Events

Yesterday, this nitwit described a couple of logical fallacies that everyone raved about. For day two of my series on "how not to argue," I present two more of the most common fallacies of irrelevant conclusions. I'd feel bad for you if you got taken in by either of these. Argumentum ad ignoratiam An "argument to ignorance" relies on a lack of evidence against your proposition, and hoping your opponent doesn't have any. For quite some time, the President used essentially this fallacious line of argument...

Researchers from Rice University and residents of Iceland have put up a memorial to a glacier that disappeared in 2014: The memorial is “a letter to the future.” It describes what we lost: the Okjokull glacier — and how we lost it: human-caused climate change. And yet it is hopeful, acknowledging “what is happening and what needs to be done.” “Only you,” future visitor, “know if we did it.” It’s a reminder of geologic times gone by, like a Mount Rushmore but for the natural landmarks we’ve lost. The...

On July 27th I began a series on common logical fallacies. Each entry provides a brief description and a couple of examples. Here are all the posts: Fallacies of irrelevant conclusion Argument to the person, 27 July 2019. Argument to popularity, 27 July 2019. Argument to ignorance, 28 July 2019. Argument to pity, 28 July 2019. Argument to awe, 2 August 2019. Argument to force, 2 August 2019. Red herring, 4 August 2019. Material fallacies Argument by accident (overgeneralizing), 5 August 2019. Converse...

Yes I am. In this first post of a new series, I'm going to explain in brief the most common logical fallacies that we hear (and sometimes use) all the time. Fallacies come in a few basic flavors: irrelevance, formality, ambiguity, and materiality. I'll begin with irrelevance, since blogs traditionally start there. Argumentum ad hominem An "argument to the person" focuses on the opponent as a person, rather than the opponent's argument. The President excels at these: think about all the nicknames he uses...

Or, as Tom Lehrer once remarked, "I'm beginning to feel like a Christian Scientist with appendicitis." The latest exhibit: how the press reacted to Robert Mueller's testimony on Wednesday. Adam Serwer: In any other administration, in any other time, a special prosecutor, former FBI director, and decorated Marine testifying that the president of the United States was an unprosecuted felon who encouraged and then benefited from an attack on American democracy in pursuit of personal and political gain...

In their ongoing battle with large Hollywood agencies, the members of the Writers Guild of America fired all their agents. Subsequently, they went through the usual May cycle of getting new jobs with hardly any difficulty. And this week, the Guild released an online platform to connect writers with jobs. In a note to the membership, the Guild explained the platform: Today the WGA is launching our Staffing & Development Platform, which provides valuable new tools to help connect writers with job...

As our planet warms to global average temperatures not seen in over 125,000 years, a pair of long-range studies has concluded the unique way or climate is changing right now, as opposed to the rest of history: “The familiar maxim that the climate is always changing is certainly true,” Scott St. George, a physical geographer at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, said in a written commentary about the studies. “But even when we push our perspective to the earliest days of the Roman Empire, we...

Adam Eichen bemoans the left's obtuseness in creating, sustaining, and funding a long-term strategy to regain power, the way the radical right has done for 50 years: Republicans and their donors, on the other hand, got the message. In fact, not long after the memo was written, a handful of billionaires—including John Olin, who made his money in chemical and munitions manufacturing, newspaper publisher Richard Scaife, heir to Mellon fortune, and petrochemical scions David and Charles Koch—began to create...

As I mentioned this morning, the UK Met predicts that tomorrow—Boris Johnson's first full day as UK PM—will be the hottest day in recorded history for the country. Today, however, is already the hottest day in recorded history for the Netherlands and Belgium: The Dutch meteorological service, KNMI, said the temperature reached 39.1°C at Gilze-Rijen airbase near the southern city of Tilburg on Wednesday afternoon, exceeding the previous high of 38.6°C set in August 1944. In Belgium, the temperature in...

Unelected former Prime Minister Theresa May tendered her resignation to the Queen a few minutes ago. Unelected incoming Prime Minister Boris Johnson is, at this moment, meeting with Her Majesty in hopes that she will invite him to form a new government. May's last Prime Ministers Questions were at noon BST today: I recommend just a few opinion pieces on Johnson out this morning: Times columnist Roger Cohen says Johnson "faces a swift and bloody mess." The Atlantic's Tom McTague says Johnson has "met his...