Your opening statements commit a hasty generalization. Sad!

@ellyam991

8 ай бұрын

Your comment is a red herring, the important thing was the criticism of fallacy-mongering. Sad!

@reda29100

8 ай бұрын

Objection, your Honor, speculative and lack of foundation. Wait, is this philosophy? He solved the equation with a different method. The (illegal techniques) fallacy. Looks at you, the student, with an evil smile after the teacher turned his face from me, nodding head left and right: Boi you're in trouble!

@hhhhhhhhh1071

29 күн бұрын

@@ellyam991whataboutism much? Unfortunate

My god, this was therapeutic. I've noticed so many invocations of the word fallacy more so as a rhetorical device meant to score points, than addressing the actual brunt of my arguments. Very often, they are misused -- or aren't even very relevant.

This ties into one of the most obnoxious online debate tactics I always hear: accusations of strawmanning. Almost everyone I've heard accuse someone else of strawmanning could, by their own standards, plausibly be accused of engaging in it themselves, because they're almost never arguing against the strongest version of their opponent's argument. And that's because if you disagree with an argument's conclusion then, before considering that our own position might be wrong, we usually tend to assume there must be something wrong with the argument, and if you already know the argument is wrong, why would you bother putting in the intellectual effort to be charitable to it? It's so much easier to pick out things that look like fallacies in opposing arguments so you can dismiss them without further thought, instead of thinking of all the ways their arguments could work. It's just laziness. Even in a good faith debate it's generally very hard to perfectly replicate someone else's argument in your own head, so almost anyone could be accused of strawmanning to some degree. I've rarely heard anyone (who isn't a serious philosopher) make an earnest attempt to steelman their opponents' arguments.

@patrickwrites

8 ай бұрын

I've seen a few "Yes I agree with your take, but it's a strawman because you made my position look weak."

@satoau1

8 ай бұрын

agree. the fallacious strawman is by far the most common i read.

Knowledge, Reality, and Value is my #1 must read for anyone with even a passing interest in philosophy.

I think fallacies only really apply to rigorously formulated logic. In actual conversations and debates, most logical fallacies are used as a sort of shorthand, because most arguments are too complex that a strict formulation is practically infeasible. So the fallacies are *always* fallacies, when you have a simple enough proposition that it can be evaluated completely.

@toonyandfriends1915

8 ай бұрын

well they are informal fallacies so it's not about the logical structure of the argument

The nostrils of the first meme are foreboding. I’ve met these types on Reddit actually lol. Thank you for this video. Glad to find out I don’t always make the same mistakes as some do.

Nice video as always! I'd be really curious to see someone document how this misuse of 'fallacy' language has developed over time. One interesting case study would be ad hominem, which is widely taken to mean something like "attacking the person instead of the argument." But that seems... wrong. Isn't the fallacy supposed to be inferring from (irrelevant) traits of the person to the falsity of their conclusion or something like that? See, I love a good ol' fashioned insult, but you can't insult somebody without being accused of "ad hominem!" Truly a sad state of affairs... What's really strange about this one is that I've even seen `critical thinking' resources from university classes use the 'attacking the person' definition of that fallacy, which makes me suspect that at some point in people's education on fallacies, there's been a major confusion between logical rules and argumentative best practices.

@MajestyofReason

8 ай бұрын

Spot on.

@shassett79

8 ай бұрын

I feel like ad hom in particular ought to be weighed in terms of the relative credibility or perceived intent of the speakers. Which admittedly sounds circular or ironic- _wouldn't deeming personal attacks acceptable for a particular person be, itself, ad hominem?-_ but there's a problem with informal debate such that you often encounter sophists who feign earnestness or objectivity to disingenuously advance a narrative. Say a creationist presents themself as a disinterested bystander who is "just asking questions" about evolutionary biology. True, you _could_ meticulously construct the whole field from first principles in a futile attempt to educate them, but they don't want to hear it and it's been done to death. So instead, you point out that they're arguing in bad faith, working backwards from a theological presupposition. At which point they say, _"Ahah! This is ad hominem; you're simply afraid to engage the argument!"_ And I'm rambling, but do you see where I'm going with this?

@DigitalGnosis

8 ай бұрын

"that begs the question" is one of the most obvious ones thats taken on a new life

@mf_hume

8 ай бұрын

@@DigitalGnosis Oh yeah I have no idea how that one came about. I don’t even try to fight it anymore. It’s just how people use the phrase outside the seminar room. Though I do suspect that’s a bit different from ad hom. I doubt any critical thinking profs are teaching their students that “begging the question” means “raising a question” but based on my cursory search I suspect that some of the confusion about ad hom starts with the formal course materials.

Just finished the video and feel like I need to rewatch it to take some notes, but there's a lot there that I need to implement to better my reasoning skills. It's crazy how much quality you put out in your content!

@MajestyofReason

8 ай бұрын

so happy to serve you ♥♥♥

@jdwagman

3 ай бұрын

" feel like I need to rewatch" This is because he talks at hundred miles an hour with no pauses between topics. He has some really rich content that requires some deep thought but doesn't allow enough time to chew on it.

Just a point about the medical test example since it unreasonably reduces people's trust in tests. I'm a medical student (will graduate in a few months) and we don't measure test accuracy with just "accuracy". What you used in your example would be called "positive predictive value" and no one really means that when they refer to accuracy. We measure test accuracy mainly in two ways. Specificity and sensitivity. Say P is a positive test result and D is the actual presence of disease. A test with 100% specificity means that (P ⇒ D) while a test with 100% sensitivity means that (D ⇒ P). Specificity is true negative/(true negative + false positive) and sensitivity is true positive/(true positive + false negative). So if you get a positive result on a 90% specificity test, it does actually make you more likely to have the disease than not. Still depends on the base rate, yes but it's not *as bad* as your example makes it out to be.

Regarding the ad hominem fallacy, I've explained when something is or is not a case of fallacious reasoning by offering Candidate X who is revealed to have cheated on his wife. The cheating says exactly nothing about the quality of X's proposals on taxes, foreign policy, the environment, and so on. But the cheating does suggest that X is less trustworthy than someone who hasn't cheated and that would be a valid concern about someone seeking an office in which trust is a factor.

I would say the relevance of whether an argument is conclusive or not depends heavily on context. Nobody would object to an inductive argument concluding one ought not put their hands on fire on the grounds that it is inconclusive (because induction is inconclusive), but if we are having a perfectly theoretical discussion about a topic with no direct practical impact on my life, say scientific realism or quantum mechanics, then I dont see why I couldn't adopt the stance of just suspending judgment on the matter until a conclusive argument is presented.

fantastic video

Being a Fallacy Understander is easy: if an argument doesn't follow from its conclusion, say it's a non-sequitur. If it does, say it's begging the question. Try again my dude.

I think the biggest problem here is motivated reasoning. Too often we find an argument whose conclusion we do not like, so by looking for (and "finding") a fallacy, it absolves us of having to do the critical self-reflection needed to question our own beliefs and admit we could be wrong about something. With that being said I do disagree with Huemer on his views on consensus, though I enjoy his work.

@MrMortal_Ra

8 ай бұрын

Like the name.

I'm gonna finish this later, so I'm sorry if you address this. As far as the ad hominem bit though, I find there's a significant distinction to make here between applying skepticism and outright rejecting a claim. When the coal company talks about clean coal, I don't immediately reject everything they've said on account of their being a coal company, but I rather keep their likely motivations for deception in mind when assessing their claim. The key here is that I ultimately still assess it. It feels like a criticism of the way people misunderstand the fallacy as opposed to its at all. Looking forward to watching the rest.

There’s large discussion over what questions begging is. I’ve seen a lot of definitions of it.

so is this the fallacy fallacy fallacy, or the fallacy fallacy fallacy fallacy?

@pleaseenteraname1103

8 ай бұрын

OK that’s really funny.

@bengreen171

8 ай бұрын

@@pleaseenteraname1103 it's mildly amusing and somewhat witty, though not really an original comedic concept. It's not half as funny as watching you try to defend some of the worst apologist pseudo intellectuals ever. It's not as funny as seeing you rage against Dillahunty because he's popped your balloon of unjustified belief and there's nothing you can do about it except whine because you have the burden of proof when making extraordinary claims, and you constantly fail to present any evidence sufficient to warrant more than a dismissive response. But thanks for showing me that you are at least human.

@pleaseenteraname1103

8 ай бұрын

@@bengreen171 “it’s mildly amusing and somewhat witty, though not really an original comedic concept. It’s not half as funny as watching you try to defend some of the worst apologist pseudo intellectuals ever”. Sounds like more projection on your part bud. Again keep exposing yourself I’ve had about 1000 conversations with people in the same vein as you, you’re just a very typical self proclaimed evidence-based atheist and Dillahunty fan boy he doesn’t have anything substantive to bring to the table. “ it’s not as funny as seeing you rage against Dillahunty because he popped your balloon of unjustified belief and there’s nothing you can do about it except wine because you have the burden proof when making extraordinary claims, and you constantly fail to present any sufficient evidence to warrant more than one dismissive response”. 😏 try me buddy I dare you, I triple dog dare you. Do it one more time sweetie. 🤣🤣🤣🤣 dude this is pathetic are you gonna actually give a counterpoint? Come on buddy don’t stoop to that level you’re better than this. Now you’re just keep digging your heels in, and relying on gaslighting and other manipulative tactics. It’s honestly pretty amusing how Dillahuntyun you are being in your tactics and your approach, you’re only showing yourself to be not only intellectually dishonest but also incredibly manipulative. When did I ever make any extraordinary claims? Didn’t you agree that all knowledge of subjective earlier that’s a pretty extraordinary claim to make. Yes I told you that I am a Calvinist but I never attempted to defend that position at all because it’s not relevant to the conversation and as I’ve already stated my position is well established by professional atheist philosophers. This is a classic example of trying to shift the burden of proof I fact every single claim I’ve made I’ve given plenty of evidence to warrant my claims about Dillahunty you have not all you’ve done is just throw out a bunch of claims up in the air, disingenuously psycho analyze peoples motives misrepresent peoples positions, and etc. how do you know that? We’ve never had that conversation before so how do you know I failed to present any sufficient evidence? Also it’s hilarious you accuse my responses of being dismissive when I literally dismantled everyone of your pathetic responses coherently. And that you on the other hand just hand waved all my points and barely addressed any of them for that matter, I still have yet to address the actual points made in my reply. At the end of the day I actually provide evidence for my claims you don’t. And that is simply a fact.

Great video! As I suspected, even tho I have solid reasoning skills I still sometimes slip up and make some mistakes. Still, I didn't even know some of those existed so I guess it's understandable, tho now that I know about them I'll be more careful. I specially enjoyed learning about the Selection vs. Treatment effects.

Ooooo, I love me some fallacy fallacy

Funny thing: just because someone uses a logical fallacy doesn't mean they are incorrect and just because someone uses perfect logic doesn't mean they are correct.

@derekg5563

8 ай бұрын

Of course, just because all of that is the case doesn't mean that the person who uses the logical fallacy isn't _less likely_ to be correct or that the person who uses perfect logic isn't _more likely_ to be correct. It could be a social epistemological phenomenon similar to how one might consider experts in a field to show credibility through their knowledge of a topic; well, similarly, someone who shows good logical understanding might be considered to be more epistemically trustworthy than someone who isn't showing it, everything else being equal.

Hey Joe, do you believe the Modal Ontological Argument (as defended by Dr. Alvin Plantinga) begs the question on your notion of the fallacy?

@MajestyofReason

8 ай бұрын

It really depends on whether one offers independent support for the possibility premise (that is, reasons for the possibility premise that don’t depend on antecedent commitment to or justified acceptance of theism). Some people attempt to offer such support - these usually take the form of symmetry breakers. I don’t think any symmetry breakers work, but some are very interesting nonetheless. (There’s also a tricky issue here: does adducing a symmetry breaker really just amount to offering another argument, distinct from the modal ontological argument? I’m actually somewhat inclined to think so.)

Ah this was great, thank you! I’ve been thinking for some time about how something Ad hominem is not necessary a fallacy. Provided it is backed up with more reasoning, the Ad hominem argument can be intrinsically liked with the rational argument you are making. For example as a vegan, my criticism of a meat eater’s moral compass behind the actions could be considered an attack on their character, to which I would respond yes it may well be, and that is my exact argument. There is no logical fallacy about it, it’s two sides to a coin.

The irony of the Fallacy fallacy

In what spaces are you having casual philosophical discourse online/encountering these types of people?

@MajestyofReason

8 ай бұрын

in your walls

@shassett79

8 ай бұрын

It almost never happens IRL, but I have noticed that if I argue with anyone, anywhere on the internet, it's only a matter of time before someone glurges the Latin names of random fallacies at me before declaring the argument pointless and beneath them.

@macmac1022

8 ай бұрын

I find them in yt comment sections.

@mjr_schneider

8 ай бұрын

@@shassett79 The appeal of fallacy-mongering is that it lets you dismiss an argument without actually having to engage with the premises. Which is of course why it's the most popular way to debate on the internet, where people are allergic to intellectual honesty.

Rationality Rules is basically the soyjak from the fallacy fallacy meme, guy has a card game using fallacies😂

So I have a slight question about Ad Hominems, the primary difference between it & an informed reasoning is the relevancy to the conversation correct? Like if a politician uses his position to assist his oil company calling him a "beached whale" is an ad hominem whilst saying he's "corrupt" is more an accurate reading you've surmised through evidence.

Thank you!! No, it’s not a strawman argument!!!

What do you think about transcendental argument. Are you familiar with Jay Dyer?

@2PRO_4U_2NO

8 ай бұрын

I'm the original poster but I know Jay threatened to doxx a former member of his Discord server because the former member was criticizing Jay without his knowledge

i have been guilty of the fallacy fallacy before, TBH. Particularly with the appeal to popularity. I just intuitively take it as a worthless piece of an argument. And then reading about that fallacy bolstered that intuition. So i would just say "oh fallacy" and that's it. TBH i think there might still be good arguments for why appeal to popularity is very weak, particularly that, i think things that are true and obvious in-front of us, in day to day life, tend to be the sorts of correct popular beliefs. but other particular sectors of popular belief to be more prone to error, rather than all popular beliefs being unreliable. So its not a problem with appealing to popularity its a side problem, that i actually have to do the work to expand upon and explain. Thanks! think a more appropriate version

Seems like a good amount of people (online, at least) are only interested in this as a means to TOTALLY DESTROY their opponents in a 'debate' lol I love how dense your content is. The fast pace helps keep things moving, very helpful considering the relatively dry topic and how hard it can be to focus on these things sometimes

@TheSpacePlaceYT

7 ай бұрын

I love how this comments section actually has reasonable people here.

4:51 I don’t know why this made me laugh out loud

People don't tend to trot out the phrase, "most people believe in it so it can't be wrong" about objectively true, demonstrable mundanities like, "there are more than three people," though. Who would ever allege argumentum ad populum to the objectively true, demonstrable mundanity that most people believe that dogs exist? They tend to make these arguments about unfalsifiable things such as supernatural claims or subjective/ or opinion-based matters eg, "This book is popular, therefore it has to be well-written,". And that's where alleging argumentum ad populum is valid.

I believe insulting someone isn't necessarily an ad hominem - only if it's used instead of saying something of substance, or to deflect from answering a question or something. An insult as a substitute for an argument is an ad hominem, but not if it's said in addition to an argument.

0:33 They invented new fallacy: Fallacy mongering fallacy

It's strange that Huemer says "I'm note sure I've ever seen someone affirm the consequent", because affirming the consequent has the same structure as the abduction : If p then q ; q ; therefore p. We reason like this very often : if it has rained the the ground is wet ; the ground is wet ; it has rained. What distinguishes an abduction from the fallacy of affirming the consequent is just the probability that the alleged cause is the right one. For example in the following case, one can say it is the fallacy of affirming the consequent or an abduction : "If there is a God, there will be regular laws of nature ; there are regular laws of nature ; therefore there is a God".

Nowhere in your video argue against giving us your bank details! 😎

The base rate example seems silly to me, consider if instead of a disease i asked what is the probability that im human. Would you look at the population size of all life on earth and conclude that as 1 of 9 billion humans of 10^20 (say for the sake of argument that was the number of organisms on earth) and conclude that the chances of me being human are one in a quintillion? (Math isnt quite accurate but the point stands).

@alavantegaming1021

8 ай бұрын

I agree that the example is silly, but i believe that it is so because of the question presented with the example. If the example were "you do not know if you have the disease or not so you take the test. what are the odds you have the disease before the results? the answer must be 1% if the test is positive it must be 90% if negative it would have to be 10%." That is why for a practing doctor the answer of 90% would not be disturbing. Ex.: if in order to be sure the doctor retakes your 90% accurate test and it comes back positive again what are the chances that it was wrong twice? A: would be 1%. In order for the answer given always be the presented in the video, the question would have to be "if i were to select a random individual from the population what would be the odds that the one selected actually have the disease and has been tested positive?". or something like that.

Can you do a podcast with Adam Savage? He is and has been involved with the skeptics and atheist community and recently published a video about the topic: kzread.info/dash/bejne/aH9lpaZvY5Cepso.htmlsi=becMHaa4w2-ADGy4 I am sure he would be interested in becoming more rigorous, accurate and involved with philosophy! As one of my key figures (parasocially) I am very curious where he stands on stuff. He seems to do the you can’t prove a negative fallacy atheists do. Maybe you could shuffle through some fallacies and make an interview to discuss aesthetics and human ingenuity or something?

😎👍🏽

The fact you are calling me out like this is ad hominem, actually

Time to posit the fallacy fallacy fallacy

I hate it when people do that. I call it the Fallacious Fallacy fallacy.

Nice thumbnail

N O.

Unfortunately, you lost this debate after committing the sophomoric error of _argumentum temere verbum!_

MY DUDE lolol

You usually find such people in instagram 😂

Please tell me what the misuse and abuse fallacy called?

who are you to tell which fallicies to use, most of them are informal, meaning they don't invalidate the arguement, but is just poor reasoning or arguementation

I want to give my explanation for why people do this without realizing it. I think it comes from the same place as questions avoidance. If you have 12 minutes the first basic part I will go over is about fast/slow thinking. If you want there is a 12 minute video by veritasium called "the science of thinking" that will explain it very well. I think this is knowledge that can really benefit people if they do not know about it. The next part though I dont know any videos for and I dont know if anyone really had the idea I have before. The knowledge of the fast/slow mind is what is relevant from that video and I think a good starting point for the discussion. The video also gives examples of people doing it live, but it most likely will work on you as well so that is how I will show you. I am going to ask you a question, and I am going to predict the answer you will have pop in your mind at first, and predict that will be a wrong answer. This works on most people and you can try if for yourself on others to see too, its an interesting conversation starter. A bat and a ball together cost 1.10, the bat costs 1.00 more then the ball, how much did the ball cost? You might have an answer flash in your head right away with fast inaccurate fast mind but if you check that answer with your slow but more accurate conscious awareness, you can see that answer is wrong but it takes effort to do. The answer of ten cents is not the right answer but most people have that pop in their head because of the fast thinking mind that we rely on most of the time. The fast unconscious mind is taking everything in and trying to make sense of it really fast. Its 11 million bits a second. But sometimes it makes mistakes. The slow conscious mind is 40-50 bits and lazy but it can check things and bringing the unconscious mistake to conscious awareness it can correct it. The next thing to understand is about carl jung and the 4 ways the unconscious complex he called shadow deals with reality. The shadow is an unconscious complex that is defined as the repressed and suppressed aspects of the conscious self. there are constructive and destructive types of shadow. Carl jung emphasized the importance of being aware of shadow material and incorporating it into conscious awareness lest one project these attributes onto others. The human being deals with the reality of shadow in 4 ways. Denial, projection, integration and/or transmutation. Now I believe what is happening when a question that exposes a conflict in a belief, idea, something that someone said, or even about someone they idolize and the question gets avoided, that is the fast unconscious mind going into denial and the response is often a projection. This also can trigger and emotional response activating the amygdala more and the pre frontal cortex less where rational conscious thought is said to happen and the amygdala starts to get the body to flood itself with chemicals/hormones. Its like the fast mind knows conscious awareness will say its wrong. so it blocks it off to defend itself from admitting its wrong. in cases of denial and because it blocked off the rational mind, the responses are often irrational. Like personal attacks do not address the issue or answer the question. I think we can agree people have a very hard time now days admitting when they are wrong, I am not exempt from this myself I do realize. And we can see how badly questions avoidance effects us if you watch political meetings and watch them avoid questions all day long. Ok, so the first thing to go over is denial as that is the main one I expose with questions. A disowning or refusal to acknowledge something I think is a good definition for it here. There is a really good 2 minute video I use as an example of this. A streamer named vegan gains claiming lobsters have brains after some one said he can eat lobsters because they do not have brains. He googles it and starts to read what it says. When he gets to the part where is says neither insects nor lobsters have brains, he skips it and says they literally are insects then skips over that line and continues to read the rest. Just like in the fast thinking video, his fast mind already read that line and refused to acknowledge it in unconscious denial, and just skipped it. The person then tells him he skipped it and he reads it again and sees the line this time. Still being defensive of his claim and refusing to accept he was wrong, he tried to discredit the source and its the lobster institute of maine. If you would like to see the video for yourself its 2 minutes by destiny clips and the video is called " Destiny Reacts To Vegan Gains Ignoring Search Result That Contradicts Him". Justin turdo avoiding the question of how much his family was paid by the we charity 6 times in a row I think is denial as well. I think jordan peterson not being able to answer his own question of does he believe god exists and asking what do and you mean then saying no one knows what any of those words mean while being seemingly angry is think is another really good example of denial... and projection. And while JP find those words difficult, other people understand them easy. Even he does pretty much any other time they are used. So projection is next up. Psychological projection is a defense mechanism people subconsciously employ in order to cope with difficult feelings or emotions. Psychological projection involves projecting undesirable feelings or emotions onto someone else, rather than admitting to or dealing with the unwanted feelings. Many times a mind in denial will use projections for responses. Someone getting mad and telling the other person to not interrupt when they have been doing that a lot themselves would be an example. I have done this myself. The people who tell me I dont understand my own questions and my point is wrong when they do not even know what the point is are all examples as well. I ask them to steel man my position to show then understand my point and they just avoid that question as well clearly showing they do not understand my point. Now we have integration and/or transmutation. Integration is when you bring an unconscious behavior into conscious awareness and accept it. I know that I interrupt people talking sometimes even though I think that is wrong to do. I have a conscious awareness of it, but I have not been able to completely change the behavior.... yet. That is where transmutation comes in. Transmutation is to completely change that unconscious behavior. From being impatient to being patient, of from distrust to trust, hate into understanding and love even. So was this understandable or confusing? if you understand it, do you think its possibly true? Do you have any questions? If you have any tips I am would gladly listen.

The existence of Dark Energy is postulated based affirming the consequent. So, that might be a bad example of a logical fallacy that is never observed.

@MajestyofReason

8 ай бұрын

I understand your sentiment; but the justification for dark energy doesn’t actually rest on affirming the consequent! Instead, it’s really Bayesian confirmation - if it did exist, we’d expect our observations; if it didn’t exist, we wouldn’t expect our observations; so we have good evidence for it, per Bayes’ Theorem. It may look superficially like affirming the consequent, but technically it isn’t🙂

@sayrebonifield4663

8 ай бұрын

@@MajestyofReason Ok, I suppose that it is fair to say that Dark Energy, because as a scientific explanation it only has to be the consistent with all the evidence we have and only needs to be strong rather than valid. And I do agree that many, including myself, may reach too quickly for logical fallacies when they are not appropriate because we are looking for something the most reasonable interpretation rather than logically valid. However, I still think the examples were a bit weak and had the effect of burying the lead. Also, applying Bayes' Theorem is well beyond me, but using a statistical theorem to explain a cosmologic problem still seems dubious. My reason being that no matter how many ways we look out at our universe, at the cosmic scale, our current sample size approaches one. And for all our observations regarding red-shifts I don't think we have experimental observations to establish a baseline of how light emitted billions of years ago should look when it reaches us.

Hey now, people have a right to misuse logical fallacies

I have been guilty of overusing the continuum fallacy but it’s because I have a sweet beard and want to draw attention to it.

This video is an ad hominem towards me! (My IQ is 20)

Don't most fallacies stem from oversimplification? Like if you talk about a belief being true being in some way related to people (in general, or some specific authorities) believing it to be true, this could be split into further questions, like "what would make the claim true?" and "what makes these people believe that?". Or maybe even "Is some gradation of truthfulness applicable here, rather than binary logic?" You know, for someone driving a car in the street it doesn't matter if Newtonian or relativistic mechanics is more correct. In this range of speeds and energies both models match within way beyond any measurable precision - and Newtonian formulas are easier to use (unless you reduce relativistic ones to the basically the same approximation for these parameters). So, it's hard to object that for particular applications, Newtonian formulas hold with as much precision as practically necessary, even if might not be absolutely true. You just don't have to put is as absolutely true versus absolutely false. (And neither model works too well with some quantum effects...) On the other hand, majority of people being more in favor of Newtonian mechanics won't change the fact that GPS satellites need to account for relativistic effects for their timing. (But people using GPS navigation don't need to personally account for that, so the difference doesn't directly affect them, so their personal experience stays within the range where Newtonian mechanics works flawlessly.) Yeah, Newtonian mechanics is a simplified model that doesn't hold for high-speed cases. But it's also an oversimplification to just say that it's wrong altogether - rather than only working within a certain range of parameters. Speaking of selection effects, "what doesn't kill us makes us stronger" would be a prime offender for that. Most of the times it's mentioned in regards to adverse factors, large part of the effect is due to weaker individuals dropping out making the average of what remains stronger. Even if sometimes the survivors also sustain damage and individually end up weaker than before. On a slightly brighter side, claims that a certain sport amplifies certain traits, may have not 2, but even 3 conflicting explanations. It may really be true for vast majority, amplifying these traits. Or it may just favor these traits so that only the athletes who have these traits in the first place (or would develop them anyway) succeed and remain in the sport. Or it may really amplify said traits, but only for some individuals - who are also the only ones who succeed at it, still creating the illusion that anyone could train these traits with enough diligence. (good luck conducing a truly representative study to distinguish for how many people it works which way. Besides, for most people the more important question is if this training would have effect on them in particular, rather than for the average kid in the neighborhood.) Actually, for the study program example, the better evaluation would be to check performance both before and after for each individual kid in both study and control group, and plot initial versus final performance. Then you'll see, if the effect is across the board, or if only the top performers got even further away, or if it only worked for low-end cases, or if the trend is the same in both groups and you only got selection bias. P.S. For the "clean coal" argument, just ask them to define "clean". If it means containing less sulfur or being less prone to making smoke in particular conditions - these are valid points if the quality is actually there. If they mean clean of fossil CO2 emissions, this better be sustainably produced charcoal (it should also score very good on sulfur and smoke points as well).

I agree with the broader point and the general conclusion, but I'm not sure I buy the particular justifications. I also feel like the thinking presented here sometimes goes too far in the other direction. 1. I have seen people deny the antecedent and affirm the consequent, I find knowing these fallacies to be helpful (also a necessary part of learning formal logic). 2. (Ad hominem) In my experience, it is much more common that people use negative information about an individual to avoid engaging with arguments and evidence. For example people use negative information about William Lane Craig in order to dismiss him as a liar instead of engaging with his arguments. This is true many other debates as well, such as on climate policy or abortion, where the other side is dismissed for being evil or foolish without any honest attemps to engage with the other side. If you don't know enough to make a judgement, then admit that you don't know and be judicious about who you trust and how much you trust them. 3. (appeal to popularity) It is false that if most commonly accepted beliefs weren't true we would die out. Our beliefs can be both false and useful. I agree with Plantinga on this even if I don't share his conclusions. A non-systematically selected list of common-sense beliefs aren't really convincing since (a) there is no reason to take the list as representative of commonly held beliefs and (b) we can just as easily come up with list of commonly held false beliefs. 4. (appeal to authority) Just as people use negative information as an excuse to stop thinking, people are happy to use authorities as an excuse to abandon all critical thought. While who says something matters, it is also important that people know how and when to rely on authorities. For example, an authority who doesn't explain and justify their claims and refuses to engage with critical questioning should raise red flags, especially when they make claims outside of their area of expertise. Also, one should have selection effects in mind, as you point out later in the video. 5. (begging the question) Here I agree fully. 6. (Post Hoc) A being followed by B is "evidence" that A causes B in the same way that observing a non-black non-raven is "evidence" that all ravens are black. To the extent that it is evidence it is extremely weak. And that assumes that causation only travels one direction in time, which may perhaps be false. I'm also not sure what is meant by a correlation being "well established". The rest of the video I generally agree with and I think to the extent I have expressed disagreement here, in many cases it is mostly a matter of emphasis rather than substantial disagreement (although I suspect that there at least some of that as well).

@chandir7752

8 ай бұрын

So are you're basically accusing him of the fallacy fallacy fallacy but with more words, which makes it seem like you're a fallacy fallacist yourself.

I think I am more of a hardliner. I think appeal to authority and ad hominem and all that are fundamentally bad. in everyday heuristics, you are perfectly justified in rejecting the oil company's arguments about clean coal, and if a doctor tells you to stop something because it's unhealthy, you should probably do so. But I take these fallacies to pick out things that are by some taken to be conclusive and to deny that they are. I think there are some contexts in which you must take it a step higher and provide conclusive evidence. If, in such contexts, people start coming up with these fallacies, you must be able to point it out and criticize it. Oh, but fuck "whataboutism", I hate this fucking term. There are legitimate examples for people using the "what about x" kind of rhetorical device to direct the conversation away from what was discussed beforehand, but I see it way more often that people just use it when there is a conflict between two sides. If you contextualize the actions of one side by talking about actions of the other side, you will find lots of people angrily writing into the comment section "Wait, this is whataboutism1!" - no the fuck, it is perfectly fine to contextualize here. To be more precise, "whataboutism" is only a useful concept if it picks out the instance where this kind of reasoning is deployed by bad faith actors who intentionally want to abort the conversation. But these days, it is more often misunderstood than not and thus, it makes more debates worse than better.

fallacies are overrated

The clean coal ad doesn't really strike me as valid. It's true that the coal company being immoral and not keeping promises would lower the _appeal_ of the ad... but not its *validity.* The argument stands on its own, and if the "argument" is just a list of promises, then it's not an argument at all. Second, "applying heavy scepticism" is not "rejecting ideas and arguments". Saying so just reeks of the theistic argument "all atheists reject God".

are you sure rhetoric isn't just dogwater

when hes talking about the ad populum fallacy he list things that can easily be verified by a single person. Not a good example