Defense of Generalizations

Your generalizations are attacked when someone tries to point out that there is an exception to them. There are three answers to this charge.

First, the exception may be irrelevant to the point you are trying to make.

Second, you may claim that the exception is not really an exception and accuse your opponent of special pleadings. You argue that the grounds on which he claims to make an exception (attacks based on the charges of accident or division) are not good grounds.

The third defense against the charge of a hasty generalization (or the existence of an exception to your generalization) is to fall back on the wise saying that "the exception proves the rule" and hope for the best. This, by the way, implies (but don't tell anyone about it) that the more exceptions there are the better the rule is.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cybersecurity - Equifax sued over massive data breach

Cybersecurity Equifax sued over massive data breach Second case brought against company for way it handled personal info ATLANTA  - A team of lawyers has filed a class-action lawsuit against Equifax over that data breach that has compromised the personal information of more than 140 million US consumers. The lawsuit filed in US District Court in Atlanta faults Equifax for "gargantuan failures to secure and safeguard consumers' personally identifiable information -- and for failing to provide timely, accurate and adequate notice" to consumers that such sensitive material had been stolen. The lawsuit said plaintiffs Brian Spector of Florida and James McGonnigal of Maryland are each victims of the breach.  McGonnigal alleges he has "recently had four credit accounts opened in his name without his authorization."   The lawsuit joins another filed this past week in Oregon on behalf of a couple there, and others are expected.  A US House committee has
Read more

IP 23 Feedback

IP 23 Chaperone/Feedback Feedback by closing the loop between the output or product of a process and the controlling or influencing inputs. Introduce feedback. Enhance or change existing feedback. Monitor and control inputs rather than simply inspect outputs. Continuous coursework and assessment rather than end of the year exams. Many processes, typically continuous flow production, electronics or service processes, are part of larger systems. Such systems are best controlled using closed loop feedback, where the state of one or more critical outputs is used to influence one or more critical inputs. Making feedback work well is a challenging subject, as over control is just as problematic as under control. However the aim must be to ensure effective feedback loops are in place within processes where they will clearly help. Feedback is essential as part of system's control mechanisms. Six Sigma encourages the concept and use of the formula Y=f(x), where we control the inputs to a
Read more

TWO MINDSETS

Two different mindsets are doing battle in today's world. Old Power Values Formal (representative) governance, managerialism, institutionalism Competition, exclusivity, resource consolidation Confidentiality, discretion, separation between private and pubic spheres Expertise, professionalism, specialization Long-term affiliation and loyalty, less overall participation New Power Values Informal (networked) governance, opt-in decision-making, self-organization Collaboration, crowd wisdom, sharing, open-sourcing Radical transparency Maker culture, "do-it ourselves" ethic Short-term conditional affiliation, more overall participation
Read more