So, regarding the strategy students can adopt, the two ends of the spectrum are: 1) You can just memorize details long enough to regurgitate them in the lever-pressing experiments, and understand nothing critically; or 2) You can insist on trying to critically understand everything, and you will certainly fall behind and fail.
False dichotomy.
Nothing described as “two ends of the spectrum” is ever a false dichotomy. Or a true dichotomy, for that matter.
If you believe that the passage in question is a false dichotomy then you either do not understand what a dichotomy is or you parsed the quoted text incorrectly. The two ends of the spectrum are mutually exclusive (and look somewhat extreme) but for them to be dichotomous the entire rest of the spectrum—all the moderate parts—must be excluded.
Even if the text is somehow wrong or stupid it is not a false dichotomy.
EDIT: I really don’t understand the issue. In order to apply excluded middle to reach the conclusion, they have to both hold that the two ends of the spectrum are dichotomous, and that the rest of the spectrum either doesn’t exist, or is inconsequential. So it’s a spectrum in a name only, which as far as I can see is as good as a false dichotomy.
That is one of many things you could say that isn’t just strictly and trivially false.
But it isn’t my preferences you are satisfying. I don’t mind if you say wrong things, I’m just going to reply with a correction if you do. (So ‘rather?’ is a strange question!)
Nothing described as “two ends of the spectrum” is ever a false dichotomy. Or a true dichotomy, for that matter.
While they do sometimes treat this as two ends of a spectrum, their ultimate conclusion
Relies on the earlier (perhaps unstated, or implicitly stated) premise that 1) and 2) are mutually exclusive.
If you believe that the passage in question is a false dichotomy then you either do not understand what a dichotomy is or you parsed the quoted text incorrectly. The two ends of the spectrum are mutually exclusive (and look somewhat extreme) but for them to be dichotomous the entire rest of the spectrum—all the moderate parts—must be excluded.
Even if the text is somehow wrong or stupid it is not a false dichotomy.
Would you rather I called it a fake spectrum?
EDIT: I really don’t understand the issue. In order to apply excluded middle to reach the conclusion, they have to both hold that the two ends of the spectrum are dichotomous, and that the rest of the spectrum either doesn’t exist, or is inconsequential. So it’s a spectrum in a name only, which as far as I can see is as good as a false dichotomy.
That is one of many things you could say that isn’t just strictly and trivially false.
But it isn’t my preferences you are satisfying. I don’t mind if you say wrong things, I’m just going to reply with a correction if you do. (So ‘rather?’ is a strange question!)
Let me rephrase, then. “Is there anything you would correct in characterizing the aforementioned as a fake spectrum?”
Honestly, if I have to write so strictly, it’s almost too much effort.
I thought the answer ‘no’ would have come across, even while I distanced myself from the personal connotations.