Name:_________________________________________________ Date:________________

Fallacies

Below are two invalid (or fallacious) arguments. Read them carefully and answer the questions which follow.

Standard: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.9-10.8 Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, assessing whether the reasoning is valid and the evidence is relevant and sufficient; identify false statements and fallacious reasoning.

It is Your Life that is Involved

…[T]he acceptance of abortion does not end with the killing of unborn human life. It continues on to affect our attitude toward all aspects of human life. This is most obvious in how quickly, following the acceptance of abortion, comes the acceptance of infanticide―the killing of babies who after birth do not come up to someone's standard of life worthy to be lived―and then on to euthanasia of the aged. If human life can be taken before birth, there is no logical reason why human life cannot be taken after birth.

Source: Francis A. Schaeffer, (1984), p. 39.

Is Schaeffer's argument for or against legalizing abortion?

__________________________________________________________________________

Is Schaeffer's argument valid? Why or why not?

__________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

A March of Middle-Class Miserabilists

The march was organised by the Stop Climate Chaos coalition, who estimate that 20,000 people turned up. It kicked off with a rally outside the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square to demand that the Bush administration ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Here, the demonstrators followed in the footsteps of that other well-known progressive Osama bin Laden (and numerous others, of course) who in a ‘Letter to America’ in 2002 accused it of having ‘destroyed nature with your industrial waste and gases more than any other nation in history, [yet] you refuse to sign the Kyoto agreement so that you can secure the profit of your greedy companies and industries’. This was almost the exact same argument made by most of the demonstrators, though I’m pleased to report that there was no ‘Al-Qaeda against climate change’ contingent.

Source: Brendan O’Neill, Spiked, 11/7/2006

What is O'Neill's stance on climate change?

__________________________________________________________________________

How does O'Neill make his case for/against climate change?

__________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

Is this valid reasoning?

__________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________