1 Logic

1.1 Identify the premises and claims from each of the following statements

a)“Voting for political party X is pointless given that poverty remains an endemic problem in our nation.”

Premises: poverty remains an endemic problem in our nation. Poverty remaining a problem is causing the vote for Political party X to be rendered useless.

Claim: Voting for political party X is pointless

b)“Had Japan remained an agrarian society during the period known as the Meji Restoration, it would not have invaded China in 1937”

Premises: Japan did not remain an agrarian society during the Meiji Restoration. Japan underwent significant industrial and military expansion during the Meiji Restoration. The changes during the Meiji Restoration contributed to Japan’s capacity or decision to invade China in 1937.

Claim: If Japan had remained an agrarian society, it would not have invaded China in 1937.

“The United States escalated its military involvement in Vietnam due to the attack on the USS Maddox by Northern Vietnamese forces. Yet, it has since been revealed that policy makers like Robert McNamara knew at the time that the Maddox had in fact not been attacked by Northern Vietnamese forces. Therefore, the American military escalation in Vietnam was based on a lie.”

Premises: The United States escalated its military involvement in Vietnam due to the reported attack on the USS Maddox by Northern Vietnamese forces. The policymakers knew that there was never an attack but kept it from the people.

Claim: the American military escalation in Vietnam was based on a lie.

1.2 Identify whether the following statements are fallacies or not. If they are fallacies, explain what fallacy they are

a)“Mexico should not be a part of the Paris Climate Accord since most Mexicans think the accord is bad for Mexico”

Fallacy?: Yes

Type of fallacy: Appeal to Majority

Reason: In this statement, it is claimed that Mexico should not join the Prais Climate Accord because most Mexicans are against the idea. The public opinion of most Mexicans is not a solid reason for Mexico to not be a part of the Paris Climate Accord. The use of majority belief as the basis for a policy decision, without substantiating why the belief aligns with factual correctness or beneficial outcomes, makes this an appeal to the Majority.

b)“Dr. Vilchez, who has been a pediatrician for over 50 years, has championed vaccination as a matter of public health, given the rise in infectious diseases among children”

Fallacy?: No

Reason: This statement has Authority and expertise with Dr Vilchez.There is also a relevance of experience for Dr Vilchez. The statement also has supporting evidence which the rise in infectious diseases among children. With all these statistics, the statement is considered a reasonable assertion rather than a fallacy.

c)“Today, Jenny made a presentation in support for same-sex marriage. But don’t take her word too seriously, she’s been divorced three times.”

Fallacy?: Yes

Type of Fallacy: Ad Hominem

Reason: This is an Ad Hominem fallacy because in the statement the person being talked about is also being attacked with no real correlation to the main point.

d)“Immigration increases crime. Look at the criminal statistics and you’ll see crime rates go up after immigrants have arrived.”

Fallacy?: Yes

Type of Fallacy: Post Hoc

Reason: This is a Post Hoc fallacy because correlation does not lead to causation in the statement. Immigrants arriving does not directly lead to an increase in crime in the slightest.

e)“I read that a famous actor has come out criticizing the use of seat belts, yet another reason as to why we should not wear seat belts.”

Fallacy?: Yes

Type of Fallacy: Appeal to Inappropriate authority

Reason: This person appeals to the opinion of a public figure to ground his claim of not wearing seatbelts.

1.3 Identify whether the following statements illustrate necessity, sufficiency, or both necessity and sufficiency conditions in causal reasoning

a)“to be president of the United States one must be a natural-born citizen. A natrual-born citizen is someone who is either born within the territory of the United States, or the child of natural-born parents if they are born in another country. Currently, Joe Biden is president of the United States. Therefore, Joe Biden must have been born in the United States”

Necessity or Sufficiency or both: This statement uses Necessity because it states the necessary conditions for becoming a United States president. There is no suffiency used because there are other condition that need to be met to become president of US.

b)“According to the Brazilian constitutions, Brazilian citizens who are at least 35 years or older can run for president. The current president of Brazil is Lula da Silva. Therefore, Mr. da Silva must be older than 34”

• Necessity or Sufficiency or both: This statement also only uses necessity to come to the conclusion and not sufficiency because there are other conditions that need to be met for a person to become the president of Brazil.

2 Working With R and RStudio

2.1 Importing and Inspecting Data

getwd()

## [1] "/home/jovyan/Assignment 1/world"

setwd("/home/jovyan/Assignment 1")
data <- read.csv("world.csv")
ncol(data)

## [1] 8

names(data)

## [1] "country"   "democ"     "gdp08"     "gdppcap08" "gini08"    "oecd"     
## [7] "polity"    "women13"

sapply(data, class)

##     country       democ       gdp08   gdppcap08      gini08        oecd 
## "character" "character"   "numeric"   "integer"   "numeric" "character" 
##      polity     women13 
##   "integer"   "numeric"

#167 countries listed in dataset
#193 sovreign countries recognized by the UN
barplot(table(data$democ),xlab = "Democracy Status", ylab = "Number of Countries", main = "Number of Democracies vs. Non-Democracies")

4. 8 variables

e)1] “country” “democ” “gdp08” “gdppcap08” “gini08” “oecd” “polity” “women13”

6. country democ gdp08 gdppcap08 gini08 oecd polity women13 “character” “character” “numeric” “integer” “numeric” “character” “integer” “numeric”

7. 167

8. 193 sovreign countries in the UN

9. Most of the countries recognized by the UN are in the dataset. There are 45 UN recognized states that are not in the dataset this is probaly becasue these countries are not big both geographically and statistically.

10. Barplot shown above

2.2 Code and Research

1. Women13 is showing the percentages of women in lower houses of legislature for each country

2. range(data$women13, na.rm = T). [1] 2.7 44.7

3. The range of variable women13 is telling us that there are no woman dominant countries in the lower houses of legislature. Every country has more men in their houses and some countries are almost all men in the houses.

4. 17.8% of people in the United States House of representatives in 2013 were women e and f) Histogram wih titles shown below

5. summary(data$women13)

   Min. 1st Qu. Median Mean 3rd Qu. Max. NA’s

   2.70 12.18 20.80 21.10 27.65 44.70 77

   Since the US in variable women13 are at a 17.8% women in legislature that means we would put them in 2nd quartile of countries under varibale women13

h)i)Since the United States are below the median of 20.8 and the mean of 21.1 this means that compared to most of the other countries in the dataset, the US do not have many women in their houses of legislature. With these statistics, we can come to the conclusion that the United states has come to where they are today because of the minimal amount of women in their houses of congress.

h)ii) The United States have a 17.8% rate of women in their houses of legislature. according to the Oliver Wyman forum, countries who have more women in houses of legislature tend to achieve legal equality of economic opportunity and unlock the benefits and economic improvements associated with this diversity. Therefore if the United states had more women in the lower-level Houses, they would be closer to achieving this goal

i)If the United States want to be in the top 1/4 of nation with women in houses of legislation, they would need another 10% of women in their houses at the least.

j)5 countries with the least percentage of women: Papua New Guinea(2.7%), Sri Lanka(3%), Nigeria(5.8%), Japan(6.7%), Comoros(7.9%)

k)5 countries with the most percentage of women in Houses: Sweden(44.7), Senegal(42.7), Finland(42.5), Nicaragua(40.2), Iceland(39.7)

hist(data$women13,xlab = "Percentage of women in Houses", main = "Women in Houses of Legislature", ylab = "Number of countries")

3. Now it is your turn

1. I picked an article talking about Foreign Policy

a1) “Jordan: Another Peak in a Multi-Year Crisis”

a2) Joshua Krasna

a3) Foreign Policy Research Institute

b)The main argument of the article “Jordan: Another Peak in a Multi-Year Crisis” is that Jordan is navigating a complex array of challenges stemming from both internal and regional dynamics. They face challenges such as conflict with neighbouring countries and economic sturggles. Jordan is struggling to cooperate with israel and Syria potentially putting them in regional political crisis. Notably, Jordan has been pursuing trilateral cooperation with Egypt and Iraq, focusing on political, economic, and infrastructure development, known as “the New Levant.” This initiative aims to strengthen regional ties and enhance economic growth among the participating countries.

3. My argument to this article would be for Jordan to focus on “the New Levant” because that puts them in a great position with some of their neighboring countries. If they were to become closer allies with Egypt and Iraq, this will give countries like Syria and Israel less confidence to export distress towards Jordan. A powerful ally will be a very important aspect for the prosperation and advancement of Jordans economic and regional state. This strategy will also help Jordan be more efficient with their internal challenges because it takes away the time used to worry about Israel and Syria, and this time can be used for other obstacles.