In the essay "Thirty-Eight Who Saw Murder Didn't Call the Police" By Martin Gansberg many fallacies can be found. One fallacies was in the first paragraph on page 120, "For more than half an hour thirty-eight respectable law abiding citizens in Queens watched a killer stalk and stab a woman in three separate attacks in Kew Gardens." There are a couple different forms of Hasty or Sweeping Generalization fallacies just in this one quote. The writer assumes that all of the citizens are law abiding which could very well not be true. They don't know everything that all thirty-eight citizens have been up to, or have done. Also the writer mentions them being respectable. That is his own opinion. Many other people could disagree that they aren't respectable human beings. Starting out the essay with a big fallacy such as this takes away the credibility of the rest of his writing and makes you question what he is saying more throughout the text.
Another fallacy identified in this essay was on page 122, "Today witnesses from the neighborhood, which is made up of family homes in the $35,000-$60,000 range with the exception of the two apartment houses near the railroad station, find it difficult to explain why they didn't call the police." This fallacy is a Misleading Statistic. The price of the families homes should not in any way be related to them explaining why they didn't call the police. A person's income or place of living doesn't correlate directly with their actions or decisions. This is a misleading opinion and tries to direct the readers attention away from the subject.
The author also wrote at the end of page 123, ""Then", a solemn police detective said, "the people came out." This is relating the people coming out of their houses to the ambulance picking up the body. this form of fallacy is called a Post Hoc, Ergo Proper Hoc. The writer is assuming that the people "finally" came out of their homes to look because the crime they were avoiding was over. Not for some other unrelated reason other than this. His assumption is trying to make the people look guilty as if they all had seen what happened.
Savanna!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteI agree with your first fallacy. The writer is bringing her own opinion into the text immediately. If the 38 different people had all been interviewed, the situation may have been different. Although if this was the case, the author should have stated this throughout the essay. After they had been interviewed, the author could then determine if the 38 people just didn’t want to call the police or if they were preoccupied in some other way.
I also agree with the second fallacy that you used. I think that you could also classify it as a red herring since the author seems to be trying to draw our attention away from the real problem at hand. This fallacy also reminds me of the TED talk that we watched today, and how the more wealthy you are, the less likely you will be to offer help.
I don't really know what else to write..... So, good job!!! :) See you tomorrow GetSavvy3.
I completely agree with you on all of your statements. I wrote my blog on the same article and used two of the same fallacies you did. I think you are right when you talk about the fallacy of Hasty or Sweeping Generalization. The author does make assumptions by describing the thirty-eight witnesses as respectable and law-abiding citizens. There is no way he could know everything about the witnesses and their individual backgrounds.
ReplyDeleteIn your second statement it makes sense to used the fallacy of Misleading Statistics. He threw out information in regard to house values, and it does distract the reader from the actual issue in the article. I took this same quote in my blog, but instead I used the fallacy of Non Sequitur (It Does Not Follow). I used this fallacy because the home values information does not logically fit with the statement that came before.
You have a good point with your third statement using the Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc. I hadn't considered how that particular quote fit with that type of fallacy. Your explanation made perfect sense to me. It confused me how the writer would know that all the witnesses came out of their apartments and the specific reason why. Your blog helped me to think more thoroughly about the article and the fallacies used.