Can we have a sticky on logic 101 that discusses the common fallacies we should avoid in our postings? Here's a good link. Showing Your Ignorance
Yes, that is true. Many like their fallacies and lazy thinking. Why not make a game of it. Post an argument with a certain number of fallacies discussed in the link and then have everyone try to find the fallacies in the argument and say why they are fallacies. Just a thought to help educate the masses on this site to keep the level of intellectual discussion and banter from falling too low. Probably too much work for most of the brains posting here, do you think?
Hehe, possibly, but if we had some resident fallacy experts they could provide a standard for others to work up to over time... Part of the trouble might lie in finding arguments which aren't too controversial, at least to start off with, to encourage people to argue about the logic in an article rather than the validity of its facts or emotional content.
Well, you have Wiki's entry for Non Sequitur (logic). Although seemingly on some of the forums we get alot of this version. It's a good list of the types of ignorant logic that is seen on these forums. Although the author to the list did make some of the arguements fluffier, lacking the rude native dilect that some love to get caveman with.
Pointing out the fallacies is OK, but I think that some type of tutorial in formal logic would be better. When the extent of a person's training in logic goes no further than the informal fallacies it doesn't really help him come up with better arguments. It just helps him avoid bad ones. That's because nowhere in the list of fallacies does one learn how to construct a logical proof. Try this on for size: http://people.hofstra.edu/faculty/Stefan_Waner/RealWorld/logic/logicintro.html
how about we ban people (just for like a day) if they start a thread that already has one of these fallacies? that would keep the nutter threads less nutter.
