LSAT Logic in Everyday Life

This week, we look at many of the arguments surrounding the safety and efficacy of sugar substitutes to learn important logic lessons.

This week, we take a look at the U3 measurement of unemployment statistic in order to see how comparing statistics across time periods can lead to flawed conclusions.

A Wal-Mart employee was crushed to death in a stampede of shoppers looking for door buster sales on Black Friday. This week, we look at the argument that this year's Black Friday is a sure sign that rampant consumerism is out of control.

A man in Germany has no sign of HIV infection 600 days after a bone marrow transplant. This week, we explore part-to-whole flaws in the inference that an AIDS cure has been found.

For logic lovers, this election has been one for the books. In this week's episode, listeners take apart some of the campaign spin.

This week, we look at the argument, made by OJ's lawyers, that the jury selection process was flawed in OJ's most recent trial.

This week, we scrutinize the bailout proposal from the perspective of an argument intended to Solve a Problem.

Doctors making decisions in the emergency room use critical thinking similar to the logic tested on the LSAT.

There seems to be a significant interest in Phelps's 10,000 calorie-a-day diet. We look at the conclusions that some people are trying to draw from the details of his diet.

1) Does circumcision prevent the spread of HiV? 2) Cohabitation correlated with higher divorce rates? 3) Have girls really caught up to boys in their math skills? 4) How do we make logical decisions in everyday life?

This week, we look at arguments by authority as we discuss astronaut Edgar Mitchell's claim that aliens have visited Earth.

After pointing the finger at tomatoes and causing over $100 million dollars of loss in that industry, government officials are turning their attention to other possible causes of the Salmonella outbreak, giving us a prime opportunity to see the real world consequences of jumping to causal conclusions.

This week, scientists cloned one man's immune cells to help cure his melanoma. We look at ways in which the study can be built out to draw broad conclusions about the general cancer patient population.

This week, we look at the assumptions and caveats built into the Framingham Risk Assessment Tool, designed to predict the likelihood of coronary disease symptoms.

This week, we look at methodological flaws in studies purporting to demonstrate cell phone safety.