Crazy-ass fallacy

[Netko]

The great thing about arguing with people who have actually taken formal logic in school is that if you catch them on something like that, they'll admit error. Most regular people are so goddamned dense that you could explain it to them ten times and they still won't get it.

Even the ones that have had some exposure to formal logic usually got it in some pathetic imitation of a college course. A lot of schools make freshmen take some sort of critical thinking course, but I've never heard of anyone who learned anything from it.

What usually happens is that professors from various disciplines teach different sections of the class. So one section might have a physicist teaching, while the other could have a communication professor. Obviously, you'll get widely varying lessons between those two, with the communications professor probably being more tolerant of bullshit.

In my case, I had a psychology professor. When we covered evolution versus creationism, she actually said, "Evolution's a theory, but it's not a law yet."

Or, like in mine case, it gets dumped into "Communication skill" course, where they spend a whole 2 hours on it with the general gist of the lecture being "If you think all TV ads are bullshit, you have critical thinking skills" and "Those with critical thinking skills know their emotions and account for them, but never try to control them" (WTF?!?) - what's best was, when I asked what the hell was meant by the last part, or any of it for that matter and all I got was this funny look of "Oh poor guy, and you seemed so intelligent, too bad you don't have enough critical thinkings skills to get it" and a laugh. Yay for psychology somethings (honestly, I have no clue if the guy holds a PhD or not).

[Surlethe]

Even the ones that have had some exposure to formal logic usually got it in some pathetic imitation of a college course. A lot of schools make freshmen take some sort of critical thinking course, but I've never heard of anyone who learned anything from it.

That's, of course, not enough to actually learn and understand how to use formal logic. I spent weeks going over nothing but formal logic and its applications in a math class, and I wouldn't hesitate to say that the majority of the class came out with a less than complete understanding of the subject.

If you're going to have a critical thinking course, then it needs to be required, two semesters, fast-paced, consistent and rigorous; otherwise, it's useless in actually teaching the students anything. If they fail, they fail; critical thinking is one subject where you don't want anybody passing if they can't think critically.

[TithonusSyndrome]

After 21 years of dealing with my parents' particular brand of argumentation and exaltation of "common sense", I've begun to consider the notion that formal logic and debating rules should be taught at the elementary school level, in place of.... I dunno, religion or music.

Is this practical? Desireable? Forseeable?

[Jew]

After 21 years of dealing with my parents' particular brand of argumentation and exaltation of "common sense", I've begun to consider the notion that formal logic and debating rules should be taught at the elementary school level, in place of.... I dunno, religion or music.

Is this practical? Desireable? Forseeable?

I don't know about formal logic training in elementary school, but critical thinking skills should be a component of education from an early age. Younger kids can learn things like: the difference between fact and opinion. That's a good one to drill into them from a young age.

Older kids (say, sixth grade) can learn to read newspapers and watch TV news and pick out blatant bias in the reporting. Formal logic training is probably not useful until about 9th or 10th grade. They can learn about deductive and inductive proofs in math class, and learn about various ways to abuse language in English class. My 9th grade English teacher spent a lot of time discussing the abuse of language, with Animal Farm as a text. It was a good way to combine English, logic, and critical thinking.

Formal debating rules don't need to be taught, I don't think. Life rarely involves formal debates.

[Velthuijsen]

That's, of course, not enough to actually learn and understand how to use formal logic. I spent weeks going over nothing but formal logic and its applications in a math class, and I wouldn't hesitate to say that the majority of the class came out with a less than complete understanding of the subject.

I believe you. It has been about the only part of the mathematics courses I had to work hard for (compared to the rest of the courses). The average amount of people getting a passing grade was 35% to 40% for the two courses which focussed on formal logic. And the people doing these included those who were redoing them they didn't get a passing grade earlier.

Sad thing is that in my current job I don't need it and it is something that has to be practiced regularly or be lost (I wouldn't be able to fomulate the proofs of the exam today )

[Darth Wong]

The problem is that logic fallacies are hard to learn, in the sense that they require a certain amount of maturity and intelligence. Mindless repetition and indoctrination in mythology, however, can be done starting from infancy. There is no comprehension required; you simply keep repeating the same lines over and over and over until they become instinct.

That's always been the big weapon used by religion against science and rationality. Science and rationality are, quite simply, not natural. They take hard work to grasp. There is discipline required. Religion, on the other hand, is dirt-easy to learn. It comes in the form of stories which require no real conceptual comprehension at all; they're just stories, designed to be comprehensible by cattle-sacrificing savages.

In short, it goes like this:

SCIENCE: I have some very complicated concepts for you. You will need to understand logic and have a firm grasp of mathematics in order to understand them, and you will need to study them for years, starting from the simplest concepts so that you can understand the more complicated ones. There will be tough examinations and a lot of lab work. If you don't pay attention and work hard, you'll fail.

RELIGION: I have a story to tell you. It's so simple that a child can understand it. In fact, it's better if you're a child. Let me talk to your children.

[vargo]

Here is an awesome False dilemma fallacy, that poped up at my local forum, the other day.

A response to phewdomatic, Science101 and to all evolution believers:
Satan is very real. He has blinded your eyes to the truth. Willfully or unwittingly you are following the devil.

Jesus, who is both God and man said, “If they don’t believe Moses how will they believe what I say?” He went on to say, “They have Moses and the prophets. If they will not believe them they will not believe (even) though one were to raise from the dead and speak to them” This is the exact situation that you are in today.

Unless you repent and invite Jesus into your heart, your destiny is to die, to go to hell, to be judged, to kneel before Jesus and to proclaim Him to be Lord and then to be cast into the lake of fire where you will be tormented by fire endlessly. In other words, you will be forever separated from God.

By teaching evolution in school, students are programmed to not believe in Jesus. Therefore the children, also, are being condemned to be sent to the lake of fire.

Jesus said, “Allow the little children to come to me and forbid them not.” The present American education system is constructing obstacles in the way of our children knowing the truth and therefore hindering the children from coming to Jesus...

http://agoodchoice.blogspot.com/2007/01 ... iness.html

Once someone posts something like this, Its not even worth trying to reasoning with them. They have so much Fundie bullshit cramped up their asses, you can see right threw one ear and out the other.

[DPDarkPrimus]

After 21 years of dealing with my parents' particular brand of argumentation and exaltation of "common sense", I've begun to consider the notion that formal logic and debating rules should be taught at the elementary school level, in place of.... I dunno, religion or music.

Is this practical? Desireable? Forseeable?

I will defend music as part of cultural enrichment, as the elementary music lessons inspire many to take it up in middle and high school (when it is an optional class), not to mention as a career.

[Darth Servo]

Here is an awesome False dilemma fallacy, that poped up at my local forum, the other day.

<snip>

Thats just preaching more than it being a false dilema fallacy.

Once someone posts something like this, Its not even worth trying to reasoning with them. They have so much Fundie bullshit cramped up their asses, you can see right threw one ear and out the other.

True. They only people fundies listen to is other fundies.

[TithonusSyndrome]

After 21 years of dealing with my parents' particular brand of argumentation and exaltation of "common sense", I've begun to consider the notion that formal logic and debating rules should be taught at the elementary school level, in place of.... I dunno, religion or music.

Is this practical? Desireable? Forseeable?

I will defend music as part of cultural enrichment, as the elementary music lessons inspire many to take it up in middle and high school (when it is an optional class), not to mention as a career.

Moreso than logic, or at the very least teaching children some ability to see sophism for what it is?

[Rye]

Logic should be taught, sure, as should music, but music needs to have modern instruments and not just electric keyboards and percussion like they did at my school.

Logic could probably done as homework in primary school, you probably wouldn't need that much classtime to deal with it. Logic homework could have the benefit of forcing the parents to comprehend logic, too, as they attempt to help their kids and end up having to think.

[TithonusSyndrome]

Well, we all know that religion class ain't goin' anywhere for a while, so I tried to remember something I studied in elementary school that could conceivably make way for logic, or at least "anti-sophism" classes. Only music came to mind, which was a hard thing for a semiprofessional musician to say.

[Ryushikaze]

In regards to the OP, I basically had this happen to me moments ago. Now, I'm fairly certain I'm the straw that broke the camel's back, but after telling someone to cut it out with telling people that they hadn't disproved god (this was a major harping point) and that saying they believed in Jesus's divinty and the generic christian message but weren't a christian sounded like a no true scotsman, they tried to blast me with this.

My damn god, Ryushikaze, shut the god damn hell up. If the only way you can argue is to insult EVERYTHING I've ever worked for, and give me no respect as an individual, and make outrageous claims, then, sit down and lower you unbearably high pride, arrogance, and vanity. Ryu, you find theism unacceptable and evil. You think since it's different, theists have no ability to differ from this stereotype you've given to give them, you believe your faith is not only true (which is okay,) but, BETTER, as in, makes you higher than a theist, and I find you insult atheism, atheists argue, and do it amazingly, but you, you insult, you find your beliefs to be more deserving then any other, so, before you post further, lower your self-absorbed pile of theist hate, and get a life, and learn that since you have different beliefs, dosen't make it acceptable to insult a theist's entire life's work, and make atheists seem how you do. (Which they aren't, they are respectable and intelligent people.)

[glass]

My damn god, Ryushikaze, shut the god damn hell up. If the only way you can argue is to insult EVERYTHING I've ever worked for, and give me no respect as an individual, and make outrageous claims, then, sit down and lower you unbearably high pride, arrogance, and vanity. Ryu, you find theism unacceptable and evil. You think since it's different, theists have no ability to differ from this stereotype you've given to give them, you believe your faith is not only true (which is okay,) but, BETTER, as in, makes you higher than a theist, and I find you insult atheism, atheists argue, and do it amazingly, but you, you insult, you find your beliefs to be more deserving then any other, so, before you post further, lower your self-absorbed pile of theist hate, and get a life, and learn that since you have different beliefs, dosen't make it acceptable to insult a theist's entire life's work, and make atheists seem how you do. (Which they aren't, they are respectable and intelligent people.)

My god, that is a lot of commas. It took me about five attempts to read it to the end and I am still not sure I have parsed it correctly. OTOH, I suspect I am not missing much.


I assume you didn't actually say anything about anyone's life's work, right?



glass.

[Ryushikaze]

Nope, and upon checking the rest of the thread, I don't think anyone else did either. The closest was an exchange regarding how theism was textbook irrational.

I'm not entirely surprised he lashed out at me though, in our last exchange, he kept getting similarly heated.
I think it's mostly due to insisting that they prove their god, instead of taking their existence as a given.