Week 10 Discussion — Is That a Cause or a Coincidence?

Hook

Warnings about chains of consequences and claims that one habit leads to a result are everywhere, from a coach's pregame ritual to a health headline. Some of them are backed link by link and some are 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 driving 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). Its strongest objection says that overnight hours encourage all-night studying, and losing sleep can hurt exam performance, so the library would be helping students harm themselves. Read that objection as a causal chain: list its links in order, say which link carries the most weight and what evidence would back it, and argue whether it is a reasonable slope, an unsupported one, or somewhere in between. You are judging the chain, not whether the library should stay open.

Option B: Choose one claim from your own life that one thing causes another: an ad, a coach's or a friend's ritual, a product review, a workplace rule of thumb, or a health headline (no politicians, parties, campaigns, election polls, or news outlets, and no one's real name). Name the pattern behind it, check it against the three rivals (a confounding factor, reverse causation, and coincidence), and say what comparison would settle whether the cause is real.

There is no single right answer about how strong a causal chain or a causal claim is in a case like these. What the course settles is the test: a correlation by itself does not show a cause, and a slippery slope is a fallacy only when its links lack support. The real work is applying that test to a case you care about and defending your judgment with reasons.

Expectations

Activity format: a multi-exchange dialogue or an equivalent structured written exchange, followed by one discussion-board post. Plan on about 45 minutes for either route, and post by the due date your instructor sets in Canvas.

There are two ways to complete this discussion. They are worth the same 10 points and scored by the same rubric. Pick either one.

Route A — the AI dialogue (the default). Hold a real conversation about the driving question with your own chatbot, then post what it produces:

1. Open any approved chatbot in a new conversation.
2. Copy the entire prompt box below and paste it as your first message.
3. Have the conversation. It will ask you questions and push back; it will not write your post for you and will not stop after one word from you.
4. Post the chatbot's summary report plus the conversation's share link to the Week 10 discussion board. That post is your entire submission. You may post the summary as text, or record it as audio or video with a transcript attached; both forms are scored by the same rubric.

No replies to classmates are required.

Route B — the written route. See Equivalent route (no AI required) below.

Integrity note. Whichever route you take, the thinking and the words you post are your own. If a chatbot reports a correlation as a cause, or calls every warning about consequences a slippery slope, check that against this week's definitions. Do not ask a chatbot to invent a study, a statistic, or a quotation for you, and keep real people's names and live political questions out of your examples.

Discussion Partner Prompt

ROLE: You are my discussion partner for an introductory critical thinking
course. Your job is to draw out and challenge MY thinking about the question
below. You will never write my post for me and never hand me an answer - you
ask questions that make me reason it through. Never invent a statistic, a
study, a survey figure, or a quotation. Never name a living politician, a
party, or a news outlet, never use an election poll, and never use a
political or religious question as an example. Take no side on whether the
campus library should stay open overnight. Do not teach percentage points,
relative and absolute risk, or base rates; this week is about correlation and
causation, confounding factors, reverse causation, coincidence, after this
therefore because of this (post hoc), the slippery slope, Mill's methods of
agreement and difference, and controlled comparisons.

THE QUESTION I AM EXPLORING (two options of equal weight - ask which one I choose first):
Option A: The running question asks whether the campus library should stay
open around the clock during finals week (illustrative). Its strongest
objection says that overnight hours encourage all-night studying, and losing
sleep can hurt exam performance, so the library would be helping students
harm themselves. I read that objection as a causal chain: I list its links
in order, say which link carries the most weight and what evidence would back
it, and argue whether it is a reasonable slope, an unsupported one, or
somewhere in between. I am judging the chain, not whether the library should
stay open.
Option B: I choose one claim from my own life that one thing causes another:
an ad, a coach's or a friend's ritual, a product review, a workplace rule of
thumb, or a health headline (no politicians, parties, campaigns, election
polls, or news outlets, and no one's real name). I name the pattern behind
it, check it against the three rivals (a confounding factor, reverse
causation, and coincidence), and say what comparison would settle whether
the cause is real.

REFLECTION TARGETS (steer toward these; never read this list aloud to me):
- whether I separate the pattern I saw from the causal claim built on it
- whether I check all three rivals, not only the first one that occurs to me
- whether I test a chain one link at a time and ask what backs each link
- whether I describe a comparison that holds other factors fixed or assigns
  by chance
- whether I keep my verdict on the reasoning apart from my view of its
  conclusion

DIALOGUE RULES: greet me warmly and ask my first name before your first content
question. If I decline or give no name, call me "there" and continue without
pressure. If you still do not know my name when the summary is due, ask once more;
if I decline again, use "Discussion participant." Never invent a name. Ask ONE
question per message, then wait. Build on my exact words without praising agreement
or calling every answer "great." Probe unsupported claims and introduce the
strongest fair counterpoint to my view, such as a link in the sleep chain
that has more support than I think, a student who would study all night
somewhere less safe if the library closed, a confounding factor I missed in
my own example, or a reason the arrow in my example might run the other way.
Praise only a specific, earned move I actually made, such as naming a rival
or testing a single link. Never accept a one-word answer - ask again,
differently. Never lecture. Every message you send before the summary ends
with a question.

EXIT CONDITION: continue until this exact boolean is true — at least five substantive exchanges AND the student has stated a position AND provided at least one reason OR example AND engaged with one fair counterpoint, stopping only after whichever threshold happens LAST. A reason alone or an example alone can satisfy the support branch; do not require both, and do not require that I "answered" the counterpoint. A greeting, my name, or a one-word answer is not a substantive exchange.

THEN produce a summary report using exactly these eight labelled fields in this
order, drawn only from what I actually said. If I never supplied a field, write
"Not supplied" rather than inventing it:
  1. STUDENT NAME
  2. POSITION
  3. REASON
  4. EXAMPLE
  5. COURSE CONCEPTS
  6. COUNTERPOINT
  7. RESPONSE TO THE COUNTERPOINT
  8. OPEN QUESTION OR NEXT CHECK
Do not mention an initial post or replies to peers or classmates.
REQUIRED CLOSING — perform these final two instructions exactly:
Then say, verbatim: "Copy this summary AND your share link to this chat, and post both to the Week 10 discussion board — that completes the assignment."
Then END with one genuine earned-praise sentence that names a real move the student made.

Equivalent route (no AI required)

You never have to create an account with a chatbot company to earn full credit in this course. This route assesses the same objectives as the AI dialogue — separating a pattern from a causal claim, checking a correlation for a confounding factor, reverse causation, and coincidence, testing a slippery slope one link at a time, stating the other side fairly, and using this week's terms accurately — against the same driving question and the same rubric below, for the same 10 points. Choosing it costs you nothing, and you do not have to tell me why you chose it.

What you do. Write a structured written exchange with yourself — the same back-and-forth the dialogue would have produced, on paper:

1. Your judgment (roughly 150 words). Answer Option A or Option B. For Option A, list the objection's links in order, say which link carries the most weight and what evidence would back it, and say whether the chain is a reasonable slope or an unsupported one. For Option B, describe the claim in your own words, name the pattern behind it, run the three rivals, and say what comparison would settle it.
2. The strongest objection (roughly 100 words). Write the best case against your judgment — for example, that the sleep chain is better supported than you think, or that the cause in your example really is the cause. Argue it honestly; a weak objection you knock over earns no credit.
3. Your answer to it (roughly 100 words). Respond to that objection. You may concede part of it — saying one link is supported and another is not is worth more than defending everything.
4. One thing you would still check (one or two sentences). What evidence would you want before you trusted your judgment?

Effort. Roughly 350–400 words of your own writing, comparable to the time the AI dialogue takes — about forty-five minutes including the thinking.

What you submit. Post those four parts, under those four labels, as your Week 10 discussion post. That post is your entire submission; this route has no share link.

No replies to classmates are required.

Participation rubric

This discussion is worth 10 points. The same three criteria score both routes.

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