From Fogelin, R. J./W. Sinnott-Armstrong (2001) Understanding Arguments, 6^th ed., Wadsworth.  

Exercise XIII, p. 309-310

Specify what, if anything, is wrong with the following inductive generalisations. Ask the following questions;

a.                               are the premisses acceptable?

b.                               is the sample too small?

c.                               is the sample biased?

d.                               are the results affectedby other sources of bias?

1.             K-mart asked all of their customers throughout the country whether they prefere K-mart to Walmart, and 90% said they did, so 90% of all shoppers in the area prefere K-mart.

2.             A Swede stole my bicycle, so most Swedes are thieves.

3.             I’ve never tried it before, but I just put a kiwifruit in a tub of water. It floated, so most kiwifruits float in water.

4.             Mary told me that all of her older children are geniuses, so her baby will probably be a genius too.

5.             When asked whether they would prefer a tax break or a bloated budget, almost everyone said they wanted  tax break. So a tax break is overwhelmingly popular with the people.

6.             When hundreds of convicted murderers in states without the death penalty were asked whether they would have committed the murder if the state had a death penalty, most of them said that they would not have done it. So most murderers can be deterred by the death penalty.

Three questions for discussion:

1.             A firm has sent you, free, six consecutive correct stock index predictions. Would you be reasonably convinced of their accuracy and thus pay for the seventh?

 2.             What is more likely to be the result of next week's Lotto:

                                1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

                or                 32, 3, 15, 8, 22, 17 ?

3.             Ms. X is 33, unmarried, assertive. She graduated from university with an honours-degree in political science. She was a campus activist and was heavily involved in civil rights movements. On the basis of these data which of the following two statements is more probable?

                (i)                Ms. X now works as a bank teller.

                (ii)                Ms. X now works as a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement.