Identify the errors in reasoning in the following examples.
1. Fluorine is the most dangerous toxic chemical on earth; it is so powerful in its corrosive effect that it is used to etch glass. The idea of putting that sort of chemical in our drinking water is just insane. Fluoridation is a menace to health.
2. Additionally, many medical associations are opposed to fluoridation. For instance, the Texas Medical Association declined to recommend it.
3. It's not hard to explain why some doctors favor fluoridation. For instance, one of its leading advocates has been Dr. Danger, Dean and Research Professor of Nutrition at the State University Medical School. Dr. Danger received in the past six years over $350,000 from the food processors, the refined sugar interests, the soft drink people, and the chemical and drug interests.
4. Fluoridation is opposed by a crackpot, antiscientific minority. I do not believe that the minority ever has the right to keep the majority from getting what they want. In any city where a majority of us want fluoridaiton, we should have it; that's the democratic way.
5. I am against the governor's child development program. What is at issue is whether parents shall continue to have the right to form the character of children, or whether the State with all its power and magnitude should be given the decisive tools and techniques for forming the young.
6. I don't see why we need affirmative action policies for women. Just look at all the problems we are having in universities hiring enough women. We hear stories all the time of women not wanting the jobs that are offered.
7. Education cannot prepare men and women for marriage. To try to educate them for marriage is like trying to teach them to swim without letting them go into the water. It cannot be done.
8. To allow the press to keep their sources confidential is very advantageous to the country, since it is highly conducive to the interests of the larger community that private individuals should have the privilege of providing information to the press without being identified.
9. In the late 1960's highway fatalities were increasing at a rate of about 500 a year. They reached 55,000plus in 1973. Once the 55-mph speed limit law was put into effect, the first year -- 1974 -- the fatalities immediately dropped by 10,000. In the three following years, fatalities were about 9,000 lower than the 1973 level. Therefore, in its first four years, the law saved over 36,000 lives.
10. What's wrong with buying term papers? Most students only resort to bying them because they realize that the system is rotten; the term paper itself has become a farce in the eyes of the students, since they are required to go through the mechanical motions, month after month, of putting things tediously down on paper, writing correct sentences, organizing their paragraphs and ideas, thinking up arguments to use, and all those rituals -- surely you aren't going to claim that that is education.