logical fallacies....

[acroyear]

keep a copy of this checklist around and refer to it during the next presidential speech. you might be surprised just how illogical he really is...or you might not.

b.t.w., my earlier "proof by repeated assertion" discussion is listed here as "Begging the Question", and the phrase "Sound Science" is listed under "From Ignorance" [if you haven't proved it to be an absolute FACT, it's not true yet. This either ignores, or takes advantage of, the scientific position that all science is statistical approximation, even when it comes down to something as simple as e=mc2, and nothing is truly "fact" in any absolutist sence].

Comments

[thatliardiego.livejournal.com]

Ah, my entire junior year rhetoric and debate class in one computer screen's worth of information. Very nice.

(P.S. -- This stuff is great when debating anyone but one's own wife.)

my problem is how its misused...

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

see, i had always thought that learning propaganda and such (though not to the logical fallacies details) in 6th grade was supposed to educate us and make us skeptical when we recognize it in advertisements and political speeches...

...instead, its treated in a way that would do Cicero proud, where the kids who wish to become powerful learn the techniques to manipulate the credulous and gullible (those who don't learn a thing from these lessons, if they're even exposed to them at all).

the cynic in me would bet these logical fallacies will never be on any "standardized test" any politician approves for our school systems. of course, i do respect the states that have chosen not to adopt the bush's new federal standards, knowing full well, that the amount of federal money they get won't come nearly close enough to paying for the costs to actually implementing the required tests and the reorganization of their teaching curriculum to cover the tests' materials.

Safe Havens (the other newspaper comic by Bill Holbrook of On the Fastrack, depressingly dropped by the 'post back in the early 90s) wrote a storyline about that very situation. that comic has remained extremely critical of the changes in the educational system to emphasizing conformaty, wrote memorization, and standardization of testing materials.