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Try It! Essay - Analyzing Analogies
One of the mental processes in making decisions is creating comparisons or analogies between situations. How is school A like school B? How is it different? Do you want to take a class with professor Q or professor S? Just because both used cars are Hondas, does that mean they are alike? What similarities and differences exist between the two? How will you decide which car to buy?
Analogies provide the opportunity to examine situations logically and therefore facilitate the decision-making process. Two things to consider about analogies:
1. They can be confused with metaphors
Almost as ubiquitous as metaphors, and essentially the same process of making comparisons, analogies are different than metaphors in that only some aspects of the comparisons are similar; many are different. In a metaphor an unexpected comparison is made between two different items because of their perceived similarities. For example, to call New York "the big apple" is a metaphor, while to say an orange is like an apple is a false analogy. While both an apple and an orange are fruits, they are distinctly different kinds of fruits.
2. The comparison can be illogical or false
An illogical or false analogy occurs when an assumption is made about one of the premises in the argument or one of the concepts or ideas in the comparison. As in the example of the fruits, it is assumed that because both an apple and an orange are fruits, they are essentially the same. For example, one senator's argument against a bill banning chlordane intended to kill termites on the grounds that it is like banning automobiles because they kill people may be considered a false analogy because:
- The analogy assumes that chlordane and automobiles share the same characteristics and they do not.
- Chlordane was intended to protect houses.
- Chlordane chases termites away, it doesn't kill them
- Its use on crops was banned in 1974 because it was feared that they could affect humans negatively.
- Other pesticides could be substituted for chlordane without undue social or economic influence
- Banning automobiles would cause significant social and economic hardship
Before you proceed to the exercise, review some information on analogies and metaphors by visiting the following Web sites:
Reviewing Analogous Situations
Your ability to make difficult decisions will be improved by carefully analyzing a situation in which there is an implied or stated analogy. Practice decision making by completing the following exercise:
- Read the following analogies
- Decide what the similarities are between the two situations or items
- Decide what unstated differences could possibly exist between the two situations or items; use your imagination and logical thinking to determine some supposed differentiating characteristics between them
- Based on a logical description of the differences, decide which situation or item you would choose
- Explain why you made that choice
Analogy #1
In order to complete your credits for your major in History, your counsellor suggests that you could take either a course on First Nations' Land Claims or on the British Commonwealth. She assures you that both courses have excellent professors, and award the same number of credits. But you know some people who took the course on First Nations' Land Claims and had difficulties with the tests and almost failed. You can't afford to fail a course this close to graduation. On the other hand, you have no real interest in studying the British Commonwealth in depth. You can't decide which course to take.
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