Ex. 16-2 # 1-7

Below are several claims (the sorts of claims that might serve as key premises in arguments). Obviously you cannot know, merely by reading the claims, whether they are true or whether they involve significant omissions. But you can decide what further checks you would want to run, what further information you would want to obtain, before accepting those claims at face value. (In particular; think about what is implied by each of these claims and whether they might be half-truths, where what is left out changes the significance of what is included.) For each claim, state what further information would be helpful in evaluating the claim.

1. An apple juice label proclaims in bright letters: Contains no added sugar!

Do any apple juices contain added sugar? (None that I know of, since apple juice is naturally quite sweet, and adding sugar would make it undrinkable.)

2. A brand of toothpaste advertises: Contains fluoride, proven effective in combatting cavities.

3. A candy company advertises that one of its candy bars is an official snack food of the 1992 Olympics.

4. A power company that operates nuclear power generators claims that its containment procedures make it all but impossible for dangerous levels of radiation to escape into the atmosphere.

How close to impossible is all but? And might dangerous levels of radiation escape elsewhere (into the water table, for example)?

5. The produce of a powerful commercial herbicide claims that there is no evidence that that herbicide causes cancer in humans.

6. A politician asserts that during his term as governor, cocaine use among teenagers dropped significantly.

7. A politician claims that under her proposed tax cut, most of the people receiving tax cuts will be middle-class families.