Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Bruce, thank you for a short, understandable list of "reasoning traps". 
Perhaps, in the future, when we dispute an argument that contains one or 
more or these flaws, we can point out the flaw by referring to your list.

I think two other frequently seen reasoning flaws are:

11.  Straw man - A straw man argument is based on misrepresentation of an 
opponent's position. To "set up a straw-man argument" is to create a 
position that is easy to refute, then attribute that position to the 
opponent. Though often successful, this rhetorical technique is weak and 
misleading since the argument actually presented by the opponent has not 
been refuted.  This technique is often employed by latching onto a small 
piece of someone's argument, expanding on it by filling in one's own 
details, then deflating the whole thing and claiming this proves the entire 
argument is wrong.

12.  Hypothesis Contrary To Fact - arguing from something that might have 
happened or could happen, but didn't.  This is often found on Ridecamp in 
arguments against/for some piece of equipment/procedure, ie, "Can you 
imagine how bad it would have been if he had been barefoot (been wearing 
shoes, been tied, not been tied)."

I strongly believe that at least one semester studying Logic should be 
required in order to graduate from High School.  While it is easy to blame 
a societal loss of common sense for the appalling failure of people to see 
through logical fallacies, the situation could easily be remedied by 
providing our children with the tools to discern and eviscerate blatantly 
erroneous reasoning.  Besides, it's fun!  Just Google "logical fallacies" 
for great descriptions of the more common ones.  Here is just one of many 
sites:
http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html#lies

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