podcast

the podcast I have found, is "Is a Vary Low Calorie Diet The Right Choice For You?" by Helen Jones-Wray.
it talks about low calories diets are right or not. I thought this podcast is very good because not just saying it is right or wrong, the speaker first describes how calories are calculated, and how each nutritional element functions. She also tells the listeners the risk of a very low calorie diet, therefore, it is not forcing us to try a dangerous diet.

An example of circularity and circular reasoning

Just as what we did in the last class, we are going to provide you an example of circularity and circular reasoning this time.

A teenage girl who is right about the standard body shape is talking with her mother about her diets, that she wants to be skinny like models and become prettier. Then, her mother asks her why she wants to be skinny because being skinny does not necessarily mean someone is pretty. The girl answers, “Because skinny girls look much prettier!” Her mother says “no, you are wrong, ” then the girl told her mother, “go to the cities and look around, pretty girls are all skinny.”
     This is said to be an example of circularity and circular reasoning because the statement of the girl is
1) Skinny girls are prettier
2) Pretty girls are skinny.
Her statement above does not have a clear conclusion or specific evidence that why skinny girls are pretty or vice versa. Through whole conversation between the girl and her mother, there is no new statement explaining or prove that “why skinny girls are pretty.” That is why we chose this example.

Podcast

I found a pod cast named “60-second health.” It gives us a weekly one-minute report on the latest health and medical news. I learned some new information from the pod cast, for example, obesity is a big factor for both diabetes and heart disease but regular exercise even without changing diet might be a big help.

It’s short and easy to understand, so I found it to be interesting. This pod cast is made by Katherine Harmon who is a reporter of Scientific American. Scientific American is an American science magazine which is written by researchers on the front line, so I think the information introduced in the podcast  is correct.

An example of ad hominem

We talked about critical thinking in our last class. The concept that Sakurako and I try to explain is  "ad hominem." This is an attempt to weaken the opposing position by attacking at the person who put forward the argument rather than at his or her argument or claim.

Here is an emaple of ad hominem.

A doctor who is a little bit fat is studying the way to lose weight healthily, and these days, he publishes a book summarizing the results of his study. The doctor insists that it’s important to reconsider our eating habits and do moderate exercise. There are a lot of other information in the book from the medical or nutritional point of view. However, some people say that his study and his opinion are wrong. They think his study must not be right because he is a little fat, and if it is right he should be more slender. In short, they jump to the conclusion that his study is wrong by just watching his proportion, and attacked him nevertheless there is possibility that he is fat because of illness or he doesn’t act up to his theory by himself. There is no connection between the fact the doctor is fat and the results of his study but some people are under impression that his study is wrong. We think that’s an example of Ad hominem.