Week 9 Discussion — How Far Can the Evidence Travel? — Traditional alternative (no AI)
Instructors: publish this instead of the adaptive version if you prefer, and unpublish or delete the adaptive one.
Hook
Star ratings, customer surveys, and "it's the same as" comparisons ask you to trust a few cases about many, or one thing about another. Some of them earn that trust and some do not, and in a real case the line is hard to draw, which is why the course keys only clear passages and leaves cases like these to discussion.
Your discussion question — choose Option A or Option B; they carry the same weight and the same rubric, and you say which you picked.
Option A: The running question asks whether the campus library should stay open around the clock during finals week (illustrative). A letter to the campus newsletter argues: "Gyms that stay open around the clock serve night-shift workers who would otherwise have nowhere to train, so the library should stay open all night during finals for students who study late." Run the three-step analogy test: list the similarities that bear on the conclusion, name the strongest disanalogy you can find, and argue whether the comparison is fairly strong, weak, or somewhere in between. You are judging the comparison, not whether the library should stay open.
Option B: Choose one rating, review page, or customer survey from your own life that claimed to speak for a whole group: an app's star rating, a restaurant's reviews, a store's "most customers agree" sign, or a club's feedback form (no politicians, parties, campaigns, election polls, or news outlets, and no one's real name). Say who was in the sample and how they got there, name the trap you see (too small, biased, or nonresponse) or argue that it avoided all three, and judge how far its result can travel: would you call the generalization strong or weak, and why?
There is no single right answer here about how strong a comparison or a rating is. What the course settles is the test: how a sample was chosen matters more than how big it is, and an analogy is only as strong as the similarities that bear on its conclusion. Pick the option you actually care about, and make your case.
Expectations
Activity format: one initial post followed by two substantive peer replies. Plan on about 45 minutes across the two deadlines; your instructor sets both due dates in Canvas.
Your initial post — by the first due date (early in the module week):
- Say which option you chose.
- For Option A, list the similarities between the gyms and the library that bear on the conclusion, name the strongest disanalogy, and say whether the comparison is fairly strong, weak, or in between. For Option B, describe the rating or survey in your own words, name the population and the sample, and say how the sample was chosen.
- Say in one sentence how far the evidence can travel: whether you would call the analogy or the generalization strong or weak, and what would settle it.
- Use at least two of this week's terms (population, sample, biased sample, nonresponse, random sample, representative sample, hasty generalization, argument from analogy, disanalogy, weak analogy, strong, cogent) correctly.
- Length: roughly 150–250 words if written. You may instead record your post as audio or video (about two minutes) and attach a transcript; both forms are scored by the same rubric.
- Write from your own reasoning, in your own words, and keep real people's names, election polls, and live political questions out of your examples.
Your replies — by the second due date (the end of the module week):
- Reply substantively to at least two classmates.
- A substantive reply does more than agree: offer the strongest case against a classmate's judgment, name a disanalogy or a sampling trap they missed, or ask what fact would settle how far their evidence can travel. "Nice post!" on its own does not count.
What a strong post looks like:
I chose Option A. The gyms and the library share two things that bear on the conclusion: some people need them at hours when nothing else is open, and both can be staffed overnight. The strongest disanalogy is that a gym's night users come by choice to a business that charges them, while the library's late users may be skipping sleep before exams. That difference bears on whether serving them at night is a good thing, so I call the comparison weak to middling. It gives a reason to look closer, not a proof.
Notice how it lists only similarities that bear on the conclusion, names a disanalogy, and gives a verdict about the argument without taking a side on the library. That is the bar.
Participation rubric
This discussion is worth 10 points. The three criteria below look at your initial post and your peer replies.
| Criterion | Full credit | Partial credit | No credit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quality of the initial post (4 pts) | The population and sample, or the similarities and the strongest disanalogy, are named, and the strong-or-weak judgment is said in words with its reason | A judgment appears, but how the sample was chosen or which similarities bear on the conclusion is missing | Missing, off-topic, or no judgment |
| Use of course concepts (3 pts) | Uses population, sample, biased sample, nonresponse, random sample, hasty generalization, argument from analogy, disanalogy, strong, or cogent precisely, and keeps sample size apart from how the sample was chosen | Uses a term loosely, or treats a large sample or any difference as settling the question without saying why | No course terms, or used incorrectly |
| Engagement with peers (3 pts) | Two or more substantive replies that press a classmate's judgment with a strong counterpoint, name a missed disanalogy or sampling trap, or ask what fact would settle it | One substantive reply, or replies that only agree | No replies, or "I agree" with nothing added |
Post early if you can — the best threads happen when people have time to reply before the second due date.
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