entries that are a single block of text with no paragraphs or thesis sentence organization will not receive credit.  

7)  The entries must reflect a clear understanding of the arguments, concepts, principles, and distinctions that the philosopher in the video makes.  The entries must be long enough and detailed enough to reflect your understanding.

8) If you are in doubt, write more.  Take the opportunity to expand on the topic and questions under consideration.  Offer some of your own ideas in addition to addressing the project questions.  Entries that are only 5 sentences long, for example, will not receive credit.

During the semester, and at the end, I will review all of your entries.  The grade on this portion of the coursework will be proportional to the extent to which they meet all of these criteria.

Grades for journal entries will not appear in the Canvas Gradebook.  (The Canvas Gradebook will not reflect all of the grades for the course or your overall grade).

Note on ChatGPT and Large language models: these questions will not be adequately answered for the purposes of our course by ChatGPT or other Large Language Models.  Furthermore, the questions have been made specific in ways that will reveal the use of LLMs and their limitations. 

Here are the assignments:  

1  Making Plans

Study this lecture from Prof. McCormick:

Describe the mistake that Prof. McCormick is discussing as clearly and accurately as you can, paying close attention to the way he characterizes is.  What exactly is the mistake?   When do people commit it?  When is it exposed as a fallacy?  Given what he says about it, when would we expect people to make it?  If you were making the mistake in a situation, what would you be thinking?  What are some strategies for preventing it?  What are some examples in your life where you may have committed it?  How might this fallacy be relevant to how you are planning your work for this semester at the university?    

The title of this entry should be 1 Making Plans.  (Please do not center justify any parts of your entries: the titles or the text.)  This will be the first entry in your Google Doc that has the name last name Inductive Logic that you created according to the instructions on the syllabus and shared with mccormick@csus.edu. This entry is due by 11:59 pm, Sunday, Sept. 3.  Your entry should be at least 300 words long.  Quote the questions and answer each carefully in composed paragraphs.  It should conform to the writing standards of college English.  

2  Selective Proof:

Read this article:  http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/06/23/confirmation-bias/

Study this lecture from Prof. McCormick:

Describe and define the mistake that Prof. McCormick and McRaney are discussing as accurately and succinctly as you can, being sensitive to their characterizations.  What's different, if anything, about the way the two of them describe the problem?  How does the mistake, as they characterize it, manifest in our thinking and reasoning?  What do they think is unreliable about reasoning this way?  Give a realistic example, preferably from a real case in your life, of someone making the mistake as McCormick and McRaney have described it.  Explain how the evidence should have been gathered and evaluated in the example in a way that avoided the mistake. Give an example of a case where committing confirmation bias could cause significant harm.  Do students commit Confirmation Bias when they think about their grades in a course?  Explain the measures that you would take to avoid this mistake in that case or other instances.  What policy could a person adopt that would correct for it, being sensitive to McCormick's and McRaney's discussion.   

Put this entry at the top of your last name Inductive Logic Google doc, pushing the entry from last week down.  (Please do not center justify any parts of your entries: the titles or the text.) Make sure that you have shared the whole document with the instructor:  mccormick@csus.edu.  You only need to share the document once.  It is due by 11:59 pm, Sunday, Sept. 10. It should be titled 2 Selective Proof.   Your entry should be at least 300 words long.  Quote the questions and answer each carefully in composed paragraphs.  It should conform to the writing standards of college English.  

3 Why The Facts Don't Change Our Minds:

Read this article:  Why the Facts Don't Change Our Minds at the New Yorker. Give a clear, accurate summary of the three different answers to the title question given by the three sets of authors discussed:  Mercier and Sperber,  Sloman and Fernbach, and Gorman and Gorman.  What lessons should we learn from the problem that is exposed and discussed here?  

Put this entry at the top of your last name Inductive Logic Google doc, pushing the entry from last week down.  (Please do not center justify any parts of your entries: the titles or the text.) Make sure that you have shared the whole document with the instructor:  mccormick@csus.edu.  You only need to share the document once.  It is due by 11:59 pm, Sunday, Sept. 17. It should be titled 3 Facts.   Your entry should be at least 300 words long.  Quote the questions and answer each carefully in composed paragraphs.  It should conform to the writing standards of college English.  

4 How Your Mind Works

Study the discussion in this video:

How your mind works, with Daniel Kahneman

Also read Kahneman in chapters 8 and 18 for his discussion of the same point there.  According to Kahneman, what is the mistake that we make about the woman? What specific argument does he make about this point in chapter 8 and in chapter 18?  What are we prone to think about her, once we know the childhood fact about her?  How does that distort our beliefs?  How does Kahneman suggest we rethink the Julie case to form a better answer to the question?  

Put this entry at the top of your last name Inductive Logic Google doc, pushing the entry from last week down.  (Please do not center justify any parts of your entries: the titles or the text.) Make sure that you have shared the whole document with the instructor:  mccormick@csus.edu.  You only need to share the document once.  It is due by 11:59 pm, Sunday, Sept. 24. It should be titled 4 How Your Mind Works.   Your entry should be at least 300 words long.  Quote the questions and answer each carefully in composed paragraphs.  It should conform to the writing standards of college English

 5 Being Optimistic 

Read this story, or listen to the podcast:  Optimism Bias and the Obesity Epidemic      Also, study this lecture closely:  Tali Sharot's TED Talk on the Optimism Bias

According to the article and the video, where does the mistake manifest in our lives? What exactly is the mistake as characterized by Sharot vs. the article?  What differences, if any, are there between the ways the mistake is described?  Is it possible, given the way it's been characterized in these sources, that the mistake could have a positive effect on our reasoning?  What are the negative effects that they describe?  Can you give examples from your life where you or people near you have committed it?  Should we work to avoid making this mistake?  Where would it be helpful to avoid it?  How can we identify it and then prevent it?   

Put this at the top of your Google Doc with the title 5 Optimism It is due by 11:59 pm, Sunday, Oct. 1.   Your entry should be at least 300 words long.  Quote the questions and answer each carefully in composed paragraphs.  It should conform to the writing standards of college English.  

6  Regression Study this lecture closely:  

Given what the speaker argues, what conclusion should we draw about the effects of positive or negative feedback on human performance?  What is the larger argument he's making?  What is actually going on here when people's performance changes?  Why did it appear at first that punishment was more effective than reward?  How does he characterize the difference between his topic and the gambler's fallacy?  What's the problem he describes for medical research on a drug?  What role does he say random chance is playing here to deceive us?  How does he say random chance make a speed camera appear to be effective?    

Put the entry at the top of your Google Doc with the title 6 Regression.  It is due by 11:59pm, Sunday, Oct. 8.  Your entry should be at least 300 words long.  Quote the questions and answer each carefully in composed paragraphs.  It should conform to the writing standards of college English.   

7 Conspiracy Theories and Suspicion  Read this article carefully:  Suspicion Makes Us Human.  What is the author's thesis?  What is his argument?  What are the important concepts that he utilizes in this argument?  

Now read this article:  Pizzagate Conspiracy Theory Thrives Anew in the Tik Tok Era.  How do social media, the Internet, and people's cognitive tendencies contribute to their belief in and promotion of conspiracy theories?  How does van Prooijen's explanation apply to these cases.  What is it about these conspiracy theories that is making them popular and making them spread?  what is it about people's cognitive dispositions that is making them prone to believe?  What are the general features of conspiracy theories that are giving them traction in people's belief systems?  

Put the entry at the top of your Google Doc with the title 7 Conspiracy It is due by 11:59pm, Sunday, Oct. 15.  Your entry should be at least 300 words long.  It should conform to the writing standards of college English.  

8 Upside Down  Study this lecture from Professor McCormick: 

What is McCormick's account of the mistake?  Being sensitive to how he defines and explains it, what exactly is the mistake?  What would be a more rational approach to these situations? Give some other examples of of the mistake that are analogous to the one's he describes in the lecture.  What can someone do to correct for or avoid the mistake locally?  How might a policy help?  

Put the entry at the top of your Google Doc with the title 8 Upside Down It is due by 11:59pm, Sunday, Oct. 22.  Your entry should be at least 300 words long.  It should conform to the writing standards of college English.  

9 Reasoning to a Goal

Study this lecture from Professor McCormick:

Give McCormick's definition of the mistake from the video?  Why is it a mistake?  When and how could it lead us to the wrong conclusions? Why is it an unreliable or poor way to reason?  Do your feelings contribute to the mistake?  If a prosecutor or an investigator is trying to solve a crime, how could this mistake lead them astray?  Contrast the mistake here to the mistake we discussed in the second journal entry.  If someone doesn't want to accept global warming, or evolution, or the safety of vaccines, how could the mistake in this lecture cause a problem?  What could be the indicators that we are guilty of it?  What is the best way to prevent it from happening?  What is the reasoning strategy that we should adopt that would be better?  

Put this at the top of your Google Doc with the title 9 Reasoning to a Goal.  It is due by 11:59 pm, Sunday, Oct. 29.   Your entry should be at least 300 words long.  Quote the questions and answer each carefully in composed paragraphs.  It should conform to the writing standards of college English.  

10 Stubborn Read this article carefully: McRaney: You are Not so Smart   Give McRaney's definition of the mistake and explain it.  In what kinds of circumstances does it happen? Given that the mistake happens, what is the significance for us when we fine ourselves in a disagreement with someone, especially over political or contentious issues? What can we do about the problem in our own minds when we are considering our own beliefs and contrary evidence that we encounter from the outside? Given what he says about it, how could someone use misinformation or deliberate lies to their advantage in public debates or forums? What's the final, corrected conclusion about spanking in the article?

Put this entry at the top of your Google Doc with the title 10 Stubborn. It is due by 11:59 pm, Sunday, Nov. 5. Your entry should be 300+ words. It should be free of grammatical, spelling and composition errors. See the Philosophy Department Writing Guidelines for guidance. Paste all of the questions from above into your document and write well-composed paragraphs around each one.

11 Am I Sick?  Read this article:  How to think about Probabilities and Covid Testing  In the testing problems that McCormick describes, give at least three of the different base rates and explain how and why they are different?  Give at least two of the likelihood probabilities that he discusses and explain how they are arrived at.  Why does the false positive rate matter in his problems?  What is it?  What are the circumstances, according to McCormick, given the way that Bayes' Theorem works, where a positive test does not mean that a person has Covid?   Give an example like the ones in the essay, where you supply a base rate and the accuracy rate and you caculate whether someone has the virus.  

Put this entry at the top of your Google Doc with the title 11 Am I Sick? It is due by 11:59 pm, Sunday, Nov. 12. Your entry should be 300+ words. It should be free of grammatical, spelling and composition errors. See the Philosophy Department Writing Guidelines for guidance. Paste all of the questions from above into your document and write well-composed paragraphs around each one.

12 Gaylef on Bayes' Theorem  Study this video carefully.  State Gaylef's general conclusion or main theme here, and give a clear, concise explanation of the arguments and examples that she gives for it.  What is her specific approach to understanding Bayes' Theorem and how it applies to her real world cases?  How does she think it can help us make decisions or form beliefs?

Put the entry at the top of your Google Doc with the title 12 Gaylef.  It is due by 11:59 pm on Sunday, Nov. 19.  Your entry should be at least 300 words long.  Quote the questions and answer each carefully in composed paragraphs with clear thesis sentences.  It should conform to the writing standards of college English.   

13 Bad Decisions  Study this lecture from Dan Gilbert.

What is Gilbert's explanation in simple English of the formula?  How can it help us make right decisions in our lives?  What are the two sorts of errors that we make in these situations?  According to Gilbert, what sort of faulty conclusions do these two kinds of mistakes lead to?  What are his recommendations for measures should we take to reduce these mistakes?  How do comparisons lead us to make mistakes?  

Title:  13  Bad Decisions   Put this at the top of your Google Doc, pushing the others down.  (Please do not center justify any parts of your entries: the titles or the text.) It is due by 11:59, Sunday, Nov. 26.   Your entry should be at least 300 words long.  Quote the questions and answer each carefully in composed paragraphs.  It should conform to the writing standards of college English.  

14 Happy  Dan Gilbert explains the recent science of happiness 

The frontal cortex should be described as what, according to Gilbert in the lecture?  Explain.  What is demonstrated by the research about happiness and people in very different life situations?  What is impact bias on Gilbert's account in the lecture?    In his pop quiz, how would you imagine two possible futures, and how are we typically wrong about those?  How do we think about the future in contrast to how it actually unfolds?  What does he mean here by our "psychological immune system"?  What is Gilbert’s argument concerning how our subjective levels of happiness are established?  What does “synthesizing happiness” mean?  How does it work in our lives?  How is freedom related to happiness? 

Title:  14 Happy   Put this at the top of your Google Doc, pushing the others down.  (Please do not center justify any parts of your entries: the titles or the text.) It is due by 11:59, Sunday, Dec. 3.  Your entry should be at least 300 words long.  Quote the questions and answer each carefully in composed paragraphs.  It should conform to the writing standards of college English. 

15 The Scout Mindset Study this video carefully:  

How does Gaylef contrast scouts vs. soldiers, and what does it have to do with a particular mindset in the video?  What are the important differences between them?  What does Gaylef say are the various different aspects between the two approaches?  Which one is better for good critical reasoning?  Why?  How do emotions play a role in achieving good judgment, according to Gaylef?  

The title should be exactly this, in bold, at the top of your Google Doc: 15 Scout Mindset  It is due by 11:59pm, Sunday, Dec. 10. Your essay should be 300+ words. It should be free of grammatical, spelling, and composition errors. See the Philosophy Department Writing Guidelines for guidance. Paste all of the questions from above into your document and write well-composed paragraphs around each one.  Indent each paragraph.