Why Fallacies are False -- 25, summary

I realize a lot of people didn’t stay with this thread this long. I know that some people stopped reading when it turned out I wasn’t doing the funny stuff, I was doing the hard stuff. I know that some people stopped reading when I kicked down the doors of their echo chambers in one way or another.

The same thing happened with my other threads: people stopped reading when they had their favorite urban legends busted.

If you got this far, you now have to think what you’re going to do with the info. You don’t need to use it. I have a case study. There’s a guy who wrote a book called How to Win Every Argument. I never read it, but I read his posts on social media. Don’t read the book. He couldn’t win any arguments. He committed too many fallacies, especially sampling bias. He lived in an echo chamber. Replies to his posts from outside the echo chamber called him out. He can’t win arguments with any of them.

I’d like to offer a chance for you to submit examples you come across, and tell you what’s wrong with them, but the problem of quoting out of context is so prevalent and injurious that I don’t want to go there. OK, I’m retired, but I have a full slate of projects and I’d rather turn you all down now than have one of you submit something just when I start a big project.

I’m going to stop here. There are dozens of fallacies, and you can find illustrations of most of them if you’re willing to study carefully so that you know the difference between them. Use Gary Curtis’ website; he is all about posting contemporary examples of fallacious claims and why they’re false. But again, he’s into the hard stuff.

And learn enough so that when you point out a fallacy, and somebody says that’s just wordplay, you can show them the set theory or the probability calculation that says there’s an objective reason why they’re wrong.

Thank you for your time and attention.

Don’t forget to pick your coats up in the lobby.

 

My posts on fallacies:

Quoting out of context:

            http://pajheil.blogspot.com/2015/05/fact-checking-torah-quoting-out-of.html

            http://pajheil.blogspot.com/2015/05/fact-checking-torah-forgetting-your.html

            https://pajheil.blogspot.com/2021/06/fact-checking-torah-quoting-out-of.html

Weak analogy:

https://pajheil.blogspot.com/2016/06/fact-checking-torah-weak-analogy.html

            https://pajheil.blogspot.com/2016/06/fact-checking-torah-numbers-222-to-2425.html

False argument from silence:

            https://pajheil.blogspot.com/2016/06/fact-checking-torah-realistic.html

Ambiguity: https://pajheil.blogspot.com/2017/05/fact-checking-torah-explaining.html

Redefinition: https://pajheil.blogspot.com/2017/05/fact-checking-torah-redefinition-fallacy.html

Sampling bias: https://pajheil.blogspot.com/2017/06/fact-checking-torah-and-sampling-bias.html

Texas Sharpshooter: https://pajheil.blogspot.com/2018/02/fact-checking-torah-whybray.html

Interpretationism: https://pajheil.blogspot.com/2018/10/fact-checking-torah-new-fallacy.html