The Fallacy Thread
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Since we are so often arguing opinions in here, the ability to argue your position logically and clearly is about the only ammunition you really have. So while you can't prove that someone's goofy opinion is "wrong", you can certainly demonstrate when it is poorly supported or thought out.Vegosiux said:
And then you can claim VICTORY, and showers of confetti will rain down upon your chair, and the other forum goers will look upon you in awestruck wonder.
Hitler used Equivalence Fallacies! D:<Realitycrash said:
OT: No True Scotsman. It's just so arrogant, it makes me want to punch things.
I must admit that I did re-write the end of my reply as I do indeed agree that these laws do relate to the world as we percieve it, no matter how real or unreal it may be. I may slip up here but I will try to understand the issue. assuming there are no factors outside our mental (or digital) world which has in some way twisted our understanding of logic (which I will admit may be something of a cop out) then the issue of having blind faith does not lie in believing in the idea of numbers in a calculation (as numbers can exist independantly of the outside world and so cannot be twisted by how we percieve the world but are possibly subject to tampering with logic) but in the assumption that the world where from which we gain this data is more than just an idea.Bobic said:
The "presenting half of a story and drawing stark conclusions from it" fallacy. I suppose it falls under Straw Man?
Right now there's an attack ad against a politician in my state: "When so-and-so came into office, we had a balanced budget. Then so-and-so spent billions in taxpayer money and left the man who followed him to dig us out of a billion-dollar shortfall. The fact is so-and-so was a major disappointment."
I don't follow politics at all. I was never on a debate team. I'm not even a college graduate.
So how is it that an uneducated wretch like myself can point out all of the following?
1. Does not say what the money was spent on. Going over budget once or twice to substantially improve education or health care for the next thirty years would be of benefit in the long term. Implies spending money is always wrong and the short term effect is always more important.
2. Does not indicate factors outside of human control, e.g. natural disasters which would have required relief spending. In fact no disaster is necessary: a few years ago we had a mild winter followed by a particularly rainy spring. It wreaked havoc on the roads here due to constant freeze-thaw and excess runoff. We spent huge money so our roads wouldn't look like they'd been carpet-bombed. The ad implies incompetence or fault where none may exist. Nobody can be blamed for hurricanes, not even politicians (though I'm sure people have tried). If a disaster had occurred, and relief was not forthcoming, you can bet the ad would attack so-and-so for failing to provide relief, instead. Binary insult.
3. Does not indicate possible incompetence or delay tactics on the part of so-and-so's predecessors. If the guy before him set in motion a house-of-cards policy which looked great for six years, but caused disastrous overruns when it collapsed in year seven, would that guy get the blame? No. So-and-so gets the blame, because so-and-so was in office when the house of cards came down. Again, implies incompetence or fault where none may exist.
3. Assumes a balanced government budget is always attainable. Federal budgets are more than 10,000 pages long. State budgets must be of similar complexity. This presents extreme difficulty to anyone trying to decide what is least necessary. Even when the choice is simple, it is seldom easy. If you can either A) cut aid to the elderly, or B) cut education, how do you choose? There is simply never enough money to go around. There is no single right answer as to what to spend or how to spend it. Balanced budgets are good but, when people suffer for every cut, it's hard to make the choice. (inb4 Balance It By Taxing The Wealthy. It's a pretty good bet that's not going to happen.)
4. Forms opinion based on extremely limited information. Presents this opinion as ironclad fact. This wouldn't be any more insulting or ridiculous if they told us Santa Claus was real.
It doesn't bother me so much that this is done. The sun rises, rivers flow, politicians lie and spin. It's more or less their job. [/cynic]
What bothers me is it must work. If this ignorant, one-sided crap didn't work, we wouldn't get so much of it.
Right now there's an attack ad against a politician in my state: "When so-and-so came into office, we had a balanced budget. Then so-and-so spent billions in taxpayer money and left the man who followed him to dig us out of a billion-dollar shortfall. The fact is so-and-so was a major disappointment."
I don't follow politics at all. I was never on a debate team. I'm not even a college graduate.
So how is it that an uneducated wretch like myself can point out all of the following?
1. Does not say what the money was spent on. Going over budget once or twice to substantially improve education or health care for the next thirty years would be of benefit in the long term. Implies spending money is always wrong and the short term effect is always more important.
2. Does not indicate factors outside of human control, e.g. natural disasters which would have required relief spending. In fact no disaster is necessary: a few years ago we had a mild winter followed by a particularly rainy spring. It wreaked havoc on the roads here due to constant freeze-thaw and excess runoff. We spent huge money so our roads wouldn't look like they'd been carpet-bombed. The ad implies incompetence or fault where none may exist. Nobody can be blamed for hurricanes, not even politicians (though I'm sure people have tried). If a disaster had occurred, and relief was not forthcoming, you can bet the ad would attack so-and-so for failing to provide relief, instead. Binary insult.
3. Does not indicate possible incompetence or delay tactics on the part of so-and-so's predecessors. If the guy before him set in motion a house-of-cards policy which looked great for six years, but caused disastrous overruns when it collapsed in year seven, would that guy get the blame? No. So-and-so gets the blame, because so-and-so was in office when the house of cards came down. Again, implies incompetence or fault where none may exist.
3. Assumes a balanced government budget is always attainable. Federal budgets are more than 10,000 pages long. State budgets must be of similar complexity. This presents extreme difficulty to anyone trying to decide what is least necessary. Even when the choice is simple, it is seldom easy. If you can either A) cut aid to the elderly, or B) cut education, how do you choose? There is simply never enough money to go around. There is no single right answer as to what to spend or how to spend it. Balanced budgets are good but, when people suffer for every cut, it's hard to make the choice. (inb4 Balance It By Taxing The Wealthy. It's a pretty good bet that's not going to happen.)
4. Forms opinion based on extremely limited information. Presents this opinion as ironclad fact. This wouldn't be any more insulting or ridiculous if they told us Santa Claus was real.
It doesn't bother me so much that this is done. The sun rises, rivers flow, politicians lie and spin. It's more or less their job. [/cynic]
What bothers me is it must work. If this ignorant, one-sided crap didn't work, we wouldn't get so much of it.
The worst thing about this is that it just provides a get-out clause for arguments. Some people, if they can't think of a convincing counter-debate for someone else's position, will simply accuse them of making a fallacy, with the implication being that it's now okay to ignore everything that person has said, or will say in the future.Vegosiux said:
Even more annoying is when the supposed 'fallacy' never actually took place, yet the opponent acts as though the mere accusation of a fallacy grants him victory by default, no matter how poor his own argument was.
I happenend to see a commercial on tv for the dacia lodgy, a cheap people carrier. you whould think that they whould focus on the merits of the thing: the price, but no, they compare it to a TVR (sports car) and say: but this is better because it has more room ._.
It is a fact that, in the world as we percieve it, organisms appear to change over the course of many generations. If the world beyond your (or my) mind does not exist and is simply some simulation or a grand illusion then the arguement that something is a fact because it can be observed is moot, the point which followed that quote was intended to point out that it requires faith to believe that the reality we observe is real.Sunrider84 said:
Or as some smart guy put it: "When we gave women the vote we didn't feel the need to give it to poodles."FrostyChick said:
Tu Quoque - From wikipeida
Its annoying because its rarely ever called out on or recognized. Most notably used by blowhard, holier than thou youtubers and political cartoonists.
Its an insidious ad hominem on the basis of personal hypocrisy to dismiss ideas without having to argue against them.
Its annoying because its rarely ever called out on or recognized. Most notably used by blowhard, holier than thou youtubers and political cartoonists.
As long as there is no evidence or even slightest hint at this world not being real or just in the mind of someone, this discussion is pointless, because it's all about imagination and guesswork.johnnyLupine said:
If you can't show it, you don't know it. There is no faith required here. Faith is never ever required.
Wha... who even thinks of such stupid statements?AJvsRonin said:
Being a biology student this gets me quite mad but still very confused. Into how many debates about the "incredibility" of evolution can one person stumble?
Related to that, I'd like to choose the "Y, therefore X" argument. And because this post already made use of the word evolution, I'll just take the illogical "evolution cannot explain everything, therefore God" statement.
Can't remember the name of that one though but I'm sure as soon as I post and close the tab I'll remember.
This must be another fallacy - logical fallacies do not mean the conclusion is incorrect. They merely show that the reasoning that led to those conclusions is incorrect.lacktheknack said:
All dogs have a leash
Luke has a leash
Therefore Luke is a dog
The first premise "All dogs have a leash" is questionable - what if not all dogs have one? Homeless one certainly don't. What if not only dogs have a leash? Luke could be a cat, or a goldfish, for all we know. Now, it might happen that Luke is a dog - having flawed reasoning, by itself, does not make that statement incorrect. It's the conclusions that are not supported by the premise(s).
Also, that wasn't an ad hominem, you would need to base your argument around it, for example
"No, because only dimwits can think that!"
You can slap that as a retort to anything and would be equally valid (from a logical point of view), that is to say, not at all (however, it may be that truly only dimwits can think like that).
The slippery slope fallacy would be more along the lines of this (video spot on your question, by the way):Vault101 said:
I was asked something like that once, I responded with, "Have you?"Shuguard said:
It was epic...
Anyways, I personally hate the idea of corrilations. The ones like, this guy shot up his school with an Uzi, and he played Counter-strike. Thus videogames make people violent. I know there a correct term for it, but it escapes me ATM.
We do however know that the mind can be decieved into percieving something incorectly. While im using this well worn second hand arguement while there is no proof that everything we percieve is an illusion the is also no proof that there is not, there is no evidence that you exist and that I am not having a conversation with myself or even a computer program.Sunrider84 said:
In all honesty this conversation is going to go nowhere, neither of us can actually prove anything, can the arguement be waved away by Occam's razor? possibly, but then the arguement does not deal in assumptions, it deals in doubt. Doubt is a question, It is asking wheather that bungee cord will hold your weight and faith? faith would be taking that leap and believing that the cord will indeed keep you safe.I assume that due to its nature a question must be indecicive. statements and facts, or what are assumed to be facts (flat world and the like), are capable of assumption. So then doubting existance assumes nothing while stating that existance is as we percieve it assumes much.
Questioning whether we experience the world as is or live in the matrix or are a brain in a jar being decieved by a scientist or demon or..whichever alternate idea of where or what reality is you prefir is like questioning the safety of your bungee cord.
I have faith that the reality I percieve is indeed reality.