Inductive and Deductive Arguments

Indicate whether each of the following arguments is inductive or deductive.

1. My mother is insane, so your mother probably is too.
2. I have been exposed to asbestos, so there’s a pretty good chance that I am going to die of cancer.
3. All cats are republicans, and all republicans are chickens. Therefore, all cats are chickens.
4. In this study, we examined hundreds of different samples of lettuce, and for each of these samples, we found that it was mostly water—indeed, they were all 96% water. Therefore, we conclude that this is simply the nature of lettuce: it is 96% water and only 4% lettuce.
5. Every time we drop a physical object and measure how quickly it descends to earth, we get the same answer. No matter how much these objects have weighed—whether they were pennies or pick- up trucks—they fell at the same rate, so long as we dropped them from the same height. Therefore, it seems clear that all objects fall to earth at the same rate.
6. 34 is even, so it can’t be prime.
7. Bill Clinton is a democrat, so he can’t be conservative.
8. Bill Clinton is a democrat, so he probably isn’t conservative.
9. All androids are emotionless and Spock is emotionless, so he must be an android.
10. I took sixteen different samples of water from the pond, from various different areas, and all of them were contaminated. So I think we can safely conclude that the whole pond is contaminated.