MON MAR 05
- World’s Simplest Card Trick
- Nuclear Power Rebuttal
- Is Nuclear Power Worth the Risk?
- Portfolio Assignment P06: Rebuttal Argument
- DUE MON MAR 19
-
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Rowan Counterintuitive 
-This sequence of cards in the way they have been shuffled is a first in human history, no other group of people have ever organized a deck of cards into this same order before. This is an impressive trick, 52! is the odds that a deck of cards after being shuffled will end in the same order that they came in the pack as.
– Rebuttle essay is not the opposite of your own essay point of
view, the goal is to minimize the contrary opinion and prove the importance of your side.
–
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That’s good, Dancers. Be sure to be fair to your “opponent” in any argument. You get no credit for disparaging other authors. Present their points of view accurately, then destroy them with reason and evidence. 🙂
3/3
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– there have been deaths connected with nuclear plants.
– expensive.
– potential catastrophe.
– abandoned costs.
– no plan for catastrophe.
– waste.
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These are a little light, SummerGirl. I recognize them as arguments against nuclear power, but they don’t seem to be class notes. If you’ve left them somewhere else, I’ll read them when I find them. (Or if you want to add some here, you may.)
1/3
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In today’s class, we discussed a rebuttal essay and the proper way to write a rebuttal argument. The rebuttal argument we will be writing will identify the argument I feel is the strongest rebuttal to your own thesis. For example, we read the New York Times article about nuclear power plants and rebuttaled the statement that we should build more power plants. We looked at all the reasons more power plants should NOT be made, but all these reasons were rebuttaled with simple arguments and evidence. We can have a inconclusive evidence rebuttal, which will argue how the evidence does not actually prove what the other side wants to show. An example is that a reason power plants should not be made is because of the abandonment costs. But that does not fully prove why they should not be made because there is not sufficient evidence to prove this. There are also other rebuttals we can use to argue the other side. Insufficient evidence rebuttal, irrelevant evidence rebuttal, stacking the deck rebuttal…
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There is some overlap in the evidence types (and the rebuttal types), LB, but you seem to have spliced two here.
“Inconclusive evidence” isn’t “insufficient evidence.” If I want to prove that skateboarding is faster than pogo-sticking, I could pile up all sorts of evidence that the wheels are efficient, that there’s less fatigue to the rider of a skateboard, that skaters generally have years more practice on their conveyances than stickers, but none of that evidence helps me prove that boarding is faster, which is what I intended. The evidence is “sufficient,” but not “conclusive.”
The reason the “abandonment cost” argument fails to prove we shouldn’t build more nukes is that it can never prove, by itself, that nuclear POWER is more expensive than traditional fossil fuel power. The nuclear power plants could be 100 times as expensive, but if they generate 200 times as much electricity, the cost of the power makes the cost of the plants irrelevant.
See the difference?
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A rebuttal argument is when you address the argument against your own and refute them. You can’t win victory in an argument without refuting the other side’s claims. All you need to win an argument is one claim that is better than, and refutes, the claims made by the other side.
Refutation: There’s waste from fossil fuels too, and you could dispose of nuclear waste in boreholes deep in the ground.
An analogy needs to be close to the original situation to be considered persuasive.
A false choice is when you offer a perfect alternative to a question that asks you to chose a side.
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Nice work, Pickle. I like your summaries very much.
Extra credit for refuting the “waste disposal” objection.
4/3
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We started class by looking at the easiest card trick in the world, we were all expecting something amazing to happen until we where given the explanation on how it worked. The chances of getting any order of cards is a huge number represented as 52!. After the card trick we took a look into our next assignment and Davidbdale’s example was pogo-sticking is faster than skateboarding. He used this example because anyone can make claims and only defend their own side and no one will listen because they know it’s not true. In other words we have to be able to understand and use both sides. After the pogo-stick example we looked at the risks and arguments against building more nuclear power plants, through reading the New York Times article. To end class we continued talking about the catastrophe’s resulting from the nuclear power plants and what we feel is the best option with them.
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Are you clear on the rebuttal types, TJJ? They can be a little daunting to absorb all at once.
3/3
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Shuffling a pack of cards has an unfathomable amount of possibilities. Creating a rebuttal argument is not arguing against your own claim. A rebuttal argument is showing the strongest argument the other side has to offer and then explaining why its wrong. If a claim is not refuted, the original claim wins. More convincing evidence must be provided to refute and win an argument. Weak rebuttal arguments make it easier to prove the original argument. All 3 arguments should be completed after spring break.
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You’re really good at this, JD.
I do have a rhetorical point that could help you write more clearly. See if you notice the difference between Sentence 1:
and Sentence 2:
Sentence 1 appears to mean: You create a rebuttal argument by not arguing.
Sentence 2 appears to mean: When you argue against your own claim, you’re not rebutting.
Always define your terms for what they ARE first.
You may never want to be that fussy about your language, but if you do, know that it can be done.
3/3
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Prof. started class with a card trick where the cards were shuffled seven times. He then explained that the odds for that configuration of the shuffled deck are impossibly low. He says that the chances of that configuration are 1 in 80,658,175,170,943,878,571,660,636,856,403,766,975,289,
505,440,883,277,824,000,000,000,000. Impossible configurations occur all of the time. Prof. then explained rebuttal arguments by using the example of pogo sticking being faster than skateboarding. It is useless to argue that pogo sticking is faster without considering a major piece of contrary evidence. Instead, we should consider the contrary evidence and revise our argument by adding that when going downhill or on a flat surface, skateboards are faster, but that pogo sticks are significantly faster when going uphill. Therefore, pogo sticks are faster overall if you travel across an equal amount of uphill, downhill, and flat. Prof. had the class read a rebuttal argument against using nuclear power, then analyzed the arguments made within. None of the arguments seemed easily refutable. Next, Prof. used the example of poker to show that the person that makes a claim is the winner of the argument if the other person simply says that they are not convinced, without providing a rebuttal argument. All the person needs to refute the claim is a single piece of evidence. Proving that a correct interpretation of the evidence proves something different than the author intended is an effective rebuttal. When someone makes a false choice argument, it is best to choose neither option but instead argue with the question. Prof. changed the due date for the rebuttal argument from this Wednesday to Sunday March 18th.
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I love this sentence:
And this illustration:
3/3
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Most of those were your own words throughout the lecture. Hilarious!
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Yes, I know. 😀
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Class started with a “nearly impossible” card trick. After that, we looked further into what a rebuttal argument would be. Prof. used skateboards being faster than pogo-sticks as his leading example. We looked at the Nuclear Power Rebuttal article titled “Price too high?” We listed 5 of the important arguments against nuclear power. An argument with no refutation automatically wins. All you need is slightly better evidence against that argument, however small, to win. I refute the argument of disposal of nuclear waste being dangerous with the fact that there is a safe and effective method of nuclear waste disposal. Storing the waste deep, deep underground has been tested and proven to be the safest method of nuclear waste disposal. Prof. went through the multiple
differentforms of rebuttal argument. The rebuttal argument due date has been postponed to March 19 instead of March 7 (thank you).Class started off interesting, the lecture portion was a little monotonous, but I think that was just due to the quality of material.
Wednesday kicks off spring break with a mini breakfast party.
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1. I bored myself during the detailing of the rebuttal types.
2. I have to do a better job of encouraging thoughtful responses during those long stretches.
3. Multiple forms of rebuttal argument couldn’t be anything but different.
4. I love the astronomical odds against shuffling a deck the same way twice.
5. The odds against my own existence are even more breathtakingly long, yet I don’t object that I’m impossible, only that I’m improbable, perhaps inadvisable.
Extra credit for refuting the “waste disposal” objection to nuclear power generation.
4/3
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