For each argument, (a) Describe what is wrong with the argument in terms of informal fallacies, and (b) validate the claims you made in part (a) using the descriptions of the fallacies in question. For (a), you only need to evaluate one fallacy that indicates that the argument is weak. For (b), your justification should be concise, adequately explanatory, and directed towards the strength of the argument.
1. Getting a philosophy degree is a waste of money and time! Reputable degrees in engineering, medicine- even art-can you make people into valuable citizens. Students of those fields have skills and knowledge that normal people don't. So there's an significant role in society for engineers, lawyers, doctors, and even artists. But everybody has their own philosophy. What is more, everyone has to figure out their own philosophy for themselves. Since everyone's a philosopher, there's no special role in society for philosophers. That's why the degree is useless.
2. Any time you see a watch, you identify it was made by someone. The watch is far too complex to consequence from some random process. You correctly infer that the watch is designed by a watchmaker: a person with the intelligence required designing the watch and the ability required to make the watch. Suppose the universe. It is complex, vast, and awe-inspiring-much more so than any contraption made by a human being. Just as you rightly infer that a watch is made by a watchmaker, you must infer that the universe has a Creator. This Creator must have the intelligence required to design the universe and the power required to create the universe. Surely this Creator is amazing beyond our comprehension.
3. The doctor must think I'm someone else. She referred to me as "John's son" but my father's name is "Mike". I just turned in all of my paperwork. My father is listed as my emergency contact. You can't miss it! What's worse is that I printed my name clear as day right on the font: Charles M. Johnson. Whether the doctor can't read or if she picked up someone else's paperwork, I'm never coming back here again. If they can't keep my name straight, I'm hesitant to trust them with my bloodwork or to give me the right vaccinations!
4. Use Max! body wash! All the sweet bros are doing it, and all the hot babes are doing it on strippa-poles all over the building. With Max!, you too can be associated with young women that have photoshopped breasts and eating disorders. You'll be like an exclamation point: long, powerful, and confusing when used in a product name because it's hard to tell where sentences end. Be a sweet bro! Hot babes! Max! (You'll get a bonus for finding all of the fallacies in this passage.)
5. A man in a suit walked in and sat next to me. I saw him looking over at my plans. Snoopy. He must've been a fed. I crumpled the plans to make it look like they weren't important, then jammed them into my pocket. I wrote down a couple of math problems to make it look inconspicuous. "I see the feds are on to me already," I said. "I'm not a fed," he replied. "I'm a doctor at the hospital. My name's Colin." Nice try, Agent ‘Colin.' But the friendly line won't work with me. "That's just the kind of thing a fed would say, ‘Dr. Colin'." That conversation wasn't going anywhere. I went to the can and snuck out the window. I knew the feds were on my heals. I needed to watch my back.
6. Ann has to go. I saw her leave after jamming a box of paperclips into her pocket. She didn't think anyone was looking because she was working late, but I was there. There must've been a hundred paperclips in that box! It may be that today, it's just paperclips. But tomorrow, it could be pens. We'll be missing a couple of monitors within the year. And I wouldn't understimate her if I were you. She'll eventually find a way to embezzle hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's clear where this is heading. We need to fire her now before it's too late.
7. This city is too big for you. Go back to the country. Go back to where it's safe and people are kind. The city is cruel. It'll eat you alive. Every day, it swallows a hundred people. Every day, it threatens to swallow me, and I've been here my whole life. There's poison in it's veins. Do you think you can cure it? You can smell the city's filth in the morning and see the putrid steam rise up in the winter. Do you think you can cleanse it? The city lashes out in agony, sweeping us small folk up in its tantrums. You'll never stand up to this beast.
8. Be careful about the company you keep, son. There are two kinds of people in this world: friends and foes. Friends are the kind of people who'll help you out when you need it and make you soup when you're ill. Foes are the kind of people who'll slap you in the face for no good reason. But it's easy to mistake one for the other. Sometimes, a friend will help you out by slapping you in the face when you need to be straightened out. They'll slap you in the face, but for a good reason. Foes are different. They'll just slap you in the face. End of story. That Jimmy kid you've been hanging around is like that. It won't be long before he slaps you in the face-and it won't be for a good reason.
9. Who's the one who's right for you? Who's you're knight in shining armor? Who's your princess of the queens? Many of us stuggle to find the right person. It seems like we fail time and time again. How can we find the right person? After years of struggling with this problem myself, I've finally figured it out. Now, I've found my soulmate and my happy ending. To find out how you can do the same, pick up a copy of my book, Finding Your Soulmate: The Secrets of Applying Max! Body Wash. (You'll get a bonus if you find all of the fallacies in this passage.)
10. I don't need to apologize for throwing Dan into the Ravenous Tick Chamber. Given what you did to Tanisha the other day, what reason could you give to show me I'm wrong? Don't you remember putting her into the Den of Angry Bears? I'll bet it wasn't very fun trying to get away from a possy of angry bears. And it's pretty obvious that she wasn't happy about that whole mauling part. Compared to that, what I did to Dan was nothing.