Yesterday in my gym class, the teacher said something that sounded to me like an informal fallacy, but I wasn't sure:
One girl was complaining that a person who scores the most goals in soccer should not get a higher grade than someone who puts in the same effort at scoring, but couldn't score because she has less athletic ability. "I try just as hard as she does, but she is an athletic person, scoring comes to her easily, she's been playing for years!! How come she gets a higher grade than I do just because she scored more goals than I did even though I tried just as hard??" ..The teacher replied to her by saying: "Would you consider it unfair if a math teacher gave someone who answered a math question on a test correctly a higher score than someone who tried to solve it but wasn't able to? The person who solved the question should get the credit, right?
The girl who asked the question seemed confused, and was at a loss as to how to answer. The teacher's reponse kind of reminded me of the "equivocation" we had just been discussing in class, and I was wondering, was the teacher's response an informal fallcy in that she compared two things as being the same (which are not) so as to give her a greater advantage and to justify her grading system??
I felt bad for the girl who asked..and I was also wondering how someone should answer back to something like that?? <--- Most important part of my question
Isn't part of an informal fallcy is that you can't answer back (you know it doesn't sound right, but you don't know why, and therefore you cannot refute it) ???
I was rereading my post, and was thinking maybe what the teacher said was not an informal fallacy..after all, maybe she is justified in comparing goals in soccer to questions on a math test...I dont know..Im pretty confused. How can we tell for sure whether something is an informal fallacy or not?? Or do you just have to be a genious in rhetoric to be able to spot informal fallacies *wink wink*..(just kidding).
Posted by: Alia at December 9, 2004 09:44 PMIt wouldn't be a fallacy if the comparison is valid. The point is total ability in an area (from nature, practice, etc.) and performance. Generally in school, people are graded on performance regardless of ability. Indeed, some of us would fail outta school if we were graded on effort instead of performance!
Just a couple of thoughts.
Posted by: mj at December 15, 2004 05:46 AMHey, Alia, sorry it has taken me so long to address your question! Okay, the girl who was complaining was relying upon the non sequitur "(making a claim that doesn't follow logically from the premises, or supporting a claim with irrelevant premises)" (p. 435, Writing Arguments). If you revisit p. 435, you'll see that one of the examples there is close to what you're saying, under "Use of irrelevant reasons to support a claim."
The teacher's response follows typical audience-based reasoning that performance, rather than amount of effort, determines a grade in a course, whether the course is math or P.E. The teacher is following the University's policy that A's should be given to work that "outstanding relative to the level necessary to meet course requirements," B's should be given to work that "is significantly above the level necessary to meet course requirements," etc.
That being said, some students who have a lot of athletic talent and prior experience might have an advantage, so it would be nice to factor evidence of measurable improvement into the grade (for example, how many goals did the student score at the beginning of the semester, and how many at the end? Has the student improved his or her running time? So maybe that's the way the student should have answered the question. The teacher might find that to be somewhat persuasive, but probably not so persuasive that he or she would give that student exactly the same grade as an athlete who is obviously outstanding and talented. That would pretty much render the grades meaningless.
Posted by: Clancy at December 15, 2004 01:34 PM