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Yes, of course: "Fallacies". But note there's also something I like to call the "Fallacy Fallacy": People read the wikipedia list and consider them some sort o
by IAmEveryone 7y ago
Yes, of course: "Fallacies".
But note there's also something I like to call the "Fallacy Fallacy": People read the wikipedia list and consider them some sort of universal natural law.
Case in Point: "appeal to authority". This can indeed be fallacious, within the context where these were formulated, which is probably academic publishing. If someone says they've created an HIV vaccine, it would be very wrong to start using it without clinical trials just because the inventor is some famous researcher.
If you try to apply the same to daily life and online debate, you're going to wither and die within a month.
Example: you're experiencing chest pain. What do you do? You see a doctor! Do you subject them to a quiz on heart disease, and do you re-run every trial that contributed to your treatment? Of course not -– it would cost trillions and take many lifetimes. Instead, you trust your countries certification scheme, and you trust the scientific establishment. Both are authorities.
When you return to your favourite restaurant, you are extrapolating expected future performance based on past experience. in other words: you trust them. Or in even otherer words: you consider them the authority on Fried Chicken and rely on that to guide your decisions.
There are only two ways to gain an understanding of the world around you as needed to do anything: direct experience, and what others tell you. The fraction of required knowledge that you can individually verify from first principle is probably somewhere below 1%. For everything else, you need to rely on other's direct experience, by continually fine-tuning individual measures of authority by comparing to direct experience where possible, and integrating with other sources where not.
- Arathorn 7y agoright, yup, I guess I was grasping for Fallacies. However, reading through Wikipedia's list of them, I'm finding it fairly hard to find the right ones to apply to my examples - and if I used this nomenclature to try to keep FOSS collaboration productive, I think I'd lose the audience pretty rapidly (or get lost in a meta-argument about fallacies). Hence wondering if there could be a simpler taxonomy for the most common types of bug which pedants use to derail discussion (unintentionally or otherwise).
- INGELRII 7y agoAppeal to authority is not not deductively valid and thus it's logical fallacy. On the other hand very little can be learned with deductive reasoning at once. Deductive chains in debate are very short and shortcuts must be used. Authority can be used to weigh or prioritize evidence. If you are not doing serious research into the subject, authority is one heuristic that works extremely well. For example, when two relatively ignorant layman debate in the internet and have limited interest or effort invested to get into the truth. Finding out that something is mainstream view among authorities in the field should end the argument for the time being for the lack of more information. Unfortunately the discussion usually ends with questioning that particular field, then the progress of the society as a whole. Scientists have been wrong before so .. they can also be corrupt ...
- travisjungroth 7y agoLogic means two things: “Reasoned thinking” and “a strict set of rules for proving things” When someone wants to disagree, it’s easy to just sub out the definitions and say something isn’t logical because it doesn’t follow formal methods. Believing what someone says because they’re well-respected about a topic isn’t strict, but it’s really useful.