Comments

Comments

Relativism is the idea that some element or aspect of experience or culture is relative to, i.e., dependent on, some other element or aspect. Some relativists claim that humans can understand and evaluate beliefs and behaviors only in terms of their historical or cultural context. The term often refers to truth relativism, which is the doctrine that there are no absolute truths, i.e., that truth is always relative to some particular frame of reference, such as a language or a culture.

lets replay that...

truth relativism, which is the doctrine that there are no absolute truths

but if there are no absolute truths, then the statement "There are no absolute truths", cannot be an absolute truth...

Comments

The Bank of England is the only institution that prints money but not the only institution that creates money. Lending banks literally create money out of thin air. And each time they do this they are skimming off the rest of us.

Banks are not like any other business – most businesses make something or provide a service that they sell for money – Lending banks create money. Every time a loan is taken out, be that a mortgage or credit card loan, money is being created.

Watch the magic;

Sally has £20, Joe has £10 – there is £30 in the system. Sally deposits her £20 into shatwest bank.

John Jones wants to build a house, he needs £15 to pay Berttie the Builder, he borrows the money from shatwest and pays Berttie, over 25 years he will repay the money. There is now £45 in the system. Sally believes she has £20, but Berttie has also been paid his £15.

Notice something – because there is more money in the system Joe’s £10 is worth less after the transaction than before – before the transaction he has 33% of the money in the system – afterward he has only 22%. Notice as well that Joe did not take part in the transaction, he got skimmed and he didn’t even know it - this is immoral.

The “bit of magic” is that sally believes she still has the £20 – if all the savers demanded their money back at the same time the bank would be rumbled, they do not in fact have her money, this is why a bank-run is pretty much the worst thing that can happen to a bank.

Most of the time however the smoke and mirrors work, the effect being that lending banks are constantly increasing the money supply, this is why western economies are “debt driven” – it’s not just that we love credit cards, our economy is litterally driven by debt, the vast majority of our money supply is a result of debt creation.

There are some rules: the banks cannot lend everything out that they get in, they have to keep a bit of the deposit back. However the amount of money created is actually much more than in my simple example because Berttie will take John’s money and deposit it in another bank, which will (after keeping x% back) lend it out again, creating more money – a single £1 deposit creates many ££s of debt.

Should this even be allowed? I don’t think so. It seems to me to essentially a fraud. I’m a big fan of capitalism and I’d like to point out that you could have capitalism without allowing this parasitic activity.

Comments

There is Wealth and there is Money – they are not the same.

Wealth is the stuff we produce – cars, cows, computers, etc.

Money is a granular, fungible token representing wealth, it’s purpose is to make trade efficient.

All societies engaged in the trade of produce – I give you 10 sacks of grain for 1 cow. Clearly this was inefficient, what if I only wanted 5 sacks of grain? I can hardly sell you half a lamb.

Initially the tokens were metal coins, often gold was used.

I sell my lamb for 10 gold pieces and pay you 5 gold pieces for the grain. Much better.

Already in this simple situation there is scope for things to go awry. After a while people believed that the tokens (money) itself had value. Well, it kind of did, gold can be used for stuff like jewellery but ultimately the value of gold relative to everything else depends on how much gold is around. The less gold the more it is worth - the more gold, the less it is worth. A long long time ago, when Spain used gold for currency, some explorers found lots of gold in Peru, they brought it all back for the royal coffers – all they achieved was to increase the amount of tokens in the system, real wealth had not changed, prices went up.

These days we have Fiat Currency, money that is worth what it is because the government says so, i.e. “by fiat”. Clearly the notes in your wallet have zero intrinsic value – they are just bits of paper. Their value depends entirely on how much money is in the system, the “money supply”. And that is determined ultimately by the government.

When the token was a physical commodity it was possible to produce more– as in the Spanish example – however there was a natural restraint, there was only ever going to be so much gold around. With Fiat Currency – the money is printed entirely at the behest of governments.

once you have Fiat Currency there is much more scope for funky stuff to start happening.

First - a commodity like gold has some intrinsic value – the bits of paper in your wallet only have meaning while the power and institutions of the issuing government exist. Fiat Currency is always under this risk, sudden severe political instability can render an entire currency worthless in surprisingly short periods of time – But lets be clear, this risk is rare in western countries.

Second - The theoretical maximum amount of money is infinite! And there are so many reasons why a government might print more than it should. For example – to pay it’s bills – say the government needs to pay it’s employees but hasn’t got the cash - Just print some more and pay them with that.

Historically governments have always increased the money supply - often rapidly – what this means in effect is that they are skimming from everyone with money – by producing more tokens, they devalue the worth of all the tokens.

So why have a Fiat Currency?

+ Because it allows an economy to grow rapidly, why be constrained by the supply of gold.

+ Maybe because you need more money than you have gold (Britain came off the gold standard to fund WW1).

+ Politically it's clever, it can make people feel good – people mistake more tokens for more wealth - so print loads of tokens – salaries are rising year on year - let the good times roll!

Now of course the actual wealthy of the country is (probably) increasing too. But the amount of tokens (money) is increasing faster that the wealthy is increasing – We know this because economists measure inflation, positive inflation means that the tokens are increasing faster than the wealth is increasing.

The UK Money supply - M4 “broad money” in £billions – all coins, notes, bank deposits - BoE.

Comments

There is a quiz show on TV. In this quiz show there is a quiz show host, a contestant and 3 doors.

The doors are closed and the contestant cannot see what is behind them. But the contestant knows that behind 2 of the doors is a goat, and behind one of the doors is $1,000,000

The quiz show host asks the contestant to choose one of the doors by standing in front of it. The door that the contestant thinks has the prize behind it.

After suitable bla bla and building up the tension the quiz show host opens one of the other 2 doors to reveal a goat.

The quiz show host then tells the contestant he has a “special offer”, he has a choice, he can stick with the door he is at – Or he can swap to the other unopened door.

Massive tension…

After the contestant makes his decision – the door he has chosen is opened – and he gets whatever is behind it – be it a goat or the $1,000,000

Now here is the question, when the quiz show host asks the contestant if he wants to stick with the door he’s already selected or swap to the other unopened door – What should he do??

- He should stick
- He should swap
- It makes no difference

Don’t read further unless you want the answer.

Don’t read further unless you want the answer.

He should always swap. The odds of winning the $1,000,000 are much higher if he swaps.

Yet not a single person I have ever told this to has initially realised it.

Every one (including nuclear physics Phds) have insisted (sometimes for hours!) that it’s 50/50 – And it doesn’t make any difference if he sticks or swaps.

I said exactly the same the first time someone asked me.

Comments

There are 34 people at a dinner party. How likely is it that 2 share a birthday?

Our intuition says – It is very unlikely – If we were at such a dinner party and we happened to discover that two of the guests shared a birthday, we would probably be quite surprised. “What are the chances”, we’d say to each other.

The chances are pretty high – Over 75% in this case.

And yet the much lauded “gut feeling” and intuition that so many people swear by would take us completely down the wrong path. Our brains aren’t wired for reasoning or maths, just another thing to be careful of as we try to tell the shit from the shine.

In case you were wondering;

At 23 guests it’s about 50%
At 58 guests it’s over 99%

Comments

We reason using deductive or inductive logic.

In deductive logic the conclusions are *necessitated* by the premises...

All men are mortal (premise),
Socrates is a man (premise),
Therefore Socrates is mortal (conclusion).

Inductive reasoning is what you might call common sense, it's our life experiences.

Jack runs around in the snow for the first time, it's cold. Next time he sees snow he "knows" that it's cold, he doesn't need to bother touching it again.

This often works for us. After all empiricism is the basis of science. However it is flawed, because the conclusion is not certain and can never be certain.

Jack has seen thousands of crows in his life, every one has been black, therefore all crows are black..... Until he sees an albino crow.

The problem is that you have to observe every crow (and know that you have observed every crow) to know that all crows are black. A single exception disproves the rule.

This is a difference between maths and science. I would not expect a mathematical theorem to ever be disproved (excepting that there was an actual error constructing it).

Scientific knowledge is on a much shakier foundation.

I remember reading this somewhere on the web, don't know who said it first;

There are two types of scientific theory, Those that have been disproved, And those yet to be disproved

I think that's pretty much spot on.

Comments

Turn on a finance TV channel and you'll hear detailed explanations of why the FTSE has done this, or why company X is up etc... It all sounds so plausible and commonsense. The reality however is that these people are completely clueless. Typically 75% of fund managers under perform the market. They don't know what's going to happen next week, never mind next year. But they are good at making up a story after the event that retro-fits the facts.

This isn't just in finance, it's everywhere. Sociologists talk about social trends as if they actually knew what is going to happen. They don't. They study the past, find the relevant facts and construct a story. They distil some "rules". They expect the rules to be followed in the future. They won't be.

The softer the science the more of this we have going on. The reason is that in these fields we don't know what we don't know. And it's harder to know that when a system is messy. Any day something new can come along and blow everything apart -- And when it does, the story tellers quickly incorporate the novelty into their framework, now we know everything, they will say. Until the next time!

Donald Rumsfeld was ridiculed when he came out with the following a few years back. I think he was onto something.

As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.

Comments

The line of thought, that our reality is sitting on top of another (realer) one is very old. It has gained popular currency with the recent Matrix film.

Comments

In the previous posting I described how a problem has a problem-surface and that for natural selection to be effective that surface needs to be smooth.

Clearly many problems do not fall into the smooth problem surface category. What about our natural environment? The received wisdom is that natural selection is the (only) process that explains the development of complex life forms. I could easily accept this if the problem surface is smooth, I would find it doubtful if the problem surface was complex.

In some cases it looks to be smooth. Consider the classic illustration of the giraffe and it’s long neck.

click to enlarge

Nice small changes toward improved fitness.

It needs to be pointed out that there is an implicit assumption here – that there is a direct mapping between a small change in the genetic code and a similar small change in the organism, but I’ll leave that on the side.

The giraffe’s neck example works nicely on paper as I’m sure do many others. Bear in mind however that in real life a giraffe has more going on than the length of it’s neck; mating, young to rear, drinking, predators. That’s a complex fitness function and that means a complex problem-surface. I’m going to sticking my neck out here (haha) and say I have my doubts that in a real world situation natural selection would get you from horse to giraffe.

However, that is not what is under consideration, the proposition is that natural selection (on it’s own) can take us on our long journey from slime to homosapien. For this to hold we need a smooth continuous path of ever increasing fitness all the way from A to B. No chance.

Comments

K, Having described how to use simulated natural selection as a means of solving problems in computing, does it actually work?

Yes and No.

When I was messing about with this stuff, the leader in the field was a guy called Koza at Stanford. I ran a number of simulations from Koza’s books and they all worked brilliantly.

At this point I should have stopped to wonder why the process hadn’t been used to develop something complex. I should also have noticed that all the problems in the book had a certain similarity.

As I began applying the process to other problems I noticed it didn’t fare so well. In fact for some problems it just wasn’t going to get there – Ever.

It dawned on me that I was only seeing half the picture. I was familiar with the solution I wanted to use but not the problem I was trying to solve. Problems have characteristics and attributes, they have a problem-space (or a solution-space depending on your outlook)

Imagine a 3D graph, with some peaks and troughs. At one extreme, some problems are binary, there’s one and only one answer. Alternatively some problems have a smooth gradient of fitness values, leading up to a single maxima, the solution.

All the problems in the book were very much of the second kind. If you can get to the solution via small changes, the process gets there quickly, if not then you may be waiting a very long time.

The easiest way to understand why this must be the case is to imagine a huge staccato landscape with just a few narrow high peaks, the population will invariably get stuck in a small local peak (the population becomes optimised for the local peak) and never reach the high peaks. This is hard to describe, it’s really best seen, but I can’t help you there.

Now the problem of “local maxima” that I have just described is only part of it. It gets worse, imagine a more complex requirement, say “driving a car”, there are multiple goals with different priorities at different times. Changing up a gear is real important if the engine is revving, but become subordinate to braking in certain situations.

With a complex fitness function, you get a kind of multi-dimensional surface pulling in many different directions. Additionally the number of “holes” in the problem surface increase, what I mean by a “hole” is an area in the problem surface which yield a zero fitness value. So the area of the surface permitting viable solutions becomes small, most programs just break.

Basically the problem space had better be simple and smooth as a babies bottom.

next posting – Wild speculation about the natural environment as a problem space.

Comments

In the last posting I described the population of computer programs, where the programs exhibiting the highest fitness were reproduced and the least fit were discarded.

There are two types of reproduction, asexual and sexual.

The technical detail of reproduction is important; firstly this is where randomness is introduced through mutation. Mutation is where a piece (usually one element or “gene”) of code is changed. This occurs both in asexual and sexual reproduction. Most mutations are harmful but without mutation the population would be static. For asexual reproduction this is the only way change is introduced.

Sexual reproduction also introduces change though “crossover”, you and I have inherited our DNA part from mother and part from father. Similarly, if we are running this type of simulation, our programs undergo a crossover operation to produce children. The programs exhibiting the most fitness will be reproduced more aggressively with more partners. The benefit is that useful chunks of code will be propagated through the population.

There are many details I’ve omitted but this basically completes the technical description of the simulation. Over many generations the programs will become more adapted to the fitness function.

next posting – does it actually work?

Comments

It’s pretty obvious that plants and animals have evolved over time. The simple stuff appears early on, the more complex stuff later on.

The idea is that natural selection is the process which gets us from A to B.

Note – the reader needs to be clear on what natural selection is – during surveys, it is common to find a majority that agree with the statement “I believe in natural selection”, they are then asked to describe what natural selection is, often up to half say something like; “the children born are more adapted to the environment than their parents” – i.e. they describe some kind of Lamarckian process, not natural selection.

I’m no biologist but I have spent sometime dabbling with genetic algorithms and genetic programming. These fields of study fall within computer science. The idea is that if the process of natural selection can get you from a bit of green slime to a human, then it’s probably good for solving just about anything.

So it’s basically a kind of simulation. The way this works technically is that you have a population of computer programs. The computer programs are evaluated against a “fitness function”, in nature reproducing is the fitness function, but in our simulation the fitness function would be the problem we are trying to solve. The programs that have low fitness are discarded; the programs exhibiting high fitness are allowed to reproduce. Programs exhibiting the highest fitness will be allowed to reproduce many times.

Next posting – the programs have sex!

Comments

My first reaction was to say; If a functioning example were to be artificially created. – that would show the mind was purely material.

But actually that would be insufficient.

If the material part, the brain, was mainly some kind of calling function – and the real processing happens elsewhere, then cloning the calling part would yield the same result, without proving anything.

Comments

Or to paraphrase; the simplest explanation is probably the best one.

Useful heuristic thought it is, the simplest explanation is not necessarily the correct one.

I was recently talking to someone about discoveries resulting from brain surgery. It seems that in the case of some severe mental illness, all medication failing, doctors have resorted to surgery. Basically cutting out bits of the brain or bits that link the left and right hemispheres.

The result of this (apart from alleviation of the illness) is that behaviour is changed. The left and right hemispheres act independently, eg. the patient while getting dressed tries to put on two different pairs of trousers. Also it becomes clear that the separate parts of the brain are related to different functions. He had a lot of examples about people involved in accidents, part of the brain was damaged, they could no longer perform certain functions.

Fascinating.

What gave me pause for thought however was his conclusion. He believed that this pretty well proved that the human mind was purely material. That thoughts, reason etc. were products of a living machine.

Of course he could be right, but what an unwarranted leap.

Consider the same reasoning applied to a mobile phone.

I hear a voice coming out of the phone. I bang the phone on the table. Now I hear sporadic crackling. I bang the phone harder on the table. Silence. And I conclude from that the voice was purely the product of the phone!

Comments

It's curious, quite a few atheists I know see just about everything in the world as a reason for why God doesn’t exist. Likewise quite a few Christians I know, see every little thing as the Hand-of-God.

During my time in churches I’ve spotted the following 2 issues coming up again and again – both (to me at least) appear like reasoning defects. Having said that, you don’t need to be in churches to spot these, they crop up everywhere.

1. Confusing a Correlation with Causation.

Example;

A preacher is talking to large, middle class congregation, where the majority are early 20s. He says something like, “God will bless you financially if you give your tithe” or something like that. Sure enough over the next couple of years the majority experience promotions and financial progression.

Most of them uncritically conclude that it is as the preacher said and God is the cause of their promotions.

In fact the correlation between middle class, early 20s kids and promotions will be very high – And completely independent of their belief system.

2. Only Winners Tell their Story.

Example;

“A tornado was coming toward our district, we prayed for the house as we left, and when we came back our house was the only one standing – God had preserved our house”

I heard this story on the news about 5 years ago. The unchallenged assumption is that none of the other people prayed for their house. Does that seem likely to you? It doesn’t to me.

Thing is, who is going to go on TV and say ; “I prayed that my house wouldn’t be knocked down but God let it be knocked down anyway”

These situations are prevalent.

Consider the school assembly where a number of successful entrepreneurs talk to the children about starting a business. A child may come away from that believing that starting a business is easy. What the child cannot see are the hundreds of failed businessmen who have not come to talk at the assembly.

I think it’s difficult to spot this kind of thing, precisely because there is nothing to argue with, nobody is lying as such - They prayed and the house was preserved - The entrepreneur truly was successful. Rather it is a case of spotting that the picture is incomplete. We have to step back and imagine the larger silent number who are not telling their story.

Comments

An alternate theory is that no one designed the eagle at all (never mind it’s eyes), rather natural selection refined the optic ability of the eagle over time. And more generally there isn’t a designer, it doesn’t need one, it’s all natural processes – we might not know the details yet, but wait, soon we will.

Now it’s commonly considered that ID is bad science, and it may well be. But I do not think the idea itself is obviously crazy.

With further advances in computing power, simulations will become much more advanced. It might be possible to someday create simulations that have intelligent, self aware “beings” in them. And if we did, and those beings asked themselves how is it that we are here – Intelligent Design would be the answer.

Just a thought.

Comments

Probability 1 - Why there must be intelligent life in the universe

Written by Amir Aczel, mathematician, statistician and top science author.

Editorial reviews;

Amazon.com: “In a universe infinitely large, what is the probability of intelligent life on another planet? Sounds like a trick question, but for anyone versed in cosmology and statistics, the answer is 1; that is, there must be life on at least one other planet in the universe [bla bla bla] Probability 1 delivers on its promise to prove Aczel's conjecture through a clearly explained application of known statistical theory”

Scientific America “Probability 1, meaning a certainty that the thing will happen, is what mathematician and probability theorist Aczel assigns to the discovery of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe… [bla bla bla] … Hence, even though the probability of life around any one star is extremely small, the compound probability with such vast numbers of stars to consider rises to 1…”

Authors Choice Excerpt from the book “Mathematics is the key to probability theory, and the math always wins-sometimes despite our intuition. And the mathematics and probability theory always pointed in one direction: the probability of life in outer space is one, just as Carl Sagan had believed. This book will take you through my journey of discovery leading to this conclusion.”

Well, that’s done it for me. Seems pretty convincing, this guy is an expert after all….

Well, of course I shit my pants. I take it all back, I’m so sorry Carl.

Of course not – don't swallow anything from someone just because they claim to be an expert.

Moving past the editorial reviews, I started paging through the online reviews submitted by punters

Alexis Brandeker “The problem is of course that the author, and no one else for that matter, has any slightest idea of what the probability for life to develop is, more than that it's positive less than 1. For all we know, it may well be infinitesimal [small]. So his argument is strictly false.”

Well done my son.

AReader “In the end, we are still left with no answer at all to the question at hand because we don't know the probabilities of DNA forming and then life forming after that. The author supposes that it is something like 1 in a trillion. What if it is 1 in a trillion trillion trillion? The title could just as well be Probability Zero.”

Many reviewers made similar points.

If you are the type to believe “experts” and big publications (apparently this book got the OK from the Sunday Times, FT and Independent) – Go back read the editorials and analyse how you “feel” at that point. How convincing it all seems... Then read each and every review and how you feel at the end of that.

It’s good medicine.

Comments

In case you didn't know Carl Sagan is now dead, his spirit lives on however in the legacy of dubious reasoning he left behind.

There's a cultural assumption that the universe is filled with life and that there are thousands if not millions of intelligent species out there. That is in a large part down to Sagan - His argument went something like this;

There are billions of galaxies in the universe and each of them containing billions of stars and these stars have planets. We know that intelligent life developed on this planet AND since there are such a mind bogglingly utterly huge number of planets it is a practical certainty that there is intelligent life out there.

I've heard this argument a lot, next time you hear it do the following, just go “hummmmm, do ya think” frown a little and wait for the response. It will always be the same “but the universe is just so utterly huge, I’m talking billions and billions…”

It’s in the same category of reasoning as “given enough time anything could happen, the earth has been around a long time, I’m talking billions and billions of years”

There is a probelm right here. You must not confuse a very very large number with infinity. Yes, the number seems very very large to you, but that is different from infinity.

There is a popular illustration for this “Given a thousand monkeys at a thousand typewriters they would eventually produce the whole works of Shakespear” – it’s true, however the age of the universe is dwarfed by the amount of time it would take them.

In this particular case, yes, there are very many planets but under what conditions can life exist and how common are these conditions. This is the other half of the equation. The requirements for life may be very stringent, the odds for their occurrence may be as small as your plant count is large. With a sample of 1, you have no clue at all.

As an aside - the argument also has implicit assumption; that life is a ‘naturally’ occurring phenomenon. To a lot of people that would be a no-brainer however if you take it away you can throw your statistical arguments into the bin. So, just as a crazy example, take the film “The Matrix”, their whole reality is artificially constructed for them, there would be no aliens if the constructors had not made any aliens.

In 1950, Enrico Fermi, a physicist, asked the obvious question “If the universe is so full of intelligent life, where are all the buggers?” This is known as the Fermi Paradox and is well worth a wiki.

Comments

In our day to day doings we often treat overwhelming evidence as proof. It’s a heuristic and usually a good one. It may be impossible or too costly to prove something. However I can’t help thinking that for a lot of people the consistent appearance of something being true is equally valid to proof. Indeed they would probably pooh-pooh the need for proof in the face of the overwhelming “evidence”.

A cautionary tale (from a guy down the pub);

Once upon a time there was a guy who wanted to make a quick buck. He decided the best way to do this was to sell tips on what stocks to buy and sell. The problem was he didn’t know much about the stock market. Undeterred he bought a list of 20,000 email addresses from a finance website.

The guy then identified some volatile stocks. He then sent 20,000 emails. 10,000 saying the stock was going to tank and to sell, 10,000 that the stock was undervalued and the punter should buy.

He then waited until the stock moved significantly. At this point he deleted the 10,000 contacts he had “got wrong”. He then sent 5,000 emails with the following;

“As you can see, my careful analysis of this stock has proved correct, I hope you took my advice. I have another stock that I am sure will perform very very well …”

..and the inverse to the other 5,000.

He then waited until the stock moved significantly. At this point he deleted the 5,000 contacts he had “got wrong”. He then sent 2,500 emails ......

I’m sure by now you can see where this is going. After 5 emails he has 625 punters for which he has been correct every single time.

He then sends the following;

“I hope you have benefited from my careful analysis, If you followed all my advice you would have made a return of 40% over the last 5 weeks. To continue to receive my tips there will be an annual fee of £1000, payable in advance. I’m sure you agree that for the potential profit this is well worth it”

Of course most punters can't hand over the cash quickly enough.

K, Now I've told you how to do it. DON'T DO IT.

Comments

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIwiPsgRrOs

1. "black and white" fallacy or "false dichotomy" - presenting the situation as having only two alternatives, when other alternatives may or do exist.

Check this guy out, ok he's employing ridicule too, but still classic case - EITHER it's some crazy southern creationism OR it's natural selection. As it could NOT possibly be crazy southern creationism, IT MUST BE natural selection that is correct.

2. I'd guess he's also employing a Straw Man. The Straw Man fallacy is where you misrepresent someone's position so that it can be attacked more easily (possibly using humour). You attack the Straw Man and conclude that the original (unstated) position is defeated.

Now, I don't know what the creationist's position is that he's talking about but I strongly suspect he's misrepresented it, to make it look weaker / worse than it would be if they stated it themselves.

Comments

I love this quote by Charles Babbage the proto computer scientist;

On two occasions, I have been asked (by members of Parliament), 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.

Comments

There are different types of reasoning. Deductive logic is the system where the conclusion must follow from the initial assumptions (premises), if the premises are true the conclusion is true.

The result is dependent on the assumptions. If the assumptions turn out to be false the conclusion will be false too. It's maths. Normally people use it when debating but there is also formal notation for it.

The ur-example;

All men are mortal (premise) All A are B
Socrates is a man (premise) x is A
Therefore Socrates is mortal (conclusion) Therefore x is B

If the argument is correct we call it valid. As I said, an argument can be valid but the conclusion can be rubbish because one of the premises was rubbish;

All people are men, Gill is a person, so Gill is a man.

Also of course, you could have a correct conclusion despite an invalid argument;

Most men are mortal, Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates is mortal.

Comments

Comments

Why? So that my brain can fall out of my head and roll around in the gutter?

Let me ask you;

Do you believe just about anything on the TV or on the internet?

Do you accept new and fascinating claims at face value simply because they "might be true" or "you can't prove it's wrong".

Do you accept ideas because you wish them to be true, rather than because they are?

Are you proud to be open minded?

If that is you, you may benefit from reading this and this

Comments

Emotive language.

The person arguing tries to distract from the truth or falsehood, instead attempting to create an emotional response;

Examples;

An attempt to credit - I’ve heard a mathematician use this one; “This is a very beautifull theory …. therefore it is more likely to be right” – the beauty of a theory has no bearing on it’s correctness.

An attempt to discredit - “That’s a very arrogant statement” –has no bearing on the truth or validity of the argument.

Demanding a simple answer.

Posing a complex question then demanding a simple answer. A classic in the courtroom where the examiner thumps the table and shouts “answer yes or no”.

Ad hominem

Attacking the person instead of disproving the argument. This is the opposite of another fallacy, the appeal to authority. This is probably the best known logical fallacy yet is still very widely used. If you wiki it you will find the following

example;

The Nazis adopted a eugenics program.
The Nazis were bad people.
Therefore eugenics is a bad idea.

I actually heard someone argue exactly like this last year on this exact topic.

Notice also that it is a fallacy to rely on a person’s hypocrisy to conclude that an argument is false.

Jill says smoking is bad for you.
But Jill herself smokes.
Therefore Jill is lying and there is nothing bad in smoking.

I see that a lot of logical fallacies can be found on wiki.

A very complete listing can also be found here

Comments

A: “The climate is changing because we are polluting the environment”
B: “The climate is changing but I’m not sure that our polluting is the cause”
A: “Why else would the climate be changing?”
B: … hummm …
A: “You see, it is the only reasonable explanation, it must be true”

another example;

A: “We have the plants and animals we do because of evolution”
B: “I’m no sure I buy that”
A: “Can you offer another explanation?!?”
B: … hummm …
A: “Clearly this is the only plausible explanation, I think we can assume it is correct”

or the opposite from 200 years ago;

A: “Look at all the plants and animals, clearly it’s proof of God.”
B: “I’m not sure I buy that”
A: “How else could you explain all this?!?”
B: … hummm …
A: “You see …”

When people employ this, there is usually a bit of gesturing, the asking for alternatives is done with emphasis as they try to sneak the fallacy in unnoticed.

The mistake is obvious. Not being able to come up with an alternative does not mean that no alternative exists.

Comments

Example: “They work the peasants 12 hours a day for a crust of bread while the owner lives in luxury, it’s clear who’s in the right”

The “lazarum” comes from Lazurus, Abraham’s bosom chum in the good book.

Comments

You may have seen this type of argument used on Jerry Springer. When my middle class well-educated friend used it, my jaw hit the floor.

: talking about software development and which companies have the best developers;

me: I think the people who work in the city are above average but there are some very good developers in these little software houses that would beat us hands down.

him: But we earn more than them, so we must be better right. I mean if I’m paid more than them I must be better than them.

OMG – error error, malfunction.

I believe the technical name for this fallacy is "Argumentum ad crumenam", i.e. that money is a criterion for correctness. Watch out for this one, it's usually more than just a simple error in reasoning and may point to the person having "issues". Ironically this argument is used mostly by people with little money, I've never heard a wealthy person attempt to make the argument. 

Comments