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You're making a No True Scotsman argument here, no?
by js2 4y ago
You're making a No True Scotsman argument here, no?
- MichaelZuo 4y agoI don't see it? You will need to elaborate.
- js2 4y agoThis entire subthread seems to be an argument over the definition of "intelligent". In no dictionary definition that I can find does it exclude people who join cults. Yet that seems to be the argument being made here. From the Wikipedia: > No True Scotsman, or appeal to purity, is an informal fallacy in which one attempts to protect their generalized statement from a falsifying counterexample by excluding the counterexample improperly. So I think it's a No True Scotsman argument to make to say "well, if they joined a cult, they must not have been intelligent in the first place." But now I suppose we're arguing over the definition of the No True Scotsman fallacy and that's just a bit too meta for me on a rainy Sunday afternoon, so I'm going to go walk my dog. :-)
- MichaelZuo 4y agoThere clearly exist people who can see their own post hoc rationalizations? It's not some abstract speculation. Even HN comments often demonstrate it one way or the other.