What's the difference between plausibility and specious?

Plausibility


Definition:

  • (n.) Something worthy of praise.
  • (n.) The quality of being plausible; speciousness.
  • (n.) Anything plausible or specious.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Doctors may plausibly make special claims qua doctors when they are treating disease.
  • (2) The ordered aspect of the genetic code table makes this result a plausible starting point for studies of the origin and evolution of the genetic code: these could include, besides a more refined optimization principle at the logical level, some effects more directly related to the physico-chemical context, and the construction of realistic models incorporating both aspects.
  • (3) It seeks to acquaint them with 'ethical' arguments against their work which, because they are simple and plausible, persuade many people.
  • (4) This algorithm is not only efficient for the recognition of order and disorder in "machine vision", but also plausible in biological visual perception.
  • (5) For the lysozyme-catalyzed hydrolysis of cell-wall proteoglycan three plausible mechanisms of substrate inhibition can be postulated.
  • (6) The pathogenesis of the prolific mite population is unclear, but either a specific immunologic deficit or the inability to effectively eliminate the mites by scratching is a plausible possibility.
  • (7) Now 31, England captain and a respected veteran of the game, she's seen plausible, semi-professional wages become a part of women's football – finally – and can currently expect to earn about £25,000 a season.
  • (8) A debate in 1998 in International Security magazine saw the Chicago academic, Robert Pape, barely challenged in his view that only around five of the 115 cases of sanctions imposed since the war could claim any plausible efficacy.
  • (9) The only plausible response is an appeal regarding the likely side effects and exploitation of the system, but that is something that could be tested with controlled pilot studies, and safeguards could be put in place.
  • (10) On the basis of a comprehensive review of the literature, it is shown that among all the locally employed NSAIDs, kinetically reliable and plausible evidence of therapeutic effectiveness is, at present, available only for indomethacin, diclofenac, salicylic acid salts and ibuprofen.
  • (11) The comparative risks of these exposures are computed and the plausibility of the relative risks is examined by comparing the equivalent doses with actual measurements of exposure taken in the homes of smokers.
  • (12) In other cases no localization occurred, and we suggest plausible reasons for this failure and modifications of imaging technique to improve the performance.
  • (13) Based on the results obtained with the in vitro assay system and from a consideration of data currently in the literature, plausible schemes for ferritin and bacterioferritin iron uptake and release are described.
  • (14) The findings also cast doubt on the idea that sex-related differences in spatial ability could be caused by sex differences in timing of puberty or lateralization, although other biological mechanisms remain plausible.
  • (15) The most plausible explanation for the difference in the endocrine response of islet cells in the two types of widely used in vitro systems is that the alpha and beta cells have lost inhibitory receptors in the plasma membrane as a result of the collagenase isolation technic.
  • (16) The objective is to comment on some plausible mutual implications of generally attested pathologies and normal models of lexical retrieval for production, particularly with respect to the roles of semantic and syntactic categories.
  • (17) However, the cost-benefit ratio under a range of plausible assumptions remains extremely high--in the region of six to one to 30 to one, or even higher.
  • (18) They give no biologically plausible explanation for a cause and effect.
  • (19) Semantically congruent situations consisted of adjective-noun pairs that were not highly predictable but were nonetheless plausible (e.g., GOOD-AUNT).
  • (20) No one else need bother to paint them as a ramshackle and rancorous rabble marooned in the past and without a plausible account of the future.

Specious


Definition:

  • (a.) Presenting a pleasing appearance; pleasing in form or look; showy.
  • (a.) Apparently right; superficially fair, just, or correct, but not so in reality; appearing well at first view; plausible; as, specious reasoning; a specious argument.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Comment is perfectly legitimate, but the sneering, supercilious, specious and dismissive contributions masquerading as ‘commentary’ belittle the claims of a ‘quality’ paper.” Before attempting to assess the validity of the reader’s analysis – broadly shared by some other readers – I think his email reflects one or two other interesting aspects of the demographics of the Guardian’s readership and the left.
  • (2) Photograph: Da Capo Lifelong Books This is why I have no patience for anyone who insists that women must learn self-defense moves and memorize lists of specious advice to prevent our own victimization.
  • (3) To start with, despite my son's diagnosis, the local authority did what a lot of local authorities do, and refused to assess him, on the most specious of grounds.
  • (4) Please, get rid of the gimmicks – the faux-concerned and impersonal feedback loop and the specious “choice” paradigm designed to soften us up for privatisation – and listen to your frontline staff.
  • (5) And when you ask someone who’s passed along some specious “don’t get raped” tips or suggested a self-defense class to a woman concerned about rapes in her neighborhood what they were thinking, they’re likely to respond with something like “Better safe than sorry!” Translation: Even if what I’m telling you to remember is a pile of stinking horseshit, you should still engage in this ritualized expression of anxiety with me, because it makes me feel slightly better about things I can’t control.
  • (6) Roger Jones, editor of the British Journal of General Practice David Colquhoun's critique of my journal's peer review and editorial processes is based on a single table lifted from the main research paper, in which the detailed numerical data tell a somewhat different story, rendering his analysis partial and his conclusions specious.
  • (7) Dolezal’s specious claims to black ancestry and faux black identity could not have been sustained and she would not have been able to pass if black womanhood were seen and understood as more than skin – or weave – deep.
  • (8) On Monday, two Conservative chancellors, Nigel Lawson and Norman Lamont, accused Downing Street of publishing a Treasury document that amounted to propaganda , while one MP, Marcus Fysh, described it as “specious bollocks”.
  • (9) These two findings together predict that individuals known to have a marked PMR may have the diagnostic risk associated with these specious artifacts reduced by receiving diazepam before clinical ERG studies are begun.
  • (10) There is a creeping sense that this is turning into a cash cow for the private sector, a get-out-clause for the government ("we've spent all this money, if people can't get jobs despite our help, it's because they are inadequate"), and unemployed people will be left at the bottom, ceaselessly harassed by a totally specious narrative in which their laziness beggars a try-hard administration.
  • (11) Superficially it looks like the rightwing press falling into yet another fit of specious morality.
  • (12) Retrospectively applying the rubric of terrorism is specious.
  • (13) Boris Johnson trails his quest to return to the Commons – and obviously to become Tory leader – with the specious claim that the UK could have a “great and glorious future” outside the EU .
  • (14) P+ strains of serotypes 1b (two strains), 4b (seven strains), and untypeable (one strain) were isolated from nine Apodemus specious and one Apodemus argenteus.
  • (15) Asked about the attempt to destabilise his leadership, Clegg said: "I think it's odd, to put it very mildly, that any fellow Liberal Democrat should spend time and good money while the rest of us were out campaigning for these tough elections instead surreptitiously trying to come up with specious claims on the basis of polls, which were in any case entirely confounded by the election results.
  • (16) A number of arguments as to why aggregation produces spurious correlations are considered and shown to be specious.
  • (17) Further, as Prof Dimitro Godzinsky, of the Ukranian National Academy of Sciences, states in his introduction to the report: "Against this background of such persuasive data some defenders of atomic energy look specious as they deny the obvious negative effects of radiation upon populations.
  • (18) Four specious combinations of the mosquitos were distinguished as anthropophilic, sylvatic, meadow and marsh ones.
  • (19) It should reflect the seriousness of the crime committed and the magnitude of the harm suffered by the victim, and it is specious to argue that the child is not damaged most by the sexual abuse that took place in order for the image to be created.
  • (20) Ag-Gag laws have passed or are pending in nearly a dozen states , with Idaho's powerful dairy industry now the latest to use these specious legal arguments to hide unsavory practices.