this wasteful, ill-advised and dangerous program in the courts of public opinion and
litigation until it's just a bad memory. If you agree, please contact your congressional
representatives and register your opposition.
Complex Arguments for Analysis 247
The wolf program has been put above the people and beyond common sense, and
it's time to halt the whole thing. Let's put these pampered federal bureaucrats out to
pasture and protect the investment of our family farms and ranches. Let our people
produce the food that feeds the nation without the oppressive hand of the "federal fish
and wolf police" disrupting our lives and business.
You might also want to call or drop a line to the Defenders of Wildlife and ask what
the going price is for a family pet or, for that matter, a child.
Norm Plank, The Albuquerque Tribune, January 5, 2000
Plank is the executive vice president of the New Mexico Farm and Livestock Bureau.
19. The set-point theory: Why fad diets don't work
There's probably not one of us who hasn't tried losing weight fast, too fast, through fad
diets, fasting, overly restricting our caloric intake, and other such attempts at starving
ourselves into thinness. There are two main problems with these all-too-common
approaches to losing weight, however. First, they seriously jeopardize our health. And
second, such dieting efforts are fundamentally counterproductive. Ultimately they don't
work.
• We lose fat, yes, but also a large measure of muscle.
• We unintentionally lower our metabolism.
• We set the stage for gaining fat increasingly faster in the future when
we come off the diet, and thereby get caught up in perpetual dieting.
• We receive inadequate nutrients in imbalanced combinations.
• We tax the entire body.
Prolonged fasting, for instance, causes important electrolytes like sodium, calcium,
magnesium, and phosphate to be excreted. Weakness and fainting can occur due to
dehydration and a reduction in the volume of blood. Congestive heart failure and even
death have been reported in cases of fasting and extremely low caloric intake.
Fasting and very low calorie diets (diets below 500 calories) cause a loss of nitrogen
and potassium in the body, a loss which is believed to trigger a mechanism in the body
that causes us to hold on to our fat stores and to turn to muscle protein for energy
instead. Scientists have speculated that within each of us is a unique "set-point
mechanism" that regulates the amount of fat we carry. It's believed to be a survival
mechanism of our species, a way of stocking up for times of famine and emergency. If
the body perceives that it's starving, as it rightly does if we are always on a diet or if we suddenly crash-diet or fast, the set point is thought to kick into action, causing the body to keep a tenacious grip on its fat supply. In order to replenish itself, the body will
first cause you to crave food—most commonly full-dense, high-caloried sugars and fats.
If you successfully resist these cravings, the body's next line of defense will be to react
by slowing down the metabolism in order to conserve calories. In the face of food
deprivation, the body holds on to its fat tissue for dear life.
Given all this, you should immediately rule out such approaches to weight loss.
Jane Fonda's New Workout and Weight Loss Program
248 COMPLEX ARGUMENTS
20. Police chief's dumping a dumb deed by North Las Vegas
North Las Vegas cannot afford to lose any IQ points—especially in the area of law
enforcement—and that's exactly what happened with the forced retirement of city Police
Chief Alan Nelson. A 25-year veteran, Nelson was arrested Friday on a drunken driving
charge. Rather than battle it out in the courts and attempt to play politics with the North
Las Vegas City Council, Mayor James Seastrand and City Manager Linda Hinson,
Nelson cleared off his desk and turned in his badge.
That's a shame.
If I may be so presumptuous, the people of North Las Vegas—hard-working people
who live in one of the nation's high-crime areas—need police officers of Nelson's
experience and level. I'm not condoning driving while legally impaired—although it
would be refreshing to read the department's official lab findings before seeing the
Northtown political machine bury the chief's career without even playing "Taps."
It makes painfully little sense to force him out of office in the name of political
correctness and image enhancement. Holding a top police officer to a higher standard is
fine, but this presses the point to the extreme.
If the man has a drinking problem, he should be treated with compassion—not a
pink slip. After all, it's not as if he is the first cop to drive drunk, if he did.
Fact is, if he were anyone but the chief and were arrested and later convicted of
driving while intoxicated, Nelson probably would have received a 40-hour suspension
and, like almost everyone else similarly situated, would have been ordered by the court
to attend alcohol-awareness classes and seek rehabilitation.
Imagine the image Nelson might have enhanced had he been asked to cut a few
public-service announcements for anti-DUI groups?
That's not possible now.
Nelson has plenty of critics these days, but he also has his share of friends. North
Las Vegas Police Lt. Bob King is one of them. With nearly 26 years on the department,
King is the Narcotics Division commander. He knows sticking up for his ousted
comrade is unlikely to win him any points with the city's political hierarchy.
"He's not a high-profiler. He's one of those guys who has been in the trenches, kind
of a worker bee," King says. "It just breaks my heart, the whole thing. He was really
beginning to move the department forward. He was doing all these good things. And he
has one transgression, if you will, four blocks from his house."
Be honest. If you were the top cop in one of the nation's roughest communities,
wouldn't you be tempted to drink?
Arsenic.
That doesn't mitigate the seriousness of the offense, but neither should the offense
wipe out a quarter century of hard work.
As chief, Nelson was implementing the progressive Safe Streets 2000 community
policing program and, King says, was a fair-minded administrator who had a mature
grasp of the budget realities the small department faced. He also understood the
convoluted federal government grant-writing process, an essential component in the
budget mechanism in many departments. North Las Vegas has fewer than 200 cops on
the street.
Complex Arguments for Analysis 249
"Those talents are gone," King says. "When he gave his word, you knew he was
there for you. You knew exactly where he stood day to day. He has my respect,
appreciation and admiration."
In an open letter, King adds, "I see a man whose entire 25-year professional career
of personal contributions and accomplishments as both an outstanding policeman and
administrator are totally overshadowed and will be measured by a single regrettable
incident. . . . He neither asked for nor received any preferential treatment. He practiced
and demonstrated this ethic his entire career. With eloquence and dignity he has left the
&
nbsp; job he dearly loves."
For all his human frailties, Chief Nelson was a hard-working cop who was dumped
in the name of political correctness. In North Las Vegas, yet.
And that's just plain dumb.
John L. Smith, Las Vegas Review-Journal, March 20, 1997
21. Dumb deed (reply to the previous argument)
In his March 20 column ("Police chief dumping a dumb deed by North Las Vegas"),
John L. Smith used sarcastic remarks to assess the situation pertaining to North Las
Vegas and its former chief of police, Alan Nelson.
But the only "dumb deed" in North Las Vegas was created by its former police chief
when he chose to drink and drive. And let's not forget the "dumb deed" was further en-
hanced by the fact he was driving a city vehicle. It is also dumb for people to minimize
the seriousness of drinking and driving by singing the praises of a potential killer. How
potential? If a driver's blood-alcohol level is .10 the risk of a fatal crash is increased by
300 percent. Mr. Nelson's chemical test revealed his BAC level to be at .12.
And consider this: The profile of a drunken driver includes the fact that DUI
offenders drive drunk an average of 80 times per year.
The "dumb" continues—"He wasn't drunk," "It's only a misdemeanor," "A single regrettable incident," "He has one transgression" . . . these are the reasons I have heard and read in defense of Mr. Nelson. This mentality is nearly as frightening as the crime
of DUI. "A single regrettable incident" and "one transgression" on the part of drinking drivers was all it took in 1996 to cause the death and injury of more than 1,600 people in
Clark County.
Mr. Smith suggested certain IQ points were lost by North Las Vegas and he also
alluded to that city's need for police officers of Mr. Nelson's experience. Based on the
numerous calls I received from the citizens of North Las Vegas, I believe they want
officers at that experience level to also possess an IQ that would not allow jeopardizing a
25-year career nor permit conduct that would endanger the citizens.
Mr. Smith agreed that holding "top police officers" to a higher standard is fine—but
he said "political correctness" has gone too far in this instance. Political correctness?
Has our society strayed so far from the realm of social, moral and ethical responsibilities
that when these standards are utilized, they are scoffed at as "political correctness"?
As far as Mr. Nelson's "forced retirement" is concerned, I can only say that if I had
dedicated a quarter of a century of my life to a career and was wrongly accused of a
crime that would have a negative effect on that career, I would fight like hell to vindicate
250 COMPLEX ARGUMENTS
myself. Again, that is only if I were wrongly accused.
I question whether Mr. Smith's commentary would have been as generous and
compassionate if he and his beautiful child whom he wrote so eloquently about not so
long ago had been in the path of Mr. Nelson the night he was arrested (assuming they
lived to write about it). Never forget there is only one thing that separates a felony from
a misdemeanor—it's called luck.
Mr. Smith stated that if Mr. Nelson has a drinking problem he should be treated with
compassion. If he has a "drinking problem," why wasn't it recognized by his friends and
co-workers? How could he be treated if the stale, antiquated "drinking problem" excuse
is deemed not to be applicable?
If you want to hear "Taps," Mr. Smith, come to our next DUI Victims Candlelight
Vigil. You have attended before—however, it appears you may have forgotten the
victims who were there. Let me refresh your memory. They were the people who were
sobbing their guts out in memory of their loved ones who had been killed by people like
Alan Nelson. Your seat is reserved.
Sandy Heverly, president of Stop DUI, a Nevada non-profit organization
Las Vegas Review-Journal, April 9, 1997
REASONING ABOUT
OUR EXPERIENCE
12 Reasoning
by Analogy
A. What is Reasoning by Analogy? 253
B. An Example 254
C. Judging Analogies 256
D. Analogies in the Law 257
Summary 259
• Exercises for Chapter 12 259
A. What is Reasoning by Analogy?
We have a desire to be consistent in our lives, to see and apply general principles.
"Why shouldn't I hit you? You hit me," says the first-grader, invoking the principle
that whatever someone does to me that's bad, I'm justified in doing back to her.
Since it was O.K. there, it should be O.K. here. This situation is like that one.
Since we concluded here, we can conclude there. That's arguing by analogy.
We should legalize marijuana. After all, if we don't, what's the rationale
for making alcohol and tobacco legal?
Alcohol is legal. Tobacco is legal. Therefore, marijuana should be legal. They are
sufficiently similar.
DDT has been shown to cause cancer in rats. Therefore, there is a good
chance DDT will cause cancer in humans.
Rats are like humans. So if rats get cancer from DDT, so will humans. That's
arguing by analogy.
Reasoning by analogy starts with a comparison. But not every comparison is
an argument.
Reasoning by analogy A comparison becomes reasoning by analogy
when it is part of an argument: On one side of the comparison we draw
a conclusion, so on the other side we should conclude the same.
253
254 CHAPTER 12 Reasoning by Analogy
"My love is like a red, red rose" is a comparison. Perhaps your English teacher
called it an analogy. But it is not an argument—what conclusion is being drawn by
Robert Burns?
Analogies, as we'll see, are often only suggestions for arguments. But they
have to be taken seriously, for they are used in science, law, and ethics. You use
them yourself every day—how often have you heard or said, "But last time . . ." ?
How can we tell if an analogy is good?
B. An Example
Example 1 (Country Joe MacDonald was a rock star who wrote songs protesting the war
in Vietnam. In 1995 he was interviewed on National Public Radio about his motives
for working to establish a memorial for Vietnam War soldiers in Berkeley, California,
his home and a center of anti-war protests in the 60s and 70s. Here is what he said.)
"Blaming soldiers for war is like blaming firemen for fires."
Analysis This is a comparison. But it's meant as an argument:
We don't blame firemen for fires.
Firemen and fires are like soldiers and wars.
Therefore, we should not blame soldiers for war.
This sounds pretty reasonable.
But in what way are firemen and fires like soldiers and wars? They have to be
similar enough in some respect for Country Joe's remark to be more than suggestive.
We need to pick out important similarities that we can use as premises.
Firemen and fires are like soldiers and war.
wear uniforms
answer to chain of command
cannot disobey superior without serious consequences
fight (fires/wars)
work done when fire/war is over
until recently only men
lives at risk in work
fire/war kills others
firemen don't start fires—sol
diers don't start wars
usually drink beer
That's stupid: Firemen and soldiers usually drink beer. So?
When you ask "So?" you're on the way to deciding if the analogy is good. It's
not just any similarity that's important. There must be some crucial, important way
that firemen fighting fires is like soldiers fighting wars, some similarity that can
account for why we don't blame firemen for fires that also applies to soldiers and
SECTION B An Example 255
war. Some similarities listed above don't seem to matter. Others we can't use
because they trade on an ambiguity, like saying firemen "fight" fires.
We don't have any good guide for how to proceed—that's a weakness of the
original argument. But if we're to take Country Joe MacDonald's remark seriously,
we have to come up with some principle that applies to both sides.
The similarity that seems most important is that both firemen and soldiers are
involved in dangerous work, trying to end a problem/disaster they didn't start. We
don't want to blame someone for helping to end a disaster that could harm us all.
( ) Firemen are involved in dangerous work.
Soldiers are involved in dangerous work.
The job of a fireman is to end a fire.
The job of a soldier is to end a war.
Firemen don't start fires.
Soldiers don't start wars.
But even with these premises added to the original argument, we don't get a
good argument for the conclusion that we shouldn't blame soldiers for wars. We
need a general principle, some glue. And we know it has to be prescriptive:
You shouldn't blame someone for helping to end a disaster that could
harm others if he didn't start the disaster.
This claim, this general principle seems plausible, and it yields a valid argument.
But is the argument good? Are all the premises true? This is the point where
the differences between firemen and soldiers might be important.
The first two premises of ($) are clearly true, and so is the third. But is the job
of soldiers to end a war? And do soldiers really not start wars? Look at this
difference:
Without firemen there would still be fires.
Without soldiers there wouldn't be any wars.
Without soldiers there would still be violence. But without soldiers—any soldiers
Richard L Epstein Page 32
