Assignment Example on Using the Scientific Method to Challenge our Thinking

Review van Cleave (2016) Chapter 3. If we need to make complex inferences, what intellectual virtues does Van Cleave argue we should employ?

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Intellectual virtues are the individualized qualities of strength that are required to promote learning and thinking. On the other hand, an inference is a conclusion that is made through the use of available evidence and proper reasoning. One of the important intellectual virtues used in inference making is knowledge, making a good inference require one to be knowledgeable. The more knowledgeable an individual means that they will have a broad perception of the point of inference which makes it possible to make the right inference. The lack of knowledge makes one not suited to make the right inference. Another aspect of intellectual virtue that is used in inference making is the cognitive ability. Cognitive abilities are the brain skills that enable one to solve problems and are based on one's ability to learn, remember, pay attention and solve the problem at hand (Salmon, 2012). Cognitive skills are not dependent on the actual knowledge of an individual but a group of cognition features such as perception, decision making, motor skills, social skills and language skills that allow human interactions. The cognitive abilities can be used in inference making and they are supported by neuron functions which are coordinated together to make the inference based on the perceived stimuli which require memory, attention, visual, and special skills. Lastly, proper inference making requires one to have the right character because a bad character can hinder one the ability to make the correct inference due to carelessness, impatience, arrogance, dishonesty, and distraction. Therefore, to make a good inference, one requires to be knowledgeable on the subject, have high cognitive abilities, and also possess the right character (Salmon, 2012).

Discuss an example from your professional or personal life where these virtues would help strengthen your ability to make logical inferences.

When not in school, I work part-time in a restaurant in town as a waiter in the evenings. One evening I encountered a customer seated in at the far end of the restaurant seating space who was sweating profusely and after taking her order when I came back she was not seated at the spot where I had left I inferred that she had left because the meal took longer to get prepared. However, after returning the meal back to the kitchen the customer reappeared and angered that I was taking too long to deliver her meal.

In the above situation, the intellectual virtues could have helped me make the right inference. Intellectual virtues according to Van Cleave allows one to assess the situation and making the correct judgment of the situation (Van, 2016). The intellectual virtues are innate qualities or character strengths that one accumulates over time from previous experiences and help in decision making or to come to a conclusion on a certain event. In this case, making an inference requires one to use the available evidence to make a conclusion of the situation but despite having knowledge enough of the restaurant I came to a wrong inference. Instead of rushing to make the conclusion that the customer had left because the meal took long I should have been patience enough to gather the necessary information to make the inference. Using knowledge as an intellectual virtue, I should have asked myself from the point where the client was where she could have gone. On right hand of where the client was seated there was no exit to the outside but on the left there was an exit to the ladies washrooms. In this case, I should have used the knowledge of the hotel to assess the situation. Having worked at the restaurant for 6 months, in my experience a patient does not abandon a meal which has already been ordered without informing any of the staff. Therefore, my inference was wrong because I failed to use knowledge and experience I had acquired to gather more information. My failure to make the right inference in the situation was not because I did not have knowledge of the restaurant and the regular procedure but I was distracted and intellectually hasty because there were many other customers that were waiting to be served. Another aspect of intellectual virtues that I could have used in this case was my cognitive abilities. Cognitive ability is an intellectual virtue that require one to remember, to learn and to pay attention in order to make the right inference. In this case, I underutilized my cognitive skills of remembering in which I did not use my previous experience to assess the situation and possible explanations (Bos et al., 2016). Using the cognitive abilities of the intellectual virtues I could have been able to remember what has happened in previous cases in which most of the time the customers rush to the washrooms. Also, I should have used character competency of being patient and giving it some time to see whether the customer will emerge again.

What misconceptions often rise around the idea of a scientific "theory"?

Scientific misconceptions occur due to the preconceived ideas and approaches that are based on the religious and cultural backgrounds of the people. Scientific misconceptions can be referred to as the alternative frameworks of a concept or a problem. Misconceptions have their roots in intuition and interactions between human beings. Most of the common scientific misconceptions include the preconceived notions of a scientific theory or a problem, conceptual variances, factual misconceptions, and the cultural and religious beliefs which makes the use of scientific theories defer from one person to another (Potvin & Cyr, 2017).

What are the characteristics of good scientific theories?

A scientific theory is an established hypothesis of a phenomenon and a good scientific theory should be supported by actual research that is based on a scientific method. A good scientific theory should be testable based on the scientific research or experiment. A theory can only be proved right or wrong based on the evidence accrued from a research. However, although a theory is testable in nature it cannot be proved as an absolute truth because it is an interpretation and interpretations vary based on the available data and cannot remain constant. A good scientific theory is replicable, consistent and stable which means that it can be repeated by other people and also the principles of the theory should not contradict from one researcher to another and when the research is carried out the results should agree with previous results. Internally and externally a good scientific theory should be consistent in that the claims towards the theory should be consistent and also the theory should agree with other theories that have been identified as valid (Potvin & Cyr, 2017).

Review Van Cleave (2016) Chapter 3. Look at the example of Linda the bank teller (p. 175). Now answer the following questions:

What is the conjunction fallacy?

Conjunction fallacy refers to the problematic reasoning in which one infers that a conjunction has a higher chance of being true or the likelihood of a conjunction to happen is high than just a single aspect of the conjuncts. For instance, in Linda the bank teller case most of the people will vote for the conjunction that instead of a single conjunct based on the fallacy that more detailed conditions are more likely to be true compared to the general facts. According to Van Cleave, the problem with conjunction fallacies is that the conjunction probability is equal to either conjunct and the conjunction is not more than either of the conjuncts involved. Therefore, a conjunction fallacy occurs when one makes the decision of probability towards the conjunction and not any of the conjuncts that makes the conjunction (Van, 2016).

Where have you committed this fallacy in your professional or personal life?

An example of a conjunction fallacy in normal life is when one is encountered by a conjunction fallacy is deciding the identity of most philanthropists in the community because of the conjunction that they can be politicians and businessmen. When faced with this conjunction, I usually make the judgment that the philanthropist is both a politician and a businessman instead of either of the conjuncts. This is because it is more probable that the philanthropist is both a businessman and a politician and the probability of the individual conjunct diminishes.

What steps can you take to recognize and change your thinking?

One can be able to recognize and change one's thinking in a conjunction fallacy situation one can use the representativeness heuristic which is used to assess probability based on causation. Therefore, one should apply representativeness heuristic to determine which of the conjuncts has the highest probability. One should ask the question of the probability that conjunct of a businessman will lead to philanthropist behavior compared to the probability that a politician will engage more in philanthropy behavior. From the representativeness approach, one should be able to determine the motive and also the conjunct that will benefit more from the activity in question which makes it easy to resolve a conjunction fallacy (Van, 2016).

References

Bos, L. T., De Koning, B. B., Wassenburg, S. I., & van der Schoot, M. (2016). Training inference-making skills using a situation model approach improves readingcomprehension. Frontiers in psychology, 7, 116.

Potvin, P., & Cyr, G. (2017). Toward a durable prevalence of scientific conceptions: Tracking the effects of two interfering misconceptions about buoyancy from preschoolers to science teachers. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 54(9), 1121-1142.

Salmon, M. H. (2012). Introduction to logic and critical thinking. Cengage Learning.

Van, C. M. J, (2016). Introduction to logic and critical thinking.