Saturday, May 1, 2010

Xtra Topic

I found the concept about cause and effect in population useful and interesting. Cause in population is usually explained as meaning that given the cause, there’s a higher probability that the effect will follow than if there were not the cause (Epstein p.320). An example is people who tan have a much higher probability of getting skin caner or eye cancer than non-tanners. People who tan or tan excessively have been proven to get certain eye and skin cancers and even though there are other factors that contribute to these illnesses both theses illness have been proven to be caused by cancer. Since the exact number of tans or exposure to UV-Rays is not know to directly cause cancer the cause and effect shows the higher probability of the illnesses. I found this concept in chapter fifteen to be most interesting. Cause and effect in populations are very common and useful to know about and see in life and I like how relatable this topic was to life.

Mission Critical Website

I expected the mission critical site to be a lot similar to the cause and effect website but I found the complete opposite. I was very overwhelmed at first with the mission critical site there was a lot of links and I almost just didn’t even want to start. I then found that the site was surprisingly useful and easy to navigate around. It laid out useful and important information about arguments and fallacies. I like how the concepts were laid out so plainly so each of the individual topics are explained correctly. I found the explanation of arguments very useful. It helped to re-learn those basics of arguments and the different parts of the arguments that we had studied earlier in the semester. I also found it very useful to just go over all this information in general through the website; especially the examples of good and bad arguments really helped me understand the concept that much better. I really liked both the cause and effect and mission critical websites.