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Unit 1 Text A
Love
and logic: The story of a fallacy
1 I had my first date with Polly after
I made the trade with my roommate Rob. That year
every
guy on campus had a leather
jacket, and Rob couldn't stand the idea of being
the only football
player who didn't, so
he made a pact that he'd give me his girl in
exchange for my jacket. He
wasn't the
brightest guy. Polly wasn't too shrewd, either.
2 But she was pretty, well-off, didn't
dye her hair strange colors or wear too much
makeup. She
had the right background to
be the girlfriend of a dogged, brilliant lawyer.
If I could show the
elite law firms I
applied to that I had a radiant, well-spoken
counterpart by my side, I just
might
edge past the competition.
3
she
was
already.
I
could
dispense
her
enough
pearls
of
wisdom
to
make
her
4 After a
banner day out, I drove until we were situated
under a big old oak tree on a hill off
the expressway. What I had in mind was
a little eccentric. I thought the venue with a
perfect
view of the luminous city would
lighten the mood. We stayed in the car, and I
turned down the
stereo and took my foot
off the brake pedal.
5
6
7
truth, and some of them
are well known. First let's look at the fallacy
Dicto Simpliciter.
8
9
Simpliciter
means
an
unqualified
generalization.
For
example:
Exercise
is
good.
Therefore,
everybody should
exercise.
10 She nodded in agreement.
11 I could see she was stumped.
have, say, heart disease or extreme
obesity, exercise is bad, not good. Therefore, you
must say
exercise is good for most
people.
12
French. Rob can't
speak French. Looks like nobody at this school can
speak French.
13
14
is
also
a
fallacy,
I
said.
generalization
is
reached
too
hastily.
Too
few
instances
support such a
conclusion.
15 She seemed to have a good
time. I could safely say my plan was underway. I
took her home and
set a date for
another conversation.
16
Seated
under
the
oak
the
next
evening
I
said,
first
fallacy
tonight
is
called
Ad
Misericordiam.
17 She nodded
with delight.
18
closely,
I
said.
man
applies
for
a
job.
When
the
boss
asks
him
what
his
qualifications
are, he says
he has six children to feed.
19
20
it's
awful,
I
agreed,
it's
no
argument.
The
man
never
answered
the
boss's
question.
Instead he
appealed to the boss's sympathy
—
Ad
Misericordiam.
21 She blinked, still trying hard to
keep back her tears.
22
I
said
carefully,
will
discuss
False
Analogy.
An
example,
students
should
be
allowed
to
look
at
their
textbooks
during
exams,
because
surgeons
have
X-rays
to
guide
them
during
surgery.
23
24
I
groaned,
derail
the
discussion.
The
inference
is
wrong.
Doctors
aren't
taking
a
test
to
see
how
much
they
have
learned,
but
students
are.
The
situations
are
altogether
different.
You can't make an analogy between
them.
25
26
With
five
nights
of
diligent
work,
I
actually
made
a
logician
out
of
Polly.
She
was
an
analytical
thinker
at
last.
The
time
had
come
for
the
conversion
of
our
relationship
from
academic
to
romantic.
27
28
29
Favoring
her
with
a
grin,
I
said,
have
now
spent
five
evenings
together.
We
get
along
pretty
well. We make a
pretty good couple.
30
Generalization,
said
Polly
brightly.
as
a
normal
person
might
say,
that's
a
little
premature, don't you
think?
31 I laughed with amusement.
She'd learned her lessons well, far surpassing my
expectations.
you don't have
to eat a whole cake to know it's
good.
32
not a cake. You're a
boy.
33 I laughed with somewhat less
amusement, hiding my dread that she'd learned her
lessons too
well.
A
few
more
false
steps
would
be
my
doom.
I
decided
to
change
tactics
and
try
flattery
instead.
34
35
36
in school don't have
anything to do with real life.
37
38 I leaped to my feet, my temper
flaring up.
39
40
41
—
Rob and I
are back together.
42
With
great
effort,
I
said
calmly,
could
you
give
me
the
axe
over
Rob?
Look
at
me,
an
ingenious
student, a tremendous intellectual, a
man with an assured future. Look at Rob, a
muscular idiot,
a guy who'll never know
where his next meal is coming from. Can you give
me one good reason why
you should be
with him?
43
what
presumption!
I'll
put
it
in
a
way
someone
as
brilliant
as
you
can
understand,
retorted
Polly, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
—
I like Rob in leather. I
told him
to say yes to you so he could
have your jacket!
Unit 2 Text A
The confusing pursuit of beauty
1 If you're a man, at some point a
woman will ask you how she looks.
2 You
must be careful how you answer this question. The
best technique is to form an honest yet
sensitive response, then promptly
excuse yourself for some kind of emergency. Trust
me, this is
the easiest way out. No
amount of rehearsal will help you come up with the
right answer.
3 The problem is that men
do not think of their looks in the same way women
do. Most men form
an opinion of
themselves in seventh grade and stick to it for
the rest of their lives. Some men
think
they're
irresistibly
desirable, and they
refuse to
change this opinion
even
when they grow
bald and their faces
visibly wrinkle as they age.
4
Most
men,
I
believe,
are
not
arrogant
about
their
looks.
If
the
transient
thought
passes
through
their minds at all,
they like to think of themselves as average-
looking. Being average doesn't
bother
them; average is fine. They don't affix much value
to their looks, or think of them in
terms
of
aesthetics.
Their
primary
form
of
beauty
care
is
to
shave
themselves,
which
is
essentially
the same care they give to their lawns.
If, at the end of his four-minute allotment of
time for
grooming, a man has managed to
wipe most of the shaving cream out of the strands
of his hair and
isn't bleeding too
badly, he feels he's done all he can.
5
Women do not look at themselves this way. If I had
to guess what most women think about their
appearance,
it
would
be:
good
enough.
No
matter
how
attractive
a
woman
may
be,
her
perception
of
herself is eclipsed by the beauty industry. She
has trouble thinking
magnifies the
smallest imperfections in her body and imagines
them as glaring flaws the whole
world
will notice and ridicule.
6
Why
do
women
consider
their
looks
so
deficient?
This
chronic
insecurity
isn't
inborn,
but
created
through the
interaction of many complex psychological and
societal factors, beginning with the
dolls we give them as children. Girls
grow up playing with dolls proportioned so that,
if they
were
human,
they would
be seven
feet tall and weigh 61 pounds, with
tiny thighs
and
a large
upper
body.
This
is
an
absurd
standard
to
live
up
to,
especially
when
you
consider
the
size
of
the
doll's
waist,
a
relative
measurement
physically
impossible
for
a
living
human
to
achieve.
Contrast
this
absurd standard with
that presented to little boys with their
that young boys have played with were
weird-looking, like the one called Buzz-Off that
was part
human, part flying insect.
This guy was not a looker, but he was still
extremely self-confident.
You could not
imagine him saying to the others,
this
outfit?
7 But women grow up thinking
they need to look like Barbie dolls or girls on
magazine covers,
which
for
most
women
is
impossible.
Nonetheless,
the
multibillion-dollar
beauty
industry,
complete
with its own aisle
in the grocery store, is devoted to constant
warfare on female self-esteem,
convincing women that they must buy all
the newest moisturizing creams, bronzing powders
and
appliances that promise to
supermodel Cindy Crawford dispensed
makeup tips to the studio audience. Cindy had all
these
middle-aged women apply clay
masks and other
stressed how important
it was to adhere to the guidelines, like applying
products via the tips
of
their
fingers
to
protect
elasticity.
All
the
women
dutifully
did
this,
even
though
it
was
obvious
to any rational
observer that, no matter how carefully they
applied these products, they would
never have Cindy Crawford's face or
complexion.
8 I'm not saying that men
are superior. I'm just saying that you're not
going to get a group of
middle-aged men
to plaster cosmetics to themselves under the
instruction of Brad Pitt in hopes
of
looking more like him. Men don't face the same
societal focus purely on physical beauty, and
they're
encouraged
to
reach
out
to
other
characteristics
to
promote
their
self-esteem.
They
might
say to Brad:
9 Of course women argue that they
become obsessed with appearance as a reaction to
pressure from
men. The truth is that
most men think beauty is more than just lipstick
and perfume and take no
notice of these
extra details. I have never once, in more than 40
years of listening to men talk
about
women, heard a man say,
fingernails are
all homogeneous anyway, and one woman's flawless
pink polish is exactly as
invisible as
another's bare nails.
10 By
participating in this system of extreme
conformity, women are actually opening themselves
up to the scrutiny of other women, the
only ones qualified to judge their efforts. What
is the
real benefit of working this
hard to appease men who don't notice when it only
exposes women to
prosecution from other
women?
11 Anyway, to get back to my
original point: If you're a man, and a woman asks
you how she looks,
you can't say she
looks bad without receiving immediate and well-
deserved outrage. But you also
can't
shower her with empty compliments about how her
shoes complement her dress nicely because
she'll know you're lying. She has spent
countless hours worrying about the differences
between
her
looks
and
Cindy
Crawford's.
Also,
she
suspects
that
you're
not
qualified
to
voice
a
subjective
opinion
on
anybody's
appearance.
This
may
be
because
you
have
shaving
cream
in
your
hair
and
inside
the folds of your ears.
Unit 3 Text A
Fred Smith and
FedEx: The vision that changed the world
1 Every night several
hundred planes bearing a purple, white, and orange
design touch down at
Memphis Airport,
in Tennessee. What precedes this landing are
package pick-ups from locations
all
over the United States earlier in the day. Crews
unload the planes' cargo of more than half
a
million
parcels
and
letters.
The
rectangular
packages
and
envelopes
are
rapidly
reshuffled
and
sorted according to
address, then loaded onto other aircraft, and
flown to their destinations
to
be
dispersed
by
hand
—
many
within
24
hours
of
leaving
their
senders.
This
is
the
culmination
of a dream of
Frederick W. Smith, the founder, president, chief
executive officer, and chairman
of the
board of the FedEx Corp.
—
known originally as Federal Express
—
the largest and most
successful overnight delivery service
in the world. Conceived when he was in college and
now in
its
28th
year
of
operation,
Smith's
exquisite
brainchild
has
become
the
standard
for
door-to-door
package
delivery.
2 Recognized as
an outstanding entrepreneur with an agreeable and
winning personality, Smith is
held in
high regard by his competitors as well as his
employees and stockholders. Fred Smith was
just 27 when he founded FedEx. Now, so
many years later, he's still the
He
attributes
the
success
of
the
company
simply
to
leadership,
something
he
deduced
from
his
years
in the
military, and from his family.
3 Frederick Wallace Smith was born into
a wealthy family clan on August 11, 1944 in
Mississippi.
His father died when he
was just four years old. As a juvenile, Smith was
an invalid, suffering
from
a
disease that left him unable
to
walk normally. He was picked on
by bullies, and he learned
to defend himself by swinging at them
with his alloy walking stick. Cured of the disease
by the
age of l0, he became a star
athlete in high school, playing football,
basketball, and baseball.
4
Smith's passion was flying. At 15, he was
operating a crop-duster over the skyline of the
Mississippi
Delta,
a
terrain
so
flat
that
there
was
little
need
for
radar
navigation.
As
a
student
at
Yale
University,
he
helped
revive
the
Yale
flying
club;
its
alumni
had
populated
naval
aviation
history,
including
the
famous
Unit
in
World
War
I.
Smith
administrated
the
club's
business end and ran a small charter
operation in New Haven.
5
With his study time disrupted by flying, his
academic performance suffered, but Smith never
stopped looking for his own
for an economics class.
He
drafted a prototype
for a
transportation company that would guarantee
overnight
delivery
of
small,
time-
sensitive
goods,
such
as
replacement
parts
and
medical
supplies,
to major US
regions. The professor wasn't impressed and told
Smith he couldn't quantify the idea
and
clearly it wasn't feasible.
6
However,
Smith
was
certain
he
was
onto
something,
even
though
several
more
years
elapsed
before
he
could turn his idea into reality. In the interim,
he graduated from Yale in 1966, just as
America's
involvement in the Vietnam War was deepening.
Since he was a patriot and had attended
officers' training classes, he joined
the Marines.
7
Smith
completed
two
tours
in
Vietnam,
eventually
flying
more
than
200
missions.
the
military,
leadership
means
getting
a
group
of
people
to
subordinate
their
individual
desires
and
ambitions
for
the
achievement
of
organizational
goals,
Smith
says,
fusing
together
his
military
and
business
experiences.
8 Home from Vietnam, Smith
became fascinated by the notion that if you
connected all the points
of a network
through an intermediary hub, the streamlined
efficiency could be enormous compared
to other disjointed, decentralized
businesses, whether the system involved moving
packages and
letters or people and
planes. He decided to take a stab at starting his
own business. With an
investment from
his father's company, as well as a chunk of his
own inheritance, Smith bought
his first
delivery planes and in 1971 formed the Federal
Express.
9 The early days
were underscored by extreme frugality and
financial losses. It was not uncommon
for FedEx drivers to pay for gasoline
for their vans out of their own pockets. But
despite such
problems, Smith showed
concern for the welfare of his employees. Just as
he recalled, even when
they
didn't
have
the
money,
even
when
there
weren't
couches
in
the
office
and
electric
typewriters,
they still set the precedent to ensure
a good medical and dental plan for their people.
10 Along the way, FedEx
pioneered centralization and the
been
adopted
by
almost
all
major
airlines.
The
phrase
FedEx
it
has
become
a
fixture
in
our
language
as much as Xerox or
Google.
11 Smith says
success in business boils down to three things.
First, you need to have appealing
product
or
service
and
a
compelling
strategy.
Then
you
need
to
have
an
efficient
management
system.
Assuming you have
those things, leading a team is the single most
important issue in running an
organization today.
12 Although Smith avoids the media and
the trappings of public life, he is said to be a
friendly
and accessible employer. He
values his people and never takes them for
granted. He reportedly
visits FedEx's
Memphis site at night from time to time and
addresses sorters by name. For years
he
extended
an
offer
to
any
courier
with
10
years
of
service
to
come
to
Memphis
for
an
breakfast
of
entry
or
exit.
Each
link
upholds
the
others
and
is,
in
turn,
supported
by
them.
In
articulating
this philosophy
and in personally involving himself in its
implementation, Frederick Smith is
the
forerunner of the new sphere of leadership that
success in the future will demand.
Unit 4 Text A
Achieving sustainable environmentalism
1 Environmental sensitivity
is now as required an attitude in polite society
as is, say, belief
in democracy or
disapproval of plastic surgery. But now that
everyone from Ted Turner to George
has
claimed love for Mother Earth, how are we to
choose among the dozens of conflicting
proposals, regulations and laws
advanced by congressmen and constituents alike in
the name of
the environment? Clearly,
not everything with an environmental claim is
worth doing. How do we
segregate the
best options and consolidate our varying interests
into a single, sound policy?
2 There is a simple way. First,
differentiate between environmental luxuries and
environmental
necessities. Luxuries are
those things that would be nice to have if
costless. Necessities are
those things
we must have regardless. Call this distinction the
definitive rule of sane
environmentalism, which stipulates that
combating ecological change that directly
threatens the
health and safety of
people is an environmental necessity. All else is
luxury.
3 For example,
preserving the atmosphere
—
stopping ozone depletion and the greenhouse effect
—
is an environmental
necessity. Recently, scientists reported that
ozone damage is far worse
than
previously thought. Ozone depletion has a
correlation not only with skin cancer and eye
problems, it also destroys the ocean's
ecology, the beginning of the food chain atop
which we
humans sit.
4 The
possible thermal
consequences of the greenhouse
effect are far deadlier: melting ice
caps,
flooded coastlines, disrupted
climate, dry plains and, ultimately, empty
breadbaskets. The
American Midwest
feeds people at all corners of the atlas. With the
planetary climate changes,
are
we
prepared
to
see
Iowa
take
on
New
Mexico's
desert
climate,
or
Siberia
take
on
Iowa's
moderate
climate?
5
Ozone
depletion
and
the
greenhouse
effect
are
human
disasters,
and
they
are
urgent
because
they
directly
threaten
humanity
and
are
not
easily
reversible.
A
sane
environmentalism,
the
only
kind
of environmentalism that will strike
a chord with the general public,
begins
by openly declaring
that nature is here to serve human
beings. A sane environmentalism is entirely a
human focused
regime: It calls upon
humanity to preserve nature, but merely within the
parameters of
self-survival.
6 Of course, this human
focus runs against the grain of a contemporary
environmentalism that
indulges in overt
earth worship. Some people even allege that the
earth is a living organism.
This kind
of environmentalism likes to consider itself
spiritual. It is nothing more than
sentimental. It takes, for example, a
highly selective view of the kindness of nature,
one that
is incompatible with the
reality of natural disasters. My nature worship
stops with the twister
that came
through Kansas or the dreadful rains in Bangladesh
that eradicated whole villages and
left
millions homeless.
7
A
non-sentimental
environmentalism
is
one
founded
on
Protagoras's
idea
that
is
the
measure
of
all things.
dense forest of
environmental arguments. Take the current debate
raging over oil drilling in a
corner of
the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).
Environmentalist coalitions, mobilizing
against
a
legislative
action
working
its
way
through
the
US
Congress
for
the
legalization
of
such
exploration, propagate
that Americans should be preserving and
economizing energy instead of
drilling
for it. This is a false either-or proposition. The
US does need a sizable energy tax
to
reduce consumption. But it needs more production
too. Government estimates indicate a nearly
fifty-fifty chance that under the ANWR
rests one of the five largest oil fields ever
discovered
in America. It seems
illogical that we are not finding safe ways to
drill for oil in the ANWR.
8 The US has just come through a war
fought in part over oil. Energy dependence costs
Americans
not
just
dollars
but
lives.
It
is
a
bizarre
sentimentalism
that
would
deny
oil
that
is
peacefully
attainable
because it risks disrupting the birthing grounds
of Arctic caribou.
9
I
like
the
caribou
as
much
as
the
next
person.
And
I
would
be
rather
sorry
if
their
mating
patterns
were disturbed. But you can't have your
cake and eat it too. And in the standoff of the
welfare
of caribou versus reducing an
oil reliance that gets people killed in wars, I
choose people over
caribou every time.
10 I feel similarly about
the spotted owl in Oregon. I am no enemy of the
owl. If it could be
preserved at a
negligible cost, I would agree that it should be
—
biodiversity is after all
necessary to the ecosystem. But we must
remember that not every species is needed to keep
that
diversity. Sometimes aesthetic
aspects of life have to be sacrificed to more
fundamental ones.
If the cost of
preserving the spotted owl is the loss of
livelihood for 30,000 logging families,
I choose the families (with their saws
and chopped timber) over the owl.
11
The
important
distinction
is
between
those
environmental
goods
that
are
fundamental
and
those
that are not. Nature
is our ward, not our master. It is to be respected
and even cultivated. But
when humans
have to choose between their own well-being and
that of nature, nature will have to
accommodate.
12
Humanity should accommodate only when its fate and
that of nature are inseparably bound up.
The most urgent maneuver must
be undertaken when the very
integrity of
humanity's
habitat, e.g.,
the
atmosphere or the essential geology that sustains
the core of the earth, is threatened. When
the threat to humanity is lower in the
hierarchy of necessity, a more modest
accommodation that
balances economic
against health concerns is in order. But in either
case the principle is the
same: protect
the environment
—
because it
is humanity's environment.
13 The sentimental environmentalists
will call this saving nature with a totally wrong
frame of
mind. Exactly. A sane and
intelligible environmentalism does it not for
nature's sake but for
our own.