tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post4093414549207421567..comments2024-03-27T03:19:11.216-04:00Comments on Assistant Village Idiot: The Tim Tebow Effect in Current PoliticsAssistant Village Idiothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01978011985085795099noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-51792477807718841822017-04-01T14:09:31.632-04:002017-04-01T14:09:31.632-04:00Yes, fallacy isn't the right word, as that has...Yes, <i>fallacy</i> isn't the right word, as that has a precise meaning. It's something more in the range of "bad thinking that leads you to bad conclusions."Assistant Village Idiothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01978011985085795099noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-24072255116324455262017-03-31T23:04:09.752-04:002017-03-31T23:04:09.752-04:00...Effect instead because I tend to think of the l...<i>...Effect instead because I tend to think of the larger spectrum of people digging in against the tide, not all of which rises to the level of fallacy.</i><br /><br />A fallacy, properly speaking, is an error in logic that disrupts the ability of logic to guarantee truth preservation. There aren't really levels of this; it's binary. Either it's a valid logical form, meaning that truth is guaranteed to be preserved through the transformation, or it's a fallacy.<br /><br />The formal fallacies are obvious. Assuming the truth of the premises, the logical form guarantees the truth of the conclusion. Compare these two forms:<br /><br />"If P, then Q.<br />"P.<br />"Therefore, Q."<br /><br />That's valid, but a nearby form is fallacious.<br /><br />"If P, then Q.<br />"Q.<br />"Therefore, P."<br /><br />What's wrong in the informal fallacies is less obvious. The slippery slope is a good one. "If you agree to that logic, continuing it through these several steps leads to this conclusion." Well, not necessarily: people could refuse to take any of those several steps. And yet, often, it really is true that people who accepted the logic in the first case really will follow it through to the horrible conclusion. Happens all the time. It's just not guaranteed to happen -- so it's a fallacy.<br /><br />To your point, it's a fallacy even if the slippery slope proves true 90% of the time. It's a binary thing, not a thing that admits of degrees.Grimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07543082562999855432noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-13448289455496752032017-03-31T21:42:36.305-04:002017-03-31T21:42:36.305-04:00Is there some sampling bias in the Tebow/whatever ...Is there some sampling bias in the Tebow/whatever debates? The ones who say "Enough already" and mean it go somewhere else, leaving the field to the ones with itchy egos.jameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01792036361407527304noreply@blogger.com