The Critical Thinking Thread

[Ombudsman]

The polarization in our country seems to be less about right and left issues and more about the differences between people who can think critically and those who can't. Reasonable people can be opposed to abortion personally but still support a woman's right to make that choice for themselves. Reasonable people could support our hunt for Osama Bin Laden while being totally opposed to the attack on Iraq. Reasonable people cannot like paying taxes yet still understand they are necessary to provide infrastructure. Unreasonable people on the other hand, left or right, see everything in extremes. They see weakness in compromise and admire extremists who stand their ground no matter their effectiveness. They either hate all war or love it all. They think being a tolerant of differences in race and lifestyles means tolerance of all things. These are people who are locked into a phase William Perry referred to as dualism. According to Perry, in this beginning phase of intellectual development, the individual sees all issues as black and white. There are solidly right answers to all questions and therefore it's their job to memorize them.

William Perry's Scheme of Intellectual Development

[Ombudsman]

The Fallacy of Composition

Explanation
The fallacy of composition is the fallacy of inferring from the fact that every part of a whole has a given property that the whole also has that property. This pattern of argument is the reverse of that of the fallacy of division. It is not always fallacious, but we must be cautious in making inferences of this form.

This is a rather popular fallacy found in political forums. Some examples.

Thinking the entire government can't be trusted due to failings of one person or one department of government.
Thinking all politicians are liars just because some of them are.
Thinking all law enforcement can't be trusted because some of them are bad seeds.
Thinking public schools are failing miserably because not everyone performs optimally.
Thinking the military can't be criticized for any reason because it dishonors the troops.
Thinking the military should be criticized uniformly because of its use in certain unethical instances.
Thinking excessive numbers of guns will save lives just because some of them have.

Another Example courtesy of Vrede.

[Ombudsman]

Russell's teapot

Russell's teapot, sometimes called the celestial teapot or cosmic teapot, is an analogy first coined by the philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) to illustrate that the philosophic burden of proof lies upon a person making scientifically unfalsifiable claims rather than shifting the burden of proof to others, specifically in the case of religion. Russell wrote that if he claims that a teapot orbits the Sun somewhere in space between the Earth and Mars, it is nonsensical for him to expect others to believe him on the grounds that they cannot prove him wrong. Russell's teapot is still referred to in discussions concerning the existence of God.

[neoplacebo]

I'm against abortion, but I don't think a woman's right to have one should be restricted. I was all for going after bin Laden, but I cringe at the thoughts of the US invading Iraq needlessly, that our country has engaged in torture and continues to hold persons without charge indefinitely, and that in the process of this "war on terror" our country has created more terrorists than existed before. I don't like having to pay taxes, but I realize they are necessary for the state to maintain itself....I just feel the tax should be the same for every citizen, sort of like it is at the grocery store. Some folks won't or can't think for themselves, or they adopt the thinking of those they identify with or want to be like. It's weird.

[Dryer Vent]

Critical Thinking was a mandatory class when I was in college. It sure did open my eyes on how to look at things, analyze things, and then make a decision based on facts and my own gut.

[Ombudsman]

The No True Scotsman Fallacy

No true Scotsman is an informal fallacy, an ad hoc attempt to retain an unreasoned assertion.[1] When faced with a counterexample to a universal claim, rather than denying the counterexample or rejecting the original universal claim, this fallacy modifies the subject of the assertion to exclude the specific case or others like it by rhetoric, without reference to any specific objective rule.

Example.

"If you've read any of my past posts prior to my last joining this board; you would have read where I stated many times that there is a world of difference between a true Christian,
and one who calls him/herself a Christian. The difference between you and I is that I don't assume that Americans committing acts of terror are Christians just because they claim they are.
Muslims openly pronounce their vile deeds were in God's name too.....and they are still Muslim in their practices."

[Ombudsman]

Confirmation bias

Confirmation bias is a type of cognitive bias and represents an error of inductive inference toward confirmation of the hypothesis under study.

Confirmation bias is a phenomenon wherein decision makers have been shown to actively seek out and assign more weight to evidence that confirms their hypothesis, and ignore or underweigh evidence that could disconfirm their hypothesis.

As such, it can be thought of as a form of selection bias in collecting evidence.

For examples just read practically any post at the oddly named Conservative Political Forum.


edit: Thanks homer. You finally proved yourself useful.

[homerfobe]

For examples just read practucally any post at the oddly named Conservative Political Forum.

[Ombudsman]

The Straw Man Argument.

The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position. This sort of "reasoning" has the following pattern:

Example - Here Roland ignores the main point, even deletes it, in favor harping the least significant part of the statement.

[Ombudsman]

Non Sequitur

Non sequitur (Latin for "it does not follow"), in formal logic, is an argument in which its conclusion does not follow from its premises.[1] In a non sequitur, the conclusion can be either true or false, but the argument is fallacious because there is a disconnection between the premise and the conclusion. All formal fallacies are special cases of non sequitur. The term has special applicability in law, having a formal legal definition. Many types of known non sequitur argument forms have been classified into many different types of logical fallacies.

Example

Vrede states "The kid is not being paid by us, is not given any authority by society, is not abusing anyone's rights, did not lie, and is not asserting himself at the gunpoint."

Not only is this a straw man argument since no one has claimed any of those things, but she's claiming that those things prove "the kid" was not intentionally provoking the copy. The conclusion doesn't follow the premise. All of those things can be true and it can still be true that the kid intentionally provoked the cop.

[Ombudsman]

Example - Here Roland ignores the main point, even deletes it, in favor harping the least significant part of the statement.

"least significant" conveniently being Ombudsman's stupid attack on a common sense guess that has now proven to be 100% accurate, an attack that Ombudsman refuses to man-up for after multiple posts over 2 days. In effect, Ombudsman created a Straw Man Argument to bolster his attack on Solar's subsequent conclusion and it blew up in his face.

Sweetie if you can tell me what part of this statement is inaccurate, then perhaps you'll stop looking like a fool, at least on this issue: "Despite the fact that no deaths had been reported at the time of his posting..." If not, you're using the same foolish reasoning your friend Roland is using.

[Ombudsman]

Vrede, I don't think you're really qualified to comment on politeness.

[Ombudsman]

Sweetie if you can tell me what part of this statement is inaccurate, then perhaps you'll stop looking like a fool, at least on this issue: "Despite the fact that no deaths had been reported at the time of his posting..." If not, you're using the same foolish reasoning your friend Roland is using.

Straw man! I never said that your post was "inaccurate". I and Roland both said that Solar's guess was a common sense one, that you were stupid to challenge it, that Solar has proved to have guessed correctly - as any sane and informed person would have - that you are whining about others when you wrecked your own case, and that you remain too much of a wuss to man-up over your flub.

So you're arguing against something I never said. Thanks for the illustration of what a straw man argument is. Once agin your pedantry has made you look as foolish the wing nuts you follow around harassing endlessly.

[Ombudsman]

Poor Vrede. Wonder who ties her shoes for her?

[Ombudsman]

Weasel Words

A weasel word (also, anonymous authority) may be an informal term[1] for equivocating words and phrases aimed at creating an impression that something specific and meaningful has been said, when in fact only a vague or ambiguous claim, or even a refutation has been communicated.

A 2009 study of Wikipedia found that most weasel words in it could be divided into three categories:[13]
Numerically vague expressions (e.g. "some people", "experts", "many")
Use of the passive voice to avoid specifying an authority (e.g. "it is said")
Adverbs that weaken (e.g. "often", "probably")
Other forms of weasel words include:
Non sequitur statements
Use of euphemisms (e.g., replacing "firing staff" with "streamlining the workforce")
Use of grammatical devices such as qualifiers and the subjunctive mood
Vague generalizations

Example - "Why not? Take the same dishonest, Constitution-detesting attitude these cops displayed, along with the revenge motive you cite, hand even more intrusive power with fewer real world restrictions to government and its private contractors with their long history of national security state abuses and the result is predictable.

[Ombudsman]

Cognitive Dissonance

People tend to seek consistency in their beliefs and perceptions. So what happens when one of our beliefs conflicts with another previously held belief? The term cognitive dissonance is used to describe the feeling of discomfort that results from holding two conflicting beliefs. When there is a discrepancy between beliefs and behaviors, something must change in order to eliminate or reduce the dissonance.

Example

...How to Reduce Cognitive Dissonance

There are three key strategies to reduce or minimize cognitive dissonance:

Focus on more supportive beliefs that outweigh the dissonant belief or behavior.
Reduce the importance of the conflicting belief.
Change the conflicting belief so that it is consistent with other beliefs or behaviors.

[Ombudsman]

Projection

Psychological projection was conceptualized by Sigmund Freud in the 1890s as a defence mechanism in which a person unconsciously rejects his or her own unacceptable attributes by ascribing them to objects or persons in the outside world....

...Projection may help a fragile ego reduce anxiety, but at the cost of a certain dissociation, as in dissociative identity disorder. In extreme cases, the personality may end up depleted, therapy entailing the slow rebuilding the personality through a taking back of projections.

Examples