Unnamed(?) logical fallacies

Started by MrBogosity, September 24, 2009, 04:12:10 PM

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I just heard appeal to slavery being used by a woman arguing why prostitution should stay illegal. Sheesh...

Here's one that gets on my nerves: Original Sin Fallacy

The assumption that by default, humans are bad and not trustworthy.  Typically used to justify freedom hating regulations.  So named for obvious reasons.

The fallacy: The regulators are humans too!  Why do they get a free pass?
I recently heard that the word heretic is derived from the greek work heriticos which means "able to choose"
The more you know...

Yes, I've actually heard people claim that when someone gets into power, their good instincts kick in and they're far better people than they ever would be in private life. Wouldn't that count as a miracle?

October 27, 2009, 10:40:14 AM #48 Last Edit: October 27, 2009, 10:43:48 AM by Lord T Hawkeye
Only religion could make someone buy such a corny line.  Makes me ashamed I used to be religious.  ><

Funny, atheists got dead last in polls of "would you vote for a X president?"  Personally, I think an atheist president is exactly what you guys need badly.  Or at the very least, someone like Ron Paul who has the integrity to keep his religious views out of politics.
I recently heard that the word heretic is derived from the greek work heriticos which means "able to choose"
The more you know...

Actually, I've heard plenty of atheist skeptics make that very fallacy! But, of course, they were socialists, so it's kind of religious-esque.

Even if you don't believe in gods, if you believe in subjecting yourself to an infallible authority, you're still a zealot and I lump you in the same group.
I recently heard that the word heretic is derived from the greek work heriticos which means "able to choose"
The more you know...


Ooh, I got a lot of people bleating on this one.  I said that peace is natural, war is political.  Seems once again I'm alone on that.  Yeah, more of that "people are inherrently violent and we need governments to reign them in" stuff.  I called that putting the fox in charge of the hen house and brought up the collectivist paradox again "If people can't be trusted, why do politicians get a free pass?"

My personal fave...

QuoteFor about 80% of our history, war was competition. War was the ONLY competition. There was no such thing as 'the market', I'm not quite sure you understand this Hawk. The 'market' as you understand it is an abstract structure, a set of game rules by which everyone agrees to play. If people start ambushing other's supply chains, killing the competition, stealing their wares and such the 'market' falls apart, as you know. Supply and demand, economies of scale and the like still apply, but there was no separation between force and economic competition. At all. This was how things worked up until about the 18th century. What you seem to think is an undeniable truth of life that everybody somehow follows was an idea only discovered in the 19th century. Before that, the natural state of competition was war. There was no limiter on force, no limiter on fraud, other than not getting caught (the difference between then and now is now we actually have institutions dedicated to making those captures). Trade was viewed as a weapon of war, not economics. You traded with other states to attempt to bleed their economy dry so you could beat the crap out of them, not to make a profit.

Of course the constrained market, the economic darwin bubble is more effective than that, you only have to look at what's happened since economics was invented in the late 18th century. But you have to acknowledge that it was an INVENTION. People ARE inherently violent and WILL kill each other, because that is an EXTREMELY powerful strategy on an individual scale. Our lifespan makes (or made, for the majority of history) dog eat dog the most effective way of getting through life. What is not true is that this is a successful strategy for a large group of individuals, so if it so happened that one large group culturally beat each other up less than another large group, in a competition, the nicer group would win, usually. Note that this only applies to being nice within your culture- Judaism is a perfect example of this. Never touch another Jew, but kill off other nations as if they were cattle. And look, they're perhaps the oldest surviving significant cultural group there is. Pretty successful eh?. Thus, people ARE inherently violent, but over time, large groups which are LESS inherently violent will be culturally successful. Note that this does not mean that if you take a genetic human from this group and take him and raise him in another more violent society he will be any less violent, it's cultural not biological evolution and so does not rest within a person as such, but people under that culture take on those attributes.

You have a very skewed view of things, Hawk. If you want to make your rational arguments to convince people how things could be better, how about you learn from the people who DID fail. Don't lie, don't propagandise and don't delude yourself. Because you know what? That's what every genocidal maniac we have ever known has done. I may, er, be a 'facist', but there's technically nothing inherently wrong with that. There IS something inherently wrong with being dangerously monomaniacal. I would suggest again that you actually read some economics. You might find it enlightening.
I recently heard that the word heretic is derived from the greek work heriticos which means "able to choose"
The more you know...

I wonder what they think of the fact that you find analogues to free market transactions throughout nature? Evolution hits on it again and again and again because it works.

October 28, 2009, 11:12:07 AM #54 Last Edit: October 28, 2009, 12:15:10 PM by Lord T Hawkeye
They basically think I'm crazy when I mention that.

I love how he claims Judaism is "successful" just because they're still around.  Uh yeah...the ones that are killing others, they're dirt poor and miserable last I checked.  -_-

Well, I said that collectivists don't prevent wars, they cause them and that you can trace back every war to them.  Sound outrageous?
I recently heard that the word heretic is derived from the greek work heriticos which means "able to choose"
The more you know...

One that annoys the heck out of me:

Appeal to idealism (a form of ad hominem and appeal to ridicule).

When the person dismisses your idea as being "idealistic" without any good reason, or just more platitudes.

e.g. "The free market is as ideal as communism; it won't work!  You're just as unrealistic/idealistic about human nature as the socialists!  I'm a realist; you're not! [insert long tirade about how humans are fallen, scum and evil, blah blah blah]"
This is often coupled with the Original Sin Fallacy.

Whenever people pull out that card, to quote Matt Dillahunty, "Oh my god, I want to shove my foot right up your condescending ass!"
"When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and tell the whole world—'No. You move.'"
-Captain America, Amazing Spider-Man 537

November 01, 2009, 01:04:02 PM #56 Last Edit: November 01, 2009, 01:08:39 PM by surhotchaperchlorome
Quote from: MrBogosity on September 30, 2009, 03:58:55 PM
Here's another one that should probably be added: argument from etymology. I run into this now and again; it's when someone tries to refute someone's argument by using the origin of a word, rather than the common definition.

Kent Hovind probably has the most (in)famous use when he claimed "universe" came from "uni," meaning "single," and "verse," meaning "spoken sentence," so we live in a "single spoken sentence," "God said."

Of course, "verse" does not mean "spoken sentence," it means "turn," and universe literally means, "all turned into one." But here's the thing: even if what he said were correct, it would still be completely irrelevant.

The word "influenza" comes from "influence," because people used to believe that illness was caused by the influence of the stars. "Disaster" as well means "bad star." But people don't believe in astrology, nor is astrology true, just because people still use the words.

We can say "sunrise" and "sunset" without being geocentrists. We can say "Thank God" without being theists. The origin of a word or phrase doesn't necessarily match its current usage, and no one should be held responsible for its origin when using it in a modern context.
I would be careful with this one.
As it looks like people tend to use it to strawman atheism.
For example, the meaning of the word
a- (non/without)
-theism (belief in deities)
Even though many people associate it with the positive disbelief in a god, this version of simply lacking a belief is still valid.

Also, going back to the appeal to time one;
based on the examples, you gave, it looks like they were attacking the idea's age, not so much its origin, so I suppose you were right.
as opposed to the genetic fallacy (argument from origin) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_fallacy
Which is more about connotations..or something (the article linked explains it better).
Even the appeal to time was an argument from origin/genetic fallacy, it sounds like it comes up enough to deserve its own name.
"When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and tell the whole world—'No. You move.'"
-Captain America, Amazing Spider-Man 537

November 17, 2009, 12:52:58 PM #57 Last Edit: August 22, 2015, 06:25:16 AM by MrBogosity
How about this one:

Ad hominem recursis: Falsely accusing others of using ad hominem attacks, in order to attack them instead of their arguments, thereby committing an ad hominem.

It strikes me as a form of strawman.
In the example of that thread on LoR I read, there were insult laden refutations.
They claim it to be a strawman (it wasn't).
So they misrepresented you.
"When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and tell the whole world—'No. You move.'"
-Captain America, Amazing Spider-Man 537

Yeah, but it happens so often--especially from creationists on my YouTube channel--that I think it's ubiquitous enough to have its own name.