Funny (?) Arguments.

I have no idea, but I tried to Google "funny examples of logic arguments"

http://www.cracked.com/funny-1314-logical-fallacy/

It's kinda intersting to read, and some of the pictures are......interesting.  But it gave me a good laugh, and it passed the time writing these blogs.

One-sidedness

I stumbled upon a new fallacy.

One-Sidedness

Alias:

• Card Stacking
• Ignoring the Counterevidence
• One-Sided Assessment
• Slanting
• Suppressed Evidence

Type: Informal Fallacy

Example:

You've spoke about having seen the children's prisons in Iraq. Can you describe what you saw there?

The prison in question is at the General Security Services headquarters, which was inspected by my team in Jan. 1998. It appeared to be a prison for children—toddlers up to pre-adolescents—whose only crime was to be the offspring of those who have spoken out politically against the regime of Saddam Hussein. It was a horrific scene. Actually I'm not going to describe what I saw there because what I saw was so horrible that it can be used by those who would want to promote war with Iraq, and right now I'm waging peace.

Source: Massimo Calabresi, "Scott Ritter in His Own Words", Time, 9/14/2002

Exposition:

A one-sided case presents only evidence favoring its conclusion, and ignores or downplays the evidence against it. In inductive reasoning, it is important to consider all of the available evidence before coming to a conclusion. For example, suppose that you have observed several white swans; then you might conclude:

All swans are white.

However, if you have observed even one black swan, you should not come to this conclusion. Instead, you might draw one of the weaker conclusions:

• Almost all swans are white.
• Most swans are white.
• Typically, swans are white.

So, the total evidence available to you consists in observations of several white swans and a black one. Whatever conclusion that you draw needs to be consistent with this evidence, but "all swans are white" is inconsistent with there being even one black swan. To leave the black swan out of your reasoning would be One-sidedness.





The swan example almost sounds like Appeal to Ignorance.

Ad Hominem

Throughout the course, I've understood fallacies the best.  But I almost feel like the description:

1. Person A makes claim X.
2. Person B makes an attack on person A.
3. Therefore A's claim is false.

...is false? Or just poorly stated? I'm not sure. Thoughts?

 

Description of Ad Hominem

Translated from Latin to English, "Ad Hominem" means "against the man" or "against the person."

An Ad Hominem is a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument. Typically, this fallacy involves two steps. First, an attack against the character of person making the claim, her circumstances, or her actions is made (or the character, circumstances, or actions of the person reporting the claim). Second, this attack is taken to be evidence against the claim or argument the person in question is making (or presenting). This type of "argument" has the following form:

1. Person A makes claim X.
2. Person B makes an attack on person A.
3. Therefore A's claim is false.

The reason why an Ad Hominem (of any kind) is a fallacy is that the character, circumstances, or actions of a person do not (in most cases) have a bearing on the truth or falsity of the claim being made (or the quality of the argument being made).

Example of Ad Hominem

1. Bill: "I believe that abortion is morally wrong."
   Dave: "Of course you would say that, you're a priest."
   Bill: "What about the arguments I gave to support my position?"
   Dave: "Those don't count. Like I said, you're a priest, so you have to say that abortion is wrong. Further, you are just a lackey to the Pope, so I can't believe what you say."

Philosophy Freak

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXMAR63TVDI&feature=channel_video_title

This is another video from that same channel that answered any questions I had about strength vs validity.  The whole part where he compared the two at around 3:50 was perfect.  I feel as if I'm pretty good at not confusing the two, but this surely taught me a clear way to not confuse validity and strength.

More Slippery Slop

I found this really awesome video for people that don't really understand slippery slope. It's an easy fallacy to catch, but I loved this video. Especially the demon ball at :58....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtmAw9Ia7LA

Slippery Slope

I found a really great example of a slippery slope, and I especially like this one a lot because it has to do with stem cells and stem cell research.  Stem cell research is something I really love to study and look into, I find it so fascinating. It has a lot of potential and can do a lot of good.


Here's the fallacy example:
The anti-stem-cell slippery slope argument goes like this: If you permit scientists to destroy human embryos for the purpose of research, it's a slippery slope from there to killing human fetuses in order to harvest tissue, and from there to euthanizing disabled or terminally ill people to harvest their organs, and from there to human cloning and human-animal hybrids, and if making chimeras is okay, well then Dr. Frankenstein must also be okay, and Dr. Mengele, too, and before you know it, it's one long hapless inevitable slide from high-minded medicine to the Nazis.


I feel that this is a perfect example for a slippery slop fallacy.  I hear fallcies similar to this about this topic all of the time.

A Quick Note About Sophie

I have been constantly reading this book. I haven't blogged about it recently because I had misplaced it in the chaos of switching out my wardrobe (#yikes).  I figured I would make a post for each chapter, and perhaps numerous posts for one chapter.  I'll tryyyyyyyyyy to not post anything that would spoil the book for people who want to read it, but I do plan on doing some short responses as to what I think.  I'll mark it as SPOILER, I guess. But I just wanted to let people know before I started to post.
:)