Tutorials 6 8ExercisingSkillsofReasoning

ES1531/GEK1549/GET1021 Critical Thinking and Writing
Weeks 4 & 5 Tutorials 6 8: Deconstructing Arguments
AY2016-17 Semester 1
Learning Objectives:
By the end of this tutorial, you should be able to:
analyze a text: identify the issue, main claim and key arguments and premises that
support the main claim;
evaluate the premises or key arguments provided to support the main claim;
assess the sources provided to support an argument;
write a summary of the writers argument and an evaluation of key arguments.
In tutorials 6, 7 and 8 you will practise deconstructing an argument and evaluating the quality
of the evidence used to support arguments. This practice will reinforce what you have learned
in the previous tutorials and, more importantly, help you prepare for Assignment 1.
As stated in the Course Information, Assignment 1 is designed to test your ability to read
critically by identifying the parts of an argument, state its structure or form and provide a
basic evaluation of the writers argument.
There are three parts to this Assignment:
Section A
(No marks
awarded)
Identify the main parts of the writers argument (main claim, premises, evidence)
through a graphic representation.
Section B
(20 marks)
Write a summary of the writers argument between 200 and 250 words. Your
summary should identify the main claim and key arguments. Use your own words
as far as possible.
Section C
(80 marks)
Based on the graphic representation of the writers argument, identify and

evaluate ONE key argument presented by the writer to support his main claim.
You should state the form of the argument, write a well-articulated thesis on the
quality of the argument and defend your evaluation with reasons. Your evaluation
should be between 650-750 words.
You should include at least TWO sources to support the reasons for your evaluation
and a Reference List at the end of your paper.
Before you attempt the required tasks, it is important that you read the Assignment 1 Marking
Descriptors to understand what your tutor will be looking for in your work.
@ES1531/GEK1549/GET1021, CELC, NUS
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Steps To Evaluate An Argument

1. Identify the conclusion/main claim. What kind of claim is it? Is the writer trying to
establish a conclusive conclusion or attempting to show that the conclusion is
plausible?
2. Identify the premises and evidence provided to support the main claim. Each of these
premises and evidence form a set of self-contained sub-argument, which we term a
key argument in this module. Also, the term sub-claim is used to refer to the
conclusion of a key argument.
3. Reconstruct the writers arguments by arranging the key arguments in order; number
each of these consecutively with the conclusion or main claim as the last step.
Arranging the key arguments in a graphic representation will help you to see the
form/structure or flow of the argument. Here is an example of a graphic
representation.
Key Argument 1
(Premises & Subclaim)
Premise 1 and
Evidence
Premise 2 and
Evidence
Main Claim
Key Argument 2
(Premises & Subclaim)
Premise 1 and
Evidence
Premise 2 and
Evidence
4. Identifying the form of the key argument will help you decide whether the argument
was constructed through deductive or inductive reasoning, and this information will
help to determine the criteria to use for evaluating the argument.
5. When evaluating an argument, ask yourself these questions:
What are the important assumptions (stated or unstated) for each premise /key argument? Are
the assumptions justified?
Is there any fallacious argument? Is it an appeal to pity? Is the analogy appropriate? Refer to
the earlier section on Fallacious Arguments.
Has the writer used emotive, biased language rather than good arguments to persuade the
readers of his/her view?
What is the quality of the evidence used? If a study or survey is referred to, how adequate is
the sample size? What is the significance of the study? How reliable are the statistics
quoted? Do you have contrary statistics?
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Are the writers key terms ambiguous or vague which may confuse the reader?
Is the writers position/conclusion acceptable or strong based on the premises/reasons? Is it
logical?
Adapted from Dobson and Feak (2001)
Writing your summary of the writers argument

1. Begin your summary by writing the main claim of the writers argument, and citing the
original source. The source should be integrated in the sentence as an APA in-text citation
as shown in the example below.
Title of article
APA Citation
In his article "In defense of superstition, Hutson (2012) argues that He supports this
main claim with three key arguments. In his first key argument, he asserts/concludes that
His first premise states that
Reporting Verbs
The writer has a stand on an issue. If it is possible, identify the issue and the type of main
claim in the summary.
Remember not to write a summary of the entire article.
Do not begin evaluating any claim, argument or piece of evidence in the summary.
2. Scrutinize the title as well as the sub-headings (if there are) of the article to help you identify
the authors main claim and its supporting key arguments. The conclusion of each key
argument should support the main claim.
3. Choose your reporting verbs carefully. Avoid verbs such as mentions, discusses and says.
The verbs used should show the relationship between the key arguments and main claim,
and between the premises and sub claim/conclusion of the key arguments.
4. Write the number of words in brackets at the end of the summary.
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Writing your evaluation of a key argument

1. Begin your evaluation by identifying a key argument: this can be done by stating what
the conclusion, premises and assumptions of that key argument are.
(Labelling/Modelling)
2. State the form of the argument by identifying it as a deductive or inductive argument;
use the appropriate terms of appraisal associated with each form in your evaluation of
the key argument. (Modelling)
3. Write a clear thesis indicating your position on the quality of the key argument.
Remember that the form of the argument and the truth of its premises determine the
quality of an argument.
Here are two examples of a thesis statement for your evaluation.
a. Hutsons second key argument is a strong inductive argument because it is
cogent and all his premises are true.
b. While this is a valid deductive argument, it is not sound because one or more of
its premises are false.
4. If you claim that the key argument is not cogent or not valid, you will need to explain
why this is the case. (Modelling/Decomposition)
5. After evaluating the form of the argument, the next step is to check the truth of each
premise for this allows you to discern if the argument in question is strong or sound.
(Decomposition/Gathering Data). You will need to support your arguments by citing
evidence from reliable sources.
6. Write the number of words at the end of the evaluation.
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Paragraphs
1 Inquiry/Labelling/Modelling
Identification of one key
argument (all premises and
evidence).
Content
In Matthew's article "In defence of Superstition"(2012),
he uses an inductive form of argument for his first key
argument to support his main claim that superstition has
Comments
In Matthew's article "In defence of Superstition"(2012), he (Wrong:
Matthew is not the surname and the name should not be in the
dependent clause )
'psychological benefits' which cannot be explained by
Change: put the pronoun in the dependent clause and the surname in
the main clause; the in-text citation is placed next to the surname)
State which key argument.
science. His first premise states that His second
Correct: In his article "In defence of Superstition", Hutson (2012)
Key argument = main

claim/conclusion + premises
(evidence)
premise states Therefore, Hutson concludes
Depending on whether you see it

as deductive or inductive,
present the form of the
argument.
2 Decomposition
State your thesis, which is your
position on or evaluative
statement of whether the
argument is strong or weak,
giving the criteria based on
deductive or inductive
reasoning. The criteria also
include assumptions and
fallacies.
superstition provides a
Although Hutsons first key argument is cogent, it is

weak because its first premise, namely, that superstitious
beliefs increases ones performance, is likely to be false.
This argument is cogent because the premises do
provide sufficient support for the conclusion to be highly
probable if the premises were true. However, the truth
of his first premise is questionable because
3 Decomposition/
Gathering data
In his first premise, he cites a German study (Damisch,
Assess the credibility of the key

argument's sub claim/conclusion
and premises/reasons and
evidence using the criteria
mentioned in paragraph 2.
when a lucky charm was present. Upon closer evaluation
2010) which reported a strong increase in performance
It is also possible to use a deductive approach.

State the conclusion, major and minor premises clearly to show that it
is a deductive argument.
You state your position in relation to the evaluation: strong or weak.

You cannot state the argument is to a large extent strong or weak.
The argument is either strong or weak.
You use terms related to the inductive argument.
An argument is cogent if and only if the truth of its premises makes it
very probable that its conclusion will be true.
An inductive argument is strong if and only if it
(i) is cogent
(ii) contains only true premises
You must evaluate the premises before bringing in your sources to
support your evaluation.
of the evidence, one will notice the study was based on

only 4 controlled experiments, a small sample size of 28
students in the golf experiment to a maximum of 51
Hedging --likely, suggests, may, may not
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Use at least two sources to help
you. Remember to select your
sources carefully. More reliable
and credible sources tend to
strengthen your argument.
university students, which is hardly representative of the
What is the purpose of using hedges?
general population. An alternative explanation for the
There are several ways to bring in the source depending on your

purpose:
better performances of subjects in, say, the lucky ball

experiment could be that these subjects are more willing
to take risks than those without some such lucky balls or
they may have prior experience playing golf. The causal
relationship is not clear. As a result, it may be false to
infer from these experiments that a belief in the
supernatural provides one with a sense of control. In
According to As a matter of fact/In fact Indeed

This was pointed out by xxx that
On the contrary, xxx dismisses
Note: A work by 3-5 authors:
It was observed that (Baker, Rosetti, Anadon, Henrion & Reis,
2015) (first occurrence of the in-text citation); or
Baker, Rosetti, Anadon, Henrion and Reis (2015) observed that
(first occurrence of the in-text citation); or
fact, a study by an American university (Calin-Jageman

& Caldwell, 2013) contested Damischs results by
conducting a similar experiment with 111 students,
showing no significant variation with the control group.
Baker et al. (2015) observed that (subsequent occurrence of the intext citation)
However if there are 6 or more authors, use the first author's name
followed by et al. from first occurrence.
This casts doubt on the efficacy of superstitious rituals in

bringing about a sense of control.
4 Concluding remarks
End the evaluation reiterating
your position.
Thus, Hutsons second key argument is weak because

even though it is cogent, one of his premises is not true.
The student reiterates his position on the evaluation.

We use a number of expressions to show that what is said follows
logically from what was said before: Therefore, as a result, so, then,
consequently
Hence and thus have the same basic meaning and are often
interchangeable. However, there is a slight difference. Hence usually
refers to the future. Thus usually refers to the past. It is often used to
indicate a conclusion.
Both sides played well, thus no winner was declared.
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(550)
The situation is getting more and more complicated. Hence we

will have to proceed with caution. (NOT Thus we will have to
proceed with caution.)
State the number of words in brackets.

References
(new page; not bold or in italics
or underlined)
Give the references used for the
evaluation.
The word References is placed
in the centre of the paper.
All the sources which you have
cited in the paper ought to be
listed in the References.
References
Calin-Jageman, R., & Caldwell, T. (2014). Replication of the
Superstition and Performance Study by Damisch, Stoberock, and
Mussweiler (2010). Social Psychology,45(3), 239245. Retrieved
from http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/zsp/45/3/239.pdf
Hutson, M. (2012, April 6). In defense of superstition.

The New York Times Sunday Review. Retrieved from
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/08/opinion/sunday/in-defense-
From https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/05/
In general, the list of references is double-spaced and listed
alphabetically by first author's last name.
All lines after the first line of each entry in your reference list
should be indented a half inch from the left margin. This is called
hanging indentation.
Authors' names are inverted (last name first); give the last name
and initials for all authors of a particular work for up to and
including seven authors. If the work has more than seven
authors, list the first six authors and then use ellipses after the
sixth author's name. After the ellipses, list the last author's name
of the work.
of-superstition.html
Miller, F. H., Choi, M. J., Angeli, L. L., Harland, A. A., Stamos,

J. A., Thomas, S. T., . . . Rubin, L. H. (2009). Web site
usability for the blind and low-vision user. Technical
Communication, 57, 323-335.
For multiple articles by the same author, or authors listed in the

same order, list the entries in chronological order, from earliest
to most recent
Page 7

The following activity will provide you with practice for answering the different sections in
Assignment 1.
Practice 1: Analyzing a Text Deconstructing Argument
Watch the following TED Talk: Bill Gates on energy: Innovating to zero! on this link
http://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates.html. The transcript for his talk can be found on the next
page.
Bearing in mind the constraints of a TED talk, answer the following 3 questions on Gates
argument:
Section A (No marks awarded): Identify the main parts of the writers argument (main claim,
key arguments, premises and evidence) through a graphic representation.
Section B (20 marks): Write a summary of the writers argument between 200 and 250
words. Use your own words as far as possible.
Section C (80 marks): Based on the graphic representation of the writers argument, identify
ONE key argument used by the writer to support his main claim and evaluate it.
You should state the form of the argument, write a well-articulated thesis on the quality of the
argument and defend your evaluation with reasons. Your evaluation should be between 650750 words.
You should include at least TWO sources to support the reasons for your evaluation and a
Reference List at the end of your paper.
*You are advised to watch the video first before reading the transcript. Read the transcript
carefully and annotate as you read to help you understand Gates argument.
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Transcript for Bill Gates on energy: Innovating to zero!

I'm going to talk today about energy and climate. And that might seem a bit
surprising because my full-time work at the Foundation is mostly about vaccines and seeds,
about the things that we need to invent and deliver to help the poorest two billion live better
lives. But energy and climate are extremely important to these people -- in fact, more
important than to anyone else on the planet. The climate getting worse means that many
years, their crops won't grow: There will be too much rain, not enough rain, things will
change in ways that their fragile environment simply can't support. And that leads to
starvation, it leads to uncertainty, it leads to unrest. So, the climate changes will be terrible
for them.
Also, the price of energy is very important to them. In fact, if you could pick just one
thing to lower the price of, to reduce poverty, by far you would pick energy. Now, the price
of energy has come down over time. Really advanced civilization is based on advances in
energy. The coal revolution fueled the Industrial Revolution, and, even in the 1900s we've
seen a very rapid decline in the price of electricity, and that's why we have refrigerators, airconditioning, we can make modern materials and do so many things. And so, we're in a
wonderful situation with electricity in the rich world. But, as we make it cheaper -- and let's
go for making it twice as cheap -- we need to meet a new constraint, and that constraint has to
do with CO2.
CO2 is warming the planet, and the equation on CO2 is actually a very
straightforward one. If you sum up the CO2 that gets emitted, that leads to a temperature
increase, and that temperature increase leads to some very negative effects: the effects on the
weather; perhaps worse, the indirect effects, in that the natural ecosystems can't adjust to
these rapid changes, and so you get ecosystem collapses.
Now, the exact amount of how you map from a certain increase of CO2 to what
temperature will be and where the positive feedbacks are, there's some uncertainty there, but
not very much. And there's certainly uncertainty about how bad those effects will be, but they
will be extremely bad. I asked the top scientists on this several times: Do we really have to
get down to near zero? Can't we just cut it in half or a quarter? And the answer is that until
we get near to zero, the temperature will continue to rise. And so that's a big challenge. It's
very different than saying "We're a twelve-foot-high truck trying to get under a ten-foot
bridge, and we can just sort of squeeze under." This is something that has to get to zero.
Now, we put out a lot of carbon dioxide every year, over 26 billion tons. For each
American, it's about 20 tons; for people in poor countries, it's less than one ton. It's an
average of about five tons for everyone on the planet. And, somehow, we have to make
changes that will bring that down to zero. It's been constantly going up. It's only various
economic changes that have even flattened it at all, so we have to go from rapidly rising to
falling, and falling all the way to zero.
This equation has four factors, a little bit of multiplication: So, you've got a thing on
the left, CO2, that you want to get to zero, and that's going to be based on the number of
people, the services each person's using on average, the energy on average for each service,
and the CO2 being put out per unit of energy. So, let's look at each one of these and see how
we can get this down to zero. Probably, one of these numbers is going to have to get pretty
near to zero. Now that's back from high school algebra, but let's take a look.
First, we've got population. The world today has 6.8 billion people. That's headed up
to about nine billion. Now, if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care,
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reproductive health services, we could lower that by, perhaps, 10 or 15 percent, but there we
see an increase of about 1.3.
The second factor is the services we use. This encompasses everything: the food we
eat, clothing, TV, heating. These are very good things: getting rid of poverty means providing
these services to almost everyone on the planet. And it's a great thing for this number to go
up. In the rich world, perhaps the top one billion, we probably could cut back and use less,
but every year, this number, on average, is going to go up, and so, over all, that will more
than double the services delivered per person. Here we have a very basic service: Do you
have lighting in your house to be able to read your homework? And, in fact, these kids don't,
so they're going out and reading their school work under the street lamps.
Now, efficiency, E, the energy for each service, here finally we have some good
news. We have something that's not going up. Through various inventions and new ways of
doing lighting, through different types of cars, different ways of building buildings -- there
are a lot of services where you can bring the energy for that service down quite substantially.
Some individual services even bring it down by 90 percent. There are other services like how
we make fertilizer, or how we do air transport, where the rooms for improvement are far, far
less. And so, overall here, if we're optimistic, we may get a reduction of a factor of three to
even, perhaps, a factor of six. But for these first three factors now, we've gone from 26 billion
to, at best, maybe 13 billion tons, and that just won't cut it.
So let's look at this fourth factor -- this is going to be a key one -- and this is the
amount of CO2 put out per each unit of energy. And so the question is: Can you actually get
that to zero? If you burn coal, no. If you burn natural gas, no. Almost every way we make
electricity today, except for the emerging renewables and nuclear, puts out CO2. And so,
what we're going to have to do at a global scale, is create a new system. And so, we need
energy miracles.
Now, when I use the term "miracle," I don't mean something that's impossible. The
microprocessor is a miracle. The personal computer is a miracle. The Internet and its services
are a miracle. So, the people here have participated in the creation of many miracles. Usually,
we don't have a deadline, where you have to get the miracle by a certain date. Usually, you
just kind of stand by, and some come along, some don't. This is a case where we actually
have to drive at full speed and get a miracle in a pretty tight timeline.
Now, I thought, "How could I really capture this? Is there some kind of natural
illustration, some demonstration that would grab people's imagination here?" I thought back
to a year ago when I brought mosquitos, and somehow people enjoyed that. (Laughter) It
really got them involved in the idea of, you know, there are people who live with mosquitos.
So, with energy, all I could come up with is this. I decided that releasing fireflies would be
my contribution to the environment here this year. So here we have some natural fireflies. I'm
told they don't bite; in fact, they might not even leave that jar. (Laughter)
Now, there's all sorts of gimmicky solutions like that one, but they don't really add
up to much. We need solutions -- either one or several -- that have unbelievable scale and
unbelievable reliability, and, although there's many directions people are seeking, I really
only see five that can achieve the big numbers. I've left out tide, geothermal, fusion, biofuels.
Those may make some contribution, and if they can do better than I expect, so much the
better, but my key point here is that we're going to have to work on each of these five, and we
can't give up any of them because they look daunting, because they all have significant
challenges.
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Let's look first at the burning fossil fuels, either burning coal or burning natural gas.
What you need to do there, seems like it might be simple, but it's not, and that's to take all the
CO2, after you've burned it, going out the flue, pressurize it, create a liquid, put it
somewhere, and hope it stays there. Now we have some pilot things that do this at the 60 to
80 percent level, but getting up to that full percentage, that will be very tricky, and agreeing
on where these CO2 quantities should be put will be hard, but the toughest one here is this
long-term issue. Who's going to be sure? Who's going to guarantee something that is literally
billions of times larger than any type of waste you think of in terms of nuclear or other
things? This is a lot of volume. So that's a tough one.
Next would be nuclear. It also has three big problems: Cost, particularly in highly
regulated countries, is high; the issue of the safety, really feeling good about nothing could go
wrong, that, even though you have these human operators, that the fuel doesn't get used for
weapons. And then what do you do with the waste? And, although it's not very large, there
are a lot of concerns about that. People need to feel good about it. So three very tough
problems that might be solvable, and so, should be worked on.
The last three of the five, I've grouped together. These are what people often refer to
as the renewable sources. And they actually -- although it's great they don't require fuel -they have some disadvantages. One is that the density of energy gathered in these
technologies is dramatically less than a power plant. This is energy farming, so you're talking
about many square miles, thousands of time more area than you think of as a normal energy
plant. Also, these are intermittent sources. The sun doesn't shine all day, it doesn't shine every
day, and, likewise, the wind doesn't blow all the time. And so, if you depend on these
sources, you have to have some way of getting the energy during those time periods that it's
not available. So, we've got big cost challenges here, we have transmission challenges: for
example, say this energy source is outside your country; you not only need the technology,
but you have to deal with the risk of the energy coming from elsewhere.
And, finally, this storage problem. And, to dimensionalize this, I went through and
looked at all the types of batteries that get made -- for cars, for computers, for phones, for
flashlights, for everything -- and compared that to the amount of electrical energy the world
uses, and what I found is that all the batteries we make now could store less than 10 minutes
of all the energy. And so, in fact, we need a big breakthrough here, something that's going to
be a factor of 100 better than the approaches we have now. It's not impossible, but it's not a
very easy thing. Now, this shows up when you try to get the intermittent source to be above,
say, 20 to 30 percent of what you're using. If you're counting on it for 100 percent, you need
an incredible miracle battery.
Now, how we're going to go forward on this -- what's the right approach? Is it a
Manhattan Project? What's the thing that can get us there? Well, we need lots of companies
working on this, hundreds. In each of these five paths, we need at least a hundred people.
And a lot of them, you'll look at and say, "They're crazy." That's good. And, I think, here in
the TED group, we have many people who are already pursuing this. Bill Gross has several
companies, including one called eSolar that has some great solar thermal technologies. Vinod
Khosla's investing in dozens of companies that are doing great things and have interesting
possibilities, and I'm trying to help back that. Nathan Myhrvold and I actually are backing a
company that, perhaps surprisingly, is actually taking the nuclear approach. There are some
innovations in nuclear: modular, liquid. And innovation really stopped in this industry quite
some ago, so the idea that there's some good ideas laying around is not all that surprising.
The idea of TerraPower is that, instead of burning a part of uranium -- the one
percent, which is the U235 -- we decided, "Let's burn the 99 percent, the U238." It is kind of
Page 11

a crazy idea. In fact, people had talked about it for a long time, but they could never simulate
properly whether it would work or not, and so it's through the advent of modern
supercomputers that now you can simulate and see that, yes, with the right material's
approach, this looks like it would work.
And, because you're burning that 99 percent, you have greatly improved cost profile.
You actually burn up the waste, and you can actually use as fuel all the leftover waste from
today's reactors. So, instead of worrying about them, you just take that. It's a great thing. It
breathes this uranium as it goes along, so it's kind of like a candle. You can see it's a log
there, often referred to as a traveling wave reactor. In terms of fuel, this really solves the
problem. I've got a picture here of a place in Kentucky. This is the leftover, the 99 percent,
where they've taken out the part they burn now, so it's called depleted uranium. That would
power the U.S. for hundreds of years. And, simply by filtering seawater in an inexpensive
process, you'd have enough fuel for the entire lifetime of the rest of the planet.
So, you know, it's got lots of challenges ahead, but it is an example of the many
hundreds and hundreds of ideas that we need to move forward. So let's think: How should we
measure ourselves? What should our report card look like? Well, let's go out to where we
really need to get, and then look at the intermediate. For 2050, you've heard many people talk
about this 80 percent reduction. That really is very important, that we get there. And that 20
percent will be used up by things going on in poor countries, still some agriculture, hopefully
we will have cleaned up forestry, cement. So, to get to that 80 percent, the developed
countries, including countries like China, will have had to switch their electricity generation
altogether. So, the other grade is: Are we deploying this zero-emission technology, have we
deployed it in all the developed countries and we're in the process of getting it elsewhere?
That's super important. That's a key element of making that report card.
So, backing up from there, what should the 2020 report card look like? Well, again,
it should have the two elements. We should go through these efficiency measures to start
getting reductions: The less we emit, the less that sum will be of CO2, and, therefore, the less
the temperature. But in some ways, the grade we get there, doing things that don't get us all
the way to the big reductions, is only equally, or maybe even slightly less, important than the
other, which is the piece of innovation on these breakthroughs.
These breakthroughs, we need to move those at full speed, and we can measure that
in terms of companies, pilot projects, regulatory things that have been changed. There's a lot
of great books that have been written about this. The Al Gore book, "Our Choice" and the
David McKay book, "Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air." They really go through it and
create a framework that this can be discussed broadly, because we need broad backing for
this. There's a lot that has to come together.
So this is a wish. It's a very concrete wish that we invent this technology. If you gave
me only one wish for the next 50 years -- I could pick who's president, I could pick a vaccine,
which is something I love, or I could pick that this thing that's half the cost with no CO2 gets
invented -- this is the wish I would pick. This is the one with the greatest impact. If we don't
get this wish, the division between the people who think short term and long term will be
terrible, between the U.S. and China, between poor countries and rich, and most of all the
lives of those two billion will be far worse.
So, what do we have to do? What am I appealing to you to step forward and drive?
We need to go for more research funding. When countries get together in places like
Copenhagen, they shouldn't just discuss the CO2. They should discuss this innovation
agenda, and you'd be stunned at the ridiculously low levels of spending on these innovative
approaches. We do need the market incentives -- CO2 tax, cap and trade -- something that
Page 12

gets that price signal out there. We need to get the message out. We need to have this
dialogue be a more rational, more understandable dialogue, including the steps that the
government takes. This is an important wish, but it is one I think we can achieve.
Thank you. (Applause) Thank you.
Chris Anderson: Thank you. Thank you. (Applause) Thank you. So to understand
more about TerraPower, right -- I mean, first of all, can you give a sense of what scale of
investment this is?
Bil Gates: To actually do the software, buy the supercomputer, hire all the great
scientists, which we've done, that's only tens of millions, and even once we test our materials
out in a Russian reactor to make sure that our materials work properly, then you'll only be up
in the hundreds of millions. The tough thing is building the pilot reactor; finding the several
billion, finding the regulator, the location that will actually build the first one of these. Once
you get the first one built, if it works as advertised, then it's just clear as day, because the
economics, the energy density, are so different than nuclear as we know it.
CA: And so, to understand it right, this involves building deep into the ground
almost like a vertical kind of column of nuclear fuel, of this sort of spent uranium, and then
the process starts at the top and kind of works down?
BG: That's right. Today, you're always refueling the reactor, so you have lots of
people and lots of controls that can go wrong: that thing where you're opening it up and
moving things in and out, that's not good. So, if you have very cheap fuel that you can put 60
years in -- just think of it as a log -- put it down and not have those same complexities. And it
just sits there and burns for the 60 years, and then it's done.
CA: It's a nuclear power plant that is its own waste disposal solution.
BG: Yeah. Well, what happens with the waste, you can let it sit there -- there's a lot
less waste under this approach -- then you can actually take that, and put it into another one
and burn that. And we start off actually by taking the waste that exists today, that's sitting in
these cooling pools or dry casking by reactors -- that's our fuel to begin with. So, the thing
that's been a problem from those reactors is actually what gets fed into ours, and you're
reducing the volume of the waste quite dramatically as you're going through this process.
CA: I mean, you're talking to different people around the world about the
possibilities here. Where is there most interest in actually doing something with this?
BG: Well, we haven't picked a particular place, and there's all these interesting
disclosure rules about anything that's called "nuclear," so we've got a lot of interest, that
people from the company have been in Russia, India, China -- I've been back seeing the
secretary of energy here, talking about how this fits into the energy agenda. So I'm optimistic.
You know, the French and Japanese have done some work. This is a variant on something
that has been done. It's an important advance, but it's like a fast reactor, and a lot of countries
have built them, so anybody who's done a fast reactor is a candidate to be where the first one
gets built.
CA: So, in your mind, timescale and likelihood of actually taking something like this
live?
BG: Well, we need -- for one of these high-scale, electro-generation things that's
very cheap, we have 20 years to invent and then 20 years to deploy. That's sort of the
deadline that the environmental models have shown us that we have to meet. And, you know,
TerraPower, if things go well -- which is wishing for a lot -- could easily meet that. And there
are, fortunately now, dozens of companies -- we need it to be hundreds -- who, likewise, if
Page 13

their science goes well, if the funding for their pilot plants goes well, that they can compete
for this. And it's best if multiple succeed, because then you could use a mix of these things.
We certainly need one to succeed.
CA: In terms of big-scale possible game changes, is this the biggest that you're
aware of out there?
BG: An energy breakthrough is the most important thing. It would have been, even
without the environmental constraint, but the environmental constraint just makes it so much
greater. In the nuclear space, there are other innovators. You know, we don't know their work
as well as we know this one, but the modular people, that's a different approach. There's a
liquid-type reactor, which seems a little hard, but maybe they say that about us. And so, there
are different ones, but the beauty of this is a molecule of uranium has a million times as much
energy as a molecule of, say, coal, and so -- if you can deal with the negatives, which are
essentially the radiation -- the footprint and cost, the potential, in terms of effect on land and
various things, is almost in a class of its own.
CA: If this doesn't work, then what? Do we have to start taking emergency measures
to try and keep the temperature of the earth stable?
BG: If you get into that situation, it's like if you've been over-eating, and you're
about to have a heart attack: Then where do you go? You may need heart surgery or
something. There is a line of research on what's called geoengineering, which are various
techniques that would delay the heating to buy us 20 or 30 years to get our act together. Now,
that's just an insurance policy. You hope you don't need to do that. Some people say you
shouldn't even work on the insurance policy because it might make you lazy, that you'll keep
eating because you know heart surgery will be there to save you. I'm not sure that's wise,
given the importance of the problem, but there's now the geoengineering discussion about -should that be in the back pocket in case things happen faster, or this innovation goes a lot
slower than we expect?
CA: Climate skeptics: If you had a sentence or two to say to them, how might you
persuade them that they're wrong?
BG: Well, unfortunately, the skeptics come in different camps. The ones who make
scientific arguments are very few. Are they saying that there's negative feedback effects that
have to do with clouds that offset things? There are very, very few things that they can even
say there's a chance in a million of those things. The main problem we have here, it's kind of
like AIDS. You make the mistake now, and you pay for it a lot later.
And so, when you have all sorts of urgent problems, the idea of taking pain now that
has to do with a gain later, and a somewhat uncertain pain thing -- in fact, the IPCC report,
that's not necessarily the worst case, and there are people in the rich world who look at IPCC
and say, "OK, that isn't that big of a deal." The fact is it's that uncertain part that should move
us towards this. But my dream here is that, if you can make it economic, and meet the CO2
constraints, then the skeptics say, "OK, I don't care that it doesn't put out CO2, I kind of wish
it did put out CO2, but I guess I'll accept it because it's cheaper than what's come before."
(Applause)
CA: And so, that would be your response to the Bjorn Lomborg argument, that
basically if you spend all this energy trying to solve the CO2 problem, it's going to take away
all your other goals of trying to rid the world of poverty and malaria and so forth, it's a stupid
waste of the Earth's resources to put money towards that when there are better things we can
do.
Page 14

BG: Well, the actual spending on the R&D piece -- say the U.S. should spend 10
billion a year more than it is right now -- it's not that dramatic. It shouldn't take away from
other things. The thing you get into big money on, and this, reasonable people can disagree, is
when you have something that's non-economic and you're trying to fund that -- that, to me,
mostly is a waste. Unless you're very close and you're just funding the learning curve and it's
going to get very cheap, I believe we should try more things that have a potential to be far
less expensive. If the trade-off you get into is, "Let's make energy super expensive," then the
rich can afford that. I mean, all of us here could pay five times as much for our energy and
not change our lifestyle. The disaster is for that two billion.
And even Lomborg has changed. His shtick now is, "Why isn't the R&D getting
more discussed?" He's still, because of his earlier stuff, still associated with the skeptic camp,
but he's realized that's a pretty lonely camp, and so, he's making the R&D point. And so there
is a thread of something that I think is appropriate. The R&D piece, it's crazy how little it's
funded.
CA: Well Bill, I suspect I speak on the behalf of most people here to say I really
hope your wish comes true. Thank you so much.
BG: Thank you. (Applause)
Source: http://dotsub.com/view/9022846a-0f34-4026-81aa-86344f88270c/viewTranscript/eng
Activity A: Discuss the following questions in groups and be prepared to share your
answers with the class.
1. What are the issue and the context of Bill Gates argument?
2. What is the main claim or conclusion of Gates argument?
3. What are the key arguments* that he presents to support his conclusion? Arrange
these in steps to help you see the form of his argument.
4. Can you identify any assumptions that Gates may have in his argument?
5. Bearing in mind the constraints of a TED Talk, evaluate Gates argument. Is his
argument convincing? Give reasons.
* Recall that each key argument contains its own conclusion, i.e. sub-claim, which is in turn
supported by premises and evidence for these premises.
Page 15

Activity B: Prepare a graphic representation of Gates argument in the space provided.

Remember to label the different parts of the argument accordingly.
Page 16

Activity C: In Part 2 of the Assignment 1 question, you are required to write a summary of the
writers argument between 200 and 250 words.
The following samples of writing attempt to address this task requirement. Study the samples of
summary and use the questions below to help you comment on them. Discuss your answers to the
questions in a group.
1. What is your impression of the sample summary? Has it met the requirements set for this
task? Give reasons for your answer.
2. Use the Marking Descriptors for Assignment 1, and grade the sample summary according to
the criteria provided. Give reasons for your grade.
3. What are the strengths and weaknesses of this piece of writing? What advice would you give
to the writer?
4. Can you identify any language errors in the sample summaries? Circle the errors.
Discussion Notes
Sample Summary A
In the 2010 TED talk (Gates, 2010), Bill Gate's main claim was that
we should find energy solutions with zero carbon dioxide emissions
in order to solve the global energy and climate change problem. He
identified Terrapower as the ideal solution. Firstly, he argued that
energy and climate affect the lives of the world's poorest two billion
people more than anyone else. This is because cheap energy which
is the answer to reducing poverty, results in the problem of global
warming with the increased emission of carbon dioxide. In this
argument, Gates assumed that carbon dioxide emission is the only
cause of the climate change problem. Also, he assumed that energy
is the cause of poverty. Secondly, he identified the need to bring
down the emission of carbon dioxide to zero in our current use of
energy by reducing carbon for each unit of energy. Thirdly, Gates
laid out current energy solutions which are unsatisfactory in terms
of scale and reliability due to its own limitations. Having mentioned
the critical issues at hand, he suggested the Terrapower as the ideal
solution to solve the global energy and climate change problem.
This is due to the fact that Terrapower has zero carbon emissions,
is cost effective and also deals with waste disposal. In this
argument, Gates assumed that Terrapower can address the issue of
poverty. (227 words)
Page 17

Sample Summary B
In Bill Gates talk Innovating to zero!, he claims that to solve the
energy and climate crisis, zero carbon emissions is necessary, and
the advent of TerraPower, a nuclear method, is an ideal solution.
Firstly, Gates asserts the need for zero carbon emissions, citing the
CO2 rise to be the fundamental cause for global temperature
increases which potentially leads to environmental catastrophe. He
highlights the frailties in current methods for emission reductions
such as the liquefying and pressurizing of CO2 emissions, the
spatial infeasibility and intermittent nature of energy farming, and
the cost and storage impracticality of nuclear approaches. Gates
claims that methods merely reducing CO2 emissions arent
sufficient and there is a need to fund for innovation for complete
solutions. He proposes TerraPower, a nuclear approach that selfsufficiently and cost-effectively burns depleted uranium for energy
and finally urges for support and funding for research in such
innovative solutions.
(149 words)
Sample Summary C
In the 2010 TED talk (Gates, 2010), Bill Gatess key claim was
that we need to innovate until we have zero levels of carbon
emission. He identified the problem we are facing in the following
manner: everything is based on energy. While trying to keep the
cost of energy low, we end up producing more carbon dioxide.
When more carbon dioxide is produced, the climate gets worst
and this leads to undesirable effects. The theoretical idea of
worldwide climate change suggests that there are detrimental
effects on our environment and ecosystem. In order to curb
temperatures from rising, he proposed that the amount of CO2
released has to be reduced to zero. According to Gates, current
energy sources have too many limitations, and the solution to
global warming is the zero emission nuclear approach of using
traveling wave nuclear reactors, such as those from the nuclear
energy company, Terrapower.
(150 words)
Page 18

Activity D: In Part 3 of Assignment 1, you are required to identify and evaluate ONE key argument
presented by the writer to support his main claim. You should state the form of the argument, write a
well-articulated thesis on the quality of the argument and defend your evaluation with reasons.
You should include at least TWO sources to support the reasons for your evaluation and a Reference
List at the end of your paper.
The following samples of writing attempt to address this task requirement. Study the samples of
argument evaluation and use the following questions to guide you in giving comments on them.
Discuss your answers to the questions in a group.
1. Has the writer identified a key argument? Give reasons for your answer.
2. Has the writer identified the form of the key argument? Give reasons for your answer.
3. Has the writer provided an effective evaluation of Gates key argument? Give reasons for
your answer.
4. Comment on the evidence provided by the writer in the evaluation of argument and the APA
in-text and end-of-text citations.
5. Use the Marking Descriptors for Assignment 1, and assess the sample evaluation of argument
according to the criteria provided. Give reasons for your assessment.
6. What are the strengths and weaknesses of this piece of writing? What advice would you give
the writer?
7. Can you identify any language errors in the sample writing? Circle the errors.
Evaluation of Argument Sample A

I strongly agree with Bill Gatess illustration of the problem we are facing. His claim that everything is
based on energy is supported by the fact that all our basic needs require energy in one form or another
(Robi, Olshanskaya, Vrbensky, & Morvaj, 2010). Once this was established, he then implied that in
the process of making energy cheaper, we emit more carbon dioxide. This is true given the fact that
fossil fuels provide us with the majority of energy we are using by far (World Energy Council, 2013).
One of the major ways we make energy cheaper is through economies of scale of fossil fuels, which
reduces the cost of fossil fuels per unit volume but greatly increases the amount of fossil fuels produced,
resulting in more fossil fuels and carbon dioxide being produced (Houghton, 2005). Bill Gates next
implied that the climate is getting worst due to the increase in carbon dioxide. This is backed up by
many studies conducted (Houghton, 2005; Machado & Lopes, 2012). I, however, disagree that solely
focusing on innovation is the way forward. While I do agree that we need to research more into zeroemission technology, I feel that he has overlooked an important focus in the area of implementation,
which requires a large amount of funding too. What is the point of innovating until you have zeroemission technology if theres going to be major problems when implementing them?
(236 words)
References
Houghton, J. (2005, May 4). Global Warming. Exeter, UK.
Page 19

Machado, J. T., & Lopes, A. M. (2012, October 31). Dynamical Analysis of the Global Warming. Porto,
Portugal.
Robi, S., Olshanskaya, M., Vrbensky, R., & Morvaj, Z. (2010). UNDERSTANDING ENERGY POVERTY CASE STUDY: TAJIKISTAN. Croatia, Slovakia, Tajikistan. Retrieved from World Energy Council.
World Energy Council. (2013). World Energy Resources. Retrieved from World Energy Council:
http://www.worldenergy.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Complete_WER_2013_Survey.pdf
Evaluation of Argument Sample B

In his third key argument, Gates argues that the sole means to decrease CO2 emission to zero is to focus
efforts on the reduction of CO2 per energy to zero with technological innovation and development. This
key argument is strong because he makes use of deductive reasoning based on 2 premises. The major
premise is based om the carbon dioxide equation, while the minor premise is that as long as 1 of the 4
variables of the equation equates to zero, then the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will equate to zero.
The equation portrays how carbon dioxide in the atmosphere equates to the multiplication of 4 factors,
mainly population, services per person, energy per unit service and carbon dioxide per unit energy.
Firstly, the equation presented by Gates is known as the Kaya Equation that is used worldwide. It is
most notably mentioned in the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) by
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), whereby it is used to predict future trends in
carbon dioxide emission (Nakicenovic and Swart (Eds.), 2000). Given that IPCC is the forefront expert
in the field of environmental issues, the usage of the equation by a renowned organisation confirms its
accuracy and credibility, hence the major premise is true. The minor premise is also true because CO2
per unit energy is the only variable that can reach zero. Population growth is inevitable (UN News,
2013). An increase in service per person is proven to be beneficial, hence unlikely to be reduced. Energy
per unit service, or basically efficiency, will tend towards zero, but would be impossible to equate to
zero. As seen, the only variable that can actually equate to zero is CO2 per unit energy, through the
nuclear approach that Gates proposed. Based on the aforementioned points, as both premises are true
and the structure of the argument is logical, the argument is valid and sound. In this claim, he assumes
that current efforts to reduce CO2 emissions to zero are insufficient and ineffective, hence Gates feels
a need to bring up his nuclear approach to the audience. However, there are currently on-going efforts
to produce zero-emissions technologies (The Research Council of Norway, 2012). Expenditure and
investments on green technologies have been on an exponential rise throughout the years (Management
Information Services, Inc, 2011). As such, his assumption is unjustified. Overall, his argument is still
relatively strong.
(400 words)
References
The Research Council of Norway (2012,Dec 15). "Cutting carbon dioxide emissions with innovative
technology." ScienceDaily. Retrieved from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121218081624.htm
Management Information Services, Inc ( 2011, Oct). Analysis of Federal Expenditures for Energy Development,
Washington, D.C. Retrieved from: http://www.misi-net.com/publications/NEI-1011.pdf
Nebojsa Nakicenovic and Rob Swart (Eds.) IPCC, 2000 - Emissions Scenarios, England, Cambridge
Page 20

Retrieved from:http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/sres/emission/index.php?idp=50
UN News, (13 June 2013) New York. Retrieved from
http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/news/population/un-report-world-population-projected-to-reach-96-billion-by-2050.html
Evaluation of Argument Sample C

In one of arguments, Gates asserts that in order to achieve zero carbon emission, there is a need for
energy miracles that can replace our use of fossil fuels. With that, he made use of an equation: Carbon
dioxide equals to the multiplication of population, services, energy and the carbon dioxide released
per unit energy used. Similarly, he argues his point using deductive reasoning. The major premise is
the equation and the minor premise if the population, services and energy decreases, and the carbon
dioxide released per unit energy used is approximated to zero. As a result, the carbon dioxide emitted
would also tend to zero. Therefore, in order to achieve that we need energy miracles- innovation.
Granted, this argument is valid due to the correct form. However, the major premise is not true. Given
the fact that there are no proves to show that this equation holds true. Furthermore, his full-time work
at the Foundation is mostly about vaccines and seeds, and not about climate and energy. Since he is
not an expert in this field, this equation may not be all that credible. Moreover, Steffen (2010) an
expert of sustainability argued about the loopholes in Gatess equation. This shows that this equation
may not be an ideal one; hence, rendering the argument unsound. Having said that, he should be
credited for defining what he meant when he refers to a miracle which prevents him from making an
ambiguous statement. In addition, Gates made a parallel comparison of technological miracle and
energy miracle correctly by showing the similarity that innovation is needed and the difference that
energy miracle has a pressing deadline. Hence it shows that more innovations will be needed in order
to achieve zero carbon emission.
References
Steffen, A. (2010, February 15). Bill Gates: The Most Important Climate Speech of the Year. Retrieved from
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/010976.html.
Page 21

Activity E: Homework
1. Based on your graphic representation, write a summary of Gates argument between
200 and 250 words.
2. Choose ONE key argument from your graphic representation and evaluate it.
Remember to provide reasons for your evaluation. You should include at least TWO
sources to support the reasons for your evaluation and a Reference List at the end of
your paper.
Reflection
Reflect on what you have learned in this tutorial. Use the space below to write your
reflection.
What are 3 important things or ideas that you have learned?

What questions do you still have about Assignment 1?
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ES1531/GEK1549/GET1021 Critical Thinking and Writing

Weeks 4 & 5 Tutorials 6 8: Deconstructing Arguments

Based on the graphic representation of the writers argument, identify and

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Steps To Evaluate An Argument

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Writing your summary of the writers argument

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Writing your evaluation of a key argument

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'psychological benefits' which cannot be explained by

State which key argument.

science. His first premise states that His second

Correct: In his article "In defence of Superstition", Hutson (2012)

Key argument = main

premise states Therefore, Hutson concludes

Depending on whether you see it

Although Hutsons first key argument is cogent, it is

In his first premise, he cites a German study (Damisch,

Assess the credibility of the key

when a lucky charm was present. Upon closer evaluation

2010) which reported a strong increase in performance

It is also possible to use a deductive approach.

You state your position in relation to the evaluation: strong or weak.

of the evidence, one will notice the study was based on

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Hedging --likely, suggests, may, may not

ES1531/GEK1549/GET1021 Critical Thinking and Writing

university students, which is hardly representative of the

What is the purpose of using hedges?

general population. An alternative explanation for the

There are several ways to bring in the source depending on your

better performances of subjects in, say, the lucky ball

According to As a matter of fact/In fact Indeed

fact, a study by an American university (Calin-Jageman

This casts doubt on the efficacy of superstitious rituals in

Thus, Hutsons second key argument is weak because

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The student reiterates his position on the evaluation.

ES1531/GEK1549/GET1021 Critical Thinking and Writing

The situation is getting more and more complicated. Hence we

State the number of words in brackets.

Hutson, M. (2012, April 6). In defense of superstition.

Miller, F. H., Choi, M. J., Angeli, L. L., Harland, A. A., Stamos,

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For multiple articles by the same author, or authors listed in the

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Transcript for Bill Gates on energy: Innovating to zero!

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ES1531/GEK1549/GET1021 Critical Thinking and Writing

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