Arguments

Mike: Gasolene is flammable, so I don't think it's a good way to put out that fire.
Karley: The need to pour gasoline on the fire has never been so clear. Ever since I started putting gasoline on the fire it's been getting fiercer and fiercer! So obviously, we need to go out and buy a lot more gasoline.

Standardization

Mike              1. Gasolene is flammable.
                      (2. Flammable stuff isn't good for putting out fires.)                                                      
                      C. Putting more gasolene on that fire isn't likely to put it out.

Karley           1. The fire has been getting fiercer and fiercer since Karley started putting gasoline on it.
                       C. Putting more gasolene on that fire will put it out.

Contextualization

Since Mike is basically just stating a well-established common belief about gasolene and fire, Karley bears the burden of proving that gasolene will put out the fire.

Analysis

At one point, I thought that maybe Mike's argument could be considered a counter argument to Karley's, since they were both about gasoline. But Mike's argument is about the combustibility of gasoline while Karley's is about the correlation between the fierceness of the fire, and Karley putting gasoline on it, which aren't closely related to each other, so I consider these both direct arguments.

Evaluation


Mike  No real argument.                                 Karley Causal Argument.
          States our background knowledge.                   Purported Cause: putting gasolene on fire
                                                                                  Purported Effect: putting fire out
                                                                                  Correlation: Fire got fiercer since gasolene got on it.

Evaluation: Karley is failing to correctly assess the causal role of gasoline in the fire. She assumes that gasoline will put out fires, and so fails to notice that the fire has gotten fiercer every time she has added gasoline. Karley thinks that gasoline has one effect when the evidence available to her implies that it has the opposite effect. This fallacy is committed every time someone reasons as follows.

We did X.
The problem got worse.
We need to do more X.

It is important to remember that if every time we put gasoline on a fire the fire went out, Karley would be right that gasoline puts out fires. The only reason we believe that gasoline makes fires fiercer is that we have a previously observed correlation between gasoline and conflagrations

Fist of Death

Based on the information contained in the conversation between Mike and Karley, putting more gasoline on the fire is not a good idea if our intention is to put the fire out. As Mike points out, gasoline is known to be flammable, and it is well known that adding flammable material to fires makes them bigger. Karley argues against this by pointing out that the fire has gotten bigger every time gasoline was added to it, and claiming that this means that adding gasoline to the fire will put it out. It is of course possible that special circumstances exist that would make gasoline an effective fire extinguisher. (It is even logically possible that the human race has been entirely mistaken about the flammability of gasoline.) But given the extent to which our beliefs about gasoline had been justified by experience, it is up to Karley to come up with some facts that will support the idea to gasoline will work as a fire extinguisher in this case. Her cited correlation between the fierceness of the fire and the addition of gasoline actually supports the opposite conclusion, so she fails to come up with the facts that she needs.

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