Category: Logica Utens
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‘Wankerati’ and Other Terms of Abuse
I picked up a new piece of invective from Mark Steyn. I believe he intends 'wankerati' to be coextensive with 'left-wing commentariat.' Read his The Turning Point and see if you don't agree. The brilliant polemicist offers up other choice phrases such as "malign carbuncles on the body politic." That's a reference to Di Fi…
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Be Skeptical of Activists’ Claims
Here's a tip for you. When some activist or advocate makes a claim, be skeptical and run the numbers, especially when the advocate has a vested interest in promoting his cause. Do you remember Mitch Snyder the advocate for the homeless who hanged himself in 1990? I heard him make a wild claim sometime in the…
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Fallacious Liberal-Left ‘Reasoning’ about Race
Heather Mac Donald: The GAO [General Accounting Office] found that black students get suspended at nearly three times the rate of white students nationally, a finding consistent with previous analyses. The Obama Education and Justice Departments viewed that disproportion as proof of teacher and principal bias. Administration officials used litigation and the threatened loss of…
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Fake News: 18 School Shootings Since January 1, 2018. The Importance of Definition
The question of how many school shootings have occurred in a given place over a given period of time is an empirical question. But to answer the empirical question, one must first have answered a logically prior question, which is non-empirical. This is the conceptual question as to the definition of 'school shooting.' What counts…
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A Simple Point of Logic Journalists Ought to be Aware Of
One often encounters sentences like this one: There are many arenas in which all ideas are not considered equal. This example is from a recent piece in Vox. I could give further recent examples, but one is enough. To simplify, consider just the core thought: All ideas are not considered equal. Unfortunately it is not…
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Elizabeth Harman’s Abortion Argument
A curious new abortion argument by Princeton's Elizabeth Harman is making the rounds. (A tip of the hat to Malcolm Pollack for bringing it to my attention.) It is not clear just what Harman's argument is, but it looks to be something along the following lines: 1) "Among early fetuses there are two very different…
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Rational Argument and the Questioning of Motives
London Ed writes, . . . my main concern is how rational argument is deflected by questions of motive. Douglas Murray makes the point very well. Consider the proposition ‘Sharia law discriminates against women’. A rational response to this claim would be to investigate the nature of Sharia law, then to settle on a definition…
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Undocumented Workers and Illegal Aliens
One of the purposes of this website is to combat the stupidity of Political Correctness, a stupidity that in many contemporary liberals, i.e., leftists, is willful and therefore morally censurable. The euphemism 'undocumented worker' is a good example of a PC expression. It does not require great logical acumen to see that 'undocumented worker' and 'illegal…
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Sloppy Liberal Thinking About Equality
Equality of opportunity is one thing, equality of outcome quite another. The former is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition of the latter. Yet many liberals think that any lack of equality of outcome for a given group argues an antecedent lack of equality of opportunity for that group. This is a non sequitur…
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God, Proof, and Desire
From a reader: . . . I’m confused by some of your epistemic terms. You reject [in the first article referenced below] the view that we can “rigorously prove” the existence of God, and several times say that theistic arguments are not rationally compelling, by which you mean that there are no arguments “that will…
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The No True Scotsman or No True Muslim Fallacy
This is a substantial revision, in the light of recent events, of an entry from about six years ago. This post examines the fallacy that Antony Flew brought to our attention and suggests that 'No True Muslim' is an equally good name for it. ……………. In logic, a fallacy is not a false belief but…
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Arguments Don’t Have Testicles
The Supreme Court justices in the majority in the 5-4 Hobby Lobby decision are all male: Alito, Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, and Kennedy. If someone seeks to discredit their decision on that ground, say this: Arguments don't have testicles! If the person persists, then point out that females dominated the minority in that decision. Related articles…
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Undocumented Workers and Illegal Aliens
One of the purposes of this site is to combat the stupidity of Political Correctness, a stupidity that in many contemporary liberals, i.e., leftists, is willful and therefore morally censurable. The euphemism 'undocumented worker' is a good example of a PC expression. It does not require great logical acumen to see that 'undocumented worker' and 'illegal…
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From ‘Is’ to ‘Ought’? Help for Hodges
Our expat friend, Seoul man, and professor of English, Jeff Hodges, has been puzzling over whether an 'ought' statement can be validly derived from an 'is' statement. Here is his example, put in my own way: 1. Democratic regimes contribute more to human flourishing than do non-democratic ones. Therefore 2. If we want to maximize…