Asking the Right Questions, A Guide to Critical Thinking, 8th Ed

136 Chapter 9
being an alcoholic, and people tend to give socially acceptable answers when
they are known. This response tendency could also bias the sampling in the
supposed control group. We would want to know more about the accuracy of
these ratings before we could have much confidence in the conclusion.
Passage 2
CONCLUSION: Three strikes law for criminal offenses are desirable.
REASON: Allowing a criminal to offend three times is like allowing a batter in baseball to
swing and miss three times.
The author is arguing the desirability of the three strikes law by drawing an
obvious analogy to baseball. The similarity the author is focusing on is that
three chances for a batter to hit a ball is much like the three chances awarded
to convicted offenders to shape up or to be put in jail for a long time. But
simply saying three criminal offenses deserves harsh punishment ignores the
complexity involved in criminal sentencing. For example, while a swing and a
miss is a strike regardless of the type of pitch the pitcher throws, we might feel
context is very important for sentencing criminals. What if the third offense is
something very minor? Does it make sense to punish the criminal severely for
a third offense regardless of what the other two were? Because of an important
relevant difference, we conclude that this analogy is not very relevant.
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CRITICAL QUESTION SUMMARY:
WHY THIS QUESTION IS IMPORTANT
How Good Is the Evidence?
When an author offers a reason in support of a conclusion, you want to know why
you should believe that reason. By identifying the evidence offered in support of
a reason, you are taking another step in evaluating the worth of the reason. If the
evidence that supports the reason is good, the reason better supports the conclusion.
Thus, you might be more willing to accept the author's conclusion if the
author offers good evidence in support of a reason, which in turn provides good
support for the conclusion.