Students' Council Debate: Fallacies and Fair Restatement
At a junior college students' council debate on a proposal to restrict mobile phones during laboratory periods, candidate A says: 'My opponent, a first-year student who failed the physics unit test, wants to ban phones completely. That is anti-student. Either we allow phones throughout the college or we accept that every practical will be copied. Everyone in the hostel agrees phones improve marks; I asked 12 friends and 11 said yes. My opponent says we should follow the lab supervisor's instruction, but he only wants to control students. A vote for me is a vote for freedom.' The opponent actually proposed phones off only during practicals, with a storage box. The college has 600 students; the hostel has 80 residents. The lab supervisor's instruction says phones must be off during practicals because of equipment damage. The audience must decide which arguments are fallacious, which premise is unsupported, and how to restate the issue fairly.
1. Identify at least three fallacies in candidate A's speech, quoting the relevant words and explaining why each is fallacious.
Read the worked answer
Several fallacies appear. (1) Ad hominem: 'a first-year student who failed the physics unit test' attacks the opponent's background rather than the proposal. (2) Straw man: 'wants to ban phones completely' misrepresents the opponent, who proposed phones off only during practicals with a storage box. (3) False dilemma: 'Either we allow phones throughout the college or we accept that every practical will be copied' presents only two extremes and ignores restricted-use options. (4) Hasty generalization: 'Everyone in the hostel agrees' is based on '12 friends and 11 said yes', a small, biased sample of an 80-resident hostel. (5) Appeal to popularity: treating hostel opinion as evidence that phones improve marks. (6) Circumstantial ad hominem: 'he only wants to control students' attributes a motive instead of answering the argument. Any three with clear explanation are sufficient.
2. Which factual claim is unsupported or misleading, and what evidence would be needed to decide the policy question?
Read the worked answer
The claim 'Everyone in the hostel agrees phones improve marks' is unsupported. The sample is 12 friends, not a random or representative sample of the 80 hostel residents, and friendship groups tend to share views. Even a representative hostel poll would not show that phones improve marks; it would show only perceived opinion. To decide the policy, the college would need evidence such as lab incident logs involving phones, supervisor reports of equipment damage, results from a pilot storage-box rule, academic integrity data for practicals, and a properly sampled student survey. The lab supervisor's instruction is relevant expert input, but it should be weighed with the actual incident evidence rather than dismissed by an motive attack.
3. Restate the issue in a fair, non-fallacious way and outline the evidence needed to decide it.
Read the worked answer
Fair restatement: 'Should mobile phones be prohibited during laboratory practicals, allowed only with a storage box, or permitted under another restricted rule, given the risks of equipment damage and the students' need for communication?' This framing states the actual proposal, avoids the false dilemma, and does not attack persons. Evidence needed includes the frequency and cost of phone-related lab incidents, supervisor logs, trial results from a storage-box policy, student compliance data, and comparisons with other colleges. The decision should weigh safety and equipment costs against convenience and student autonomy. The council should also separate the question of phone use during practicals from the wider question of phone use throughout the college.