If everyone simply avoided logical fallacies all would be good but what we see is that even the people who write books on the subject will lapse into logical fallacy when their biases are challenged. It is simply astounding. I post on the site www.logicallyfallacious.com and the owner of the site, Bo Bennett, has published books on critical thinking, logical fallacies and on biases even but when I post things he doesn't like he will resort to ad hominem, censorship or avoidance. An interesting example is my most recent post where the only response was from the resident AI bot (unprecedented for only the AI bot to respond) and it responded in an oh-so-human way with logical fallacy and then dropping out of the argument when it was challenged. Bo who mostly always responds said nothing.
This is an interesting master list of logical fallacies by Owen M. Williamson that I've reposted that includes a very important fallacy - the Big Lie (a form of argument by repetition).
Thanks for these links. I will certainly have a better look at it. Reading now.
I was working on a detective game to learn about logical fallacies. Everyone acts/ roleplays like one or more characters in the setup. And these characters all use logical fallacies when questioned.
I will later place logical fallacies, under a new chapter "logical consistency". Which is closer to how I think with a strong background in programming and science. A lot of scientific problems, simulation problems and programming errors come from logical consistency problems. Many of the programming logic problems can also come with some known solutions.
In science and programming we also get problems with "unknown" things, about which we can not reason logically. Things we can't see or can't predict.
For example: "dark matter" is a placeholder for observations that do not match certain astronomy models. Invisible and undetectable matter. Does that even exist? And what logic does that follow if it exists? It is outside basic scientific logic, as we have no observations to confirm it. So astronomy is like a religion in that sense.
I got a laugh and SMH reading several studies on the covid vaccination where the stated focus was on a specific issue and the study showed, for that issue, the vaccine was problematic and should probably be avoided. Yet at the end of the study there some kind of blanket statement that the vaccine was still good for stopping the virus, safe and effective, blah blah. These "please publish my paper" statements were apparently relied on by many as scientific gospel.
Thanks. I think you are correct. Makes more sense with that example. And I think I should add examples to all.
I want to write a longer piece about logical fallacies and logical errors, but it hard to put a clear limit. I think it is an infinite list, see Godel's Theorem.
If people are interested enough to want a complete list there are plenty of resources available.
I think what would be useful would be examining the fake arguments we are seeing commonly deployed today on the topic du jour and deconstructing those - showing which fallacies are being deployed.
If everyone simply avoided logical fallacies all would be good but what we see is that even the people who write books on the subject will lapse into logical fallacy when their biases are challenged. It is simply astounding. I post on the site www.logicallyfallacious.com and the owner of the site, Bo Bennett, has published books on critical thinking, logical fallacies and on biases even but when I post things he doesn't like he will resort to ad hominem, censorship or avoidance. An interesting example is my most recent post where the only response was from the resident AI bot (unprecedented for only the AI bot to respond) and it responded in an oh-so-human way with logical fallacy and then dropping out of the argument when it was challenged. Bo who mostly always responds said nothing.
https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/questions/RDi7vmxg/is_the_misplaced_presumption_fallacy_the_best_fit_for_acceptance_of_the_operation_northwoods_documents_as_genuine.html
This is an interesting master list of logical fallacies by Owen M. Williamson that I've reposted that includes a very important fallacy - the Big Lie (a form of argument by repetition).
https://petraliverani.substack.com/p/master-list-of-logical-fallacies
You might find my post, 12 logical fallacies unmasked in the use of the terms "conspiracy theory" and "conspiracy theorist", of interest
https://petraliverani.substack.com/p/11-logical-fallacies-unmasked-in
Thanks for these links. I will certainly have a better look at it. Reading now.
I was working on a detective game to learn about logical fallacies. Everyone acts/ roleplays like one or more characters in the setup. And these characters all use logical fallacies when questioned.
I will later place logical fallacies, under a new chapter "logical consistency". Which is closer to how I think with a strong background in programming and science. A lot of scientific problems, simulation problems and programming errors come from logical consistency problems. Many of the programming logic problems can also come with some known solutions.
In science and programming we also get problems with "unknown" things, about which we can not reason logically. Things we can't see or can't predict.
For example: "dark matter" is a placeholder for observations that do not match certain astronomy models. Invisible and undetectable matter. Does that even exist? And what logic does that follow if it exists? It is outside basic scientific logic, as we have no observations to confirm it. So astronomy is like a religion in that sense.
I got a laugh and SMH reading several studies on the covid vaccination where the stated focus was on a specific issue and the study showed, for that issue, the vaccine was problematic and should probably be avoided. Yet at the end of the study there some kind of blanket statement that the vaccine was still good for stopping the virus, safe and effective, blah blah. These "please publish my paper" statements were apparently relied on by many as scientific gospel.
For anyone else interested in logical fallacies, a good resource is Leonard Peikoff’s introduction to logic lectures 👍
https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqsoWxJ-qmMtr7i6D_yvSpPC-hTOzdWas
I think you may have incorrectly defined the "No True Scotsman" (appeal to purity) fallacy. My understanding is that it goes something like this.
A: "No Scotsman wears underwear"
B: "But Hamish is a Scotsman and he's wearing underwear"
A: "No *true* Scotsman wears underwear", or "Then Hamish is no true Scotsman"
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
Thanks. I think you are correct. Makes more sense with that example. And I think I should add examples to all.
I want to write a longer piece about logical fallacies and logical errors, but it hard to put a clear limit. I think it is an infinite list, see Godel's Theorem.
If people are interested enough to want a complete list there are plenty of resources available.
I think what would be useful would be examining the fake arguments we are seeing commonly deployed today on the topic du jour and deconstructing those - showing which fallacies are being deployed.