How can you improve your deductive reasoning skills?
What will be an ideal response?
Even without training, you can improve your own deductive reasoning by developing strategies to avoid making errors. For example, an unscrupulous politician might state that, "We know that some suspicious looking people are illegal aliens. We also know that some illegal aliens are terrorists. Therefore, we can be sure that some of those people whom we think are suspicious are terrorists and that they are out to destroy our country!" The politician's syllogistic reasoning is wrong. If some A are B and some B are C, it is not necessarily the case that any A are C. This is obvious when you realize that some men are happy people and some happy people are women, but this does not imply that some men are women. Make sure you are using the proper strategies to solve syllogisms. Remember that reversals only work with universal negatives. Sometimes translating abstract terms to concrete ones (e.g., the letter C to cows) can help. Also, take the time to consider contrary examples and create more mental models. The more mental models you use for a given set of premises, the more confident you can be that if your conclusion is not valid, it will be disconfirmed. Thus, the use of multiple mental models increases the likelihood of avoiding errors. The use of multiple mental models also helps you to avoid the tendency to engage in confirmation bias. Circle diagrams also can be helpful in solving deductive reasoning problems.
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Indicate whether this statement is true or false.
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