Richard Dawkins "Rose From The Dead"

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Logical Fallacy 4: Argumentum Ad Ignorantiam

Argumentum Ad ignorantiam means the Argument from Ignorance. It basically states that a specific belief is true because we don't know that it isn't true. This logical fallacy can also be called the Negative Proof Argument, or Appeal to Ignorance.

This is Part 4 in a series about Logical Fallacies. We are going through one fallacy at a time. There are many types of fallacious arguments. I'm going to try to explain them with examples then find ways to help you refute those arguments when they occur. Please comment or email if there's a particular fallacy you want me to tackle, or if you have success with refuting an argument using a good technique you can share.

James stated it quite perfectly in the comments of our last fallacy lesson:

Atheist: “You cannot prove that God exists.”
Theist: “Oh yeah? Well, you cannot prove that God DOESN’T exist!”

Of course this brings up the rule: The burden of proof lies on the person making the positive claim. Basically, if you state that god exists, the burden of proof lies on you.

Edit: I found this video today. Here is Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson explaining it:

Creationism

Part 1

Oh Noes! Neece is Out of Steam!

Ohmygosh, I'm really sorry. I really wanted to get another logical fallacy up today. But it just isn't going to happen tonight, I don't think. Why? Oh, how kind of you to ask!

Well, it all started a few weeks ago. I was talking to Jill, a friend of mine, about diet and exercise. She linked me to LiveStrong.com, namely, The Daily Plate. It's a site by Lance Armstrong. I don't use all of it, but The Daily Plate is really cool.

I get to put in what I eat every day and what exercise I do and it tells me how many calories I've burned and how many more calories I can eat and still lose a bit of weight, maintain my weight, or even gain, if that's my goal. I have my measurements in there and am tracking all kinds of neat little things that are incredibly motivating. It's free, I don't use the premium features, which are available, but the free parts are quite excellent on their own.

Dead Cats Into Diesel

Ok, for some reason this struck me as a bit.... odd. Diesel from dead cats? I just had to share it with you, since we're Heaving Dead Cats around here on a regular basis. Now we can save money, heave dead cats and make fuel! Woot!

Dr Christian Koch, 55, from Kleinhartmannsdorf, has a special method for turning household garbage into biodiesel. This leads me to believe you can make biodiesel out of just about anything.

So, his method involves heating stuff like old tires, paper, motor oil, plastic, dead cats, just about anything, to 300 degrees Celsius. Then the hydrocarbons go through a catalytic converter.

Now I'll know what to do with all those dead cats in my freezer! (JUST KIDDING)

Found Here and Here.

Logical Fallacy 3: Tu quoque (you too)

Tu quoque is Latin for "You too". So you justify your wrong action because someone else also does it. "My evidence may be invalid, but so is yours."

This is Part 3 in a series about Logical Fallacies. We are going through one fallacy at a time. There are many types of fallacious arguments. I'm going to try to explain them with examples then find ways to help you refute those arguments when they occur. Please comment or email if there's a particular fallacy you want me to tackle, or if you have success with refuting an argument using a good technique you can share.

My mother did this on the phone the other day. We were talking about religion when my mother told me I should start a cult or my own religion, because they make so much money. (WTF?)

More Lolcats To Make You Smile

So I made a mistake today. I asked my mom who she was going to vote for. It wasn't a fun conversation because she had crazy ideas that no amount of logic was going to budge. Then my dad joined in. He basically implied that I was an idiot for not seeing things his way (ad hominem example?!) and then gave the phone back to my mom.

He seemed really angry and upset with my choice, which is already done because I voted early. They are so angry and seem like they are listening to the oddest information. I wonder how long my dad will be mad at me?

So let's have a bit of a break and see what lolcats can do to make us smile. Some random pictures for you.

Logical Fallacy 2: Ad Hominem- A Personal Attack

Today's logical fallacy is also very common, in my experience. It's called Ad Hominem, which is roughly translated from the Latin for "to the person." It's a personal attack against you instead of your argument. It can be subtle because it isn't just that they call you a bad name, but they use a weakness or characteristic of you to imply that your argument is weak.

This is Part 2 in a series about Logical Fallacies. We are going through one fallacy at a time. There are many types of fallacious arguments. I'm going to try to explain them with examples then find ways to help you refute those arguments when they occur. Please comment or email if there's a particular fallacy you want me to tackle, or if you have success with refuting an argument using a good technique you can share.

Example: You: I don't believe in UFO's.
Opponent: You're so close minded!

Example: Opponent: I believe in UFO's.
You: You're crazy and/or stupid.

Logical Fallacy 1: Straw Man

This is Part 1 in a series about Logical Fallacies. We are going through one fallacy at a time. There are many types of fallacious arguments. I'm going to try to explain them with examples then find ways to help you refute those arguments when they occur. Please comment or email if there's a particular fallacy you want me to tackle, or if you have success with refuting an argument using a good technique you can share.

Our first Logical Fallacy is the Straw Man Argument. This is a great one to start with on our journey because it's quite common and easy to spot.

A straw man: a dummy stuffed with straw. It's too weak to fight back.

Arguing against a position specifically created to be easy to argue against, rather than the position held by someone who opposes that point of view.

So, when you state your position, your opponent replies not to what you said, but to a distorted and exaggerated caricature of what you said, that is obviously harder to defend.

Example: You state your argument: People who commit minor offenses should be let out of jail sooner.
Opponent replies: Emptying out all the jails would create havoc in society.

While that may be true, it isn't what you suggested. It's irrelevant. Your opponent didn't refute your point, he invented a different point that is easier to argue against. The opponent can take satisfaction in having a point that no reasonable person could argue with. He appears to have successfully defeated your argument when in fact he simply dodged it.

Logical Fallacies, Misconceptions, False Beliefs Intro

This is the Introduction in a series about Logical Fallacies, Misconceptions, False Beliefs. We’re going to go through one fallacy a day (approximately). There are about 20 main fallacies altogether. I’m going to try to explain them with examples then find ways to help you refute those arguments when they occur.

I'm quite reasonable in many aspects of my life, but I don't think my reasoning skills are up to par. I certainly don't argue well, or defend myself in an argument. This is why I've been a closet atheist for so long. I just didn't want to be confronted or verbally attacked by zealous religious people.

• Logical: Reasoning or capable of reasoning in a clear and consistent manner. Reasonable.

So, since I'm going to learn to think more logically, I will share that information with you. The great thing about this is that you can use it in all aspects of your life, whether it be science vs. pseudo-science, religion vs. atheism or agnosticism, the daily assault of advertising and consumerism, or simply to put your own belief systems to the test. I find that to be very nice, since I am, after all, quite pragmatic in nature. :P

You have different types of extremists in this crazy world today. Each one that I can think of makes me scratch my head in wonder. As in what the fuck is the deal with these nut cases.

The first type I'm going to cover is religious extremists. The types that blow up cars, ram planes into buildings, etc. This really boggles my mind. Why do people kill in the name of some (likely imaginary) god? I'll state it this way for the religious. If we weren't meant to think for ourselves, why would god give us a brain and free will? He or she could have easily designed us as mindless robots. So why all the violence in the name of religion? I guess some haven't evolved into civilized individuals. They still hold on to the values of the dark ages where freethinkers or infidels were burned at the stake.

Debating Creationists

Goo-Tastic!

OH MY GOSH! There is a really long story attached to this bit of fun, but basically if you have a Wii, there is an AWESOME, FUN game I highly recommend! World of Goo! Oh! And I am pretty sure you can get it for your computer too! It's so FUN!

World of Goo is Goo-tastic! Anyhoo, I was TRYING to do something today, and ended up finding this little gem of a game. It's a good price and totally addictive. I think it was just released to wiiware or whatever that's called on the 13th of October. So give it a try and tell me what you think. You can get the PC version here. And get the demo of Level One here.

So, what I thought of today was, wouldn't it be neat if I could use my Wii to read my pdf books? I have all these pdfs that I'd love to read, but I don't have a reader, and reading on the computer is so uncomfortable. So, I got the Opera internet browser for the Wii, but I can't get it to see pdfs. I'm a bit flummoxed. But hopefully I'll get it all worked out soon.

The book I'm trying to read is Atheist Universe by David Mills. I've read the intro and it's awesome, but I really need to get it into a really small doc file or .. I have no idea.

Anyway... if you need a break, look into World of Goo. If you have any suggestions for me using my Wii as an ereader, let me know! WOOT! (oh, and the Logical Fallacy lesson will start tomorrow. I got a little distracted by the shiny today, sorry)

Let's Pick Out The Lies - Part 2

This is part two of a forwarded email I received the other day. Part One is here.

The rest of this email was all added on sometime in 2006. It was NOT said by Ben Stein. This kind of stuff drives me crazy. People forward emails because they blindly believe what is being sent. They just accept that it's all true and important, so they send it to me, and you, whether we like it or not. I really can't stand spam when it comes from someone I know.

Anyhoo, the following is a combination of older items about a TV appearance of Anne Graham Lotz (Billy Graham's daughter) made just after 9-11 and the false claim that child care expert Dr. Benjamin Spock's son committed suicide.

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different:  This is not intended to be a joke;  it's not funny, it's intended to get you thinking.

Talking about an invisible man in the sky does not really require thinking. It is blindly believing in fairy tales, but I digress.

O rly, Ya rly!

Let's Pick Out the Lies- Part 1

Personally I don't like to talk to friends and family about politics or religion. The older I get the more strongly I feel about certain issues. While I try to remain open to more information, and am willing to learn and grow and change my thinking, my tolerance for certain behaviors in those around me wanes.

Anyway, the other day I got an email from an acquaintance. She hasn't emailed me in about 2 years, but I guess this was so important to her that she just had to send it to her entire email list. Instead of deleting it, I thought I'd share it with you.

Here's the email in its entirety, with my commentary thrown in after each "quote".

Subject: is quite impressive , what do you think
Remarks from CBS Sunday Morning (everyone should read!)
I can only hope we find God again before it is too late!!

(oh lordy I'm so glad I got this email! Now I can see the light of god and I'm saved from hell! Oh wait, no. It was just a seizure.)

I finally picked up the book Saturday night. I'm on Chapter 5. So far it's amazing. Then again what did I expect from a genius.

Here are three of my favorite quotes from the book.

We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.

Indeed, organizing atheists has been compared to herding cats, because they tend to think independently and will not conform to authority.

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

Main Features of Pseudo-Science

Yesterday I confessed my addictions to woo and how I realized it was all a pack of lies and nonsense. It's been hard to learn to think more critically and skeptically about pseudo-science (the fancy grownup term for woo). Unless someone teaches you how to think critically, there's really no way to easily pick out the slick pack of lies and shiny bullshit for what it is.

For instance, I just found out last month that Airborne is not only pseudo-scientific and completely useless, but can also be harmful. And here I was, just the day before, trying to get my husband to take it for an oncoming cold. Sigh.... The battle never ends.

For me, my bullshit radar with religion is very sensitive. Then again, if it's about an invisible man in the sky, it's complete nonsense, so that's pretty easy. But when it comes to products on the market, any kind of scientific sounding news or claim, I am less sure about what to accept or what to reject.

A couple of days ago, I was listening to The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe podcast and they took the time to talk about how to spot pseudo-science for what it is. Since the list is so important and helpful, I took the time to write it down for all of us. Hopefully this will make it much easier:

Some Main Features of Pseudo-Science by Dr. Steven Novella on the Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe. Episode 164, September 10, 2008.

Confessions Of A Recovering Woo Addict

Lately I've been talking to Jane. (not her real name) I am having trouble talking to her, and I think I figured out why. We knew each other about 10 years ago in a state far, far away. We were acquaintances, but we had a lot in common. (here's where I tell you some dark secrets) We were into many different kinds of woo.

Woo: (n or adj) when you uncritically believe unsubstantiated or unfounded ideas. Short for woo woo, according to the Urban Dictionary, definition 4.

I was into reiki, divination, numerology, you name it. While I was an agnostic back then, I still clung to the idea of a kind of Universal Energy. Not really an intelligence, but kind of "magical" principles to energy that science just hadn't quantified or qualified yet. I held to the beliefs that ancient societies knew secrets that had been lost. Like the Chinese were better at medicine than modern science, or the Mayans had some secret knowledge about the Universe that we were missing out on, as seen in their calendar stopping in 2012.

The Jesus Pitch That Will Not Die

Religious folks can be quite insistent that you embrace their particular belief system. I am not sure why they think you can change what you believe just by reading an email or some other insignificant event. But this woman, Jenny, she seems to think she can convert my friend Gary to Jesus through emails. Whatever.

Yesterday I said the emails were boring. But Gary's responses are quite interesting. So I'm going to share them with you:

The original exchange is here.

~~~ Then Jenny replied:

O.k. I won't. That is one thing the Lord Jesus lets us do & that is make our own decision. We have to choose to believe in HIM & have Faith. And Jesus is my decision, it just makes me sad for the people who are lost & won't know until it's too late.

The Men In My Life

Hey everyone. How are you today? This post will be about the 2 guys in my life. Coincidentally, they both have done something recently that I wanted to share with you. So here you go:

First, my husband Butch, who happens to be awesomely smart (and pretty damned rogueishly handsome too! hee hee). He doesn't blog often, but when he does, I just love to see what is bouncing around in his brain. Usually it's a bit on the angry/ranting side of things. Ok, not usually, almost always. :P

The other day he wrote about Things Every American Needs To Know. It's a bit on the "angry diatribe" kinda post, but it's good stuff and I wanted to share it with you. Basically it's the difference between rights and privileges. I hope you find it interesting.

Out Of The Blue Jesus Pitch

My friend Gary is an atheist. He has profiles on a couple of dating sites. He lists himself as an nonreligious or atheist, something like that. Today a woman contacted him, out of the blue, with this email through one of those sites:

"I don't know you but Jesus does & I will pray that you will not be fooled by that devil anymore & be saved before very long! Nothing more then living for all the good of things and not the bad. The Bible tells us what is right & wrong. Turn on channel 17 or TBN sometime. You will love it! Jesus loves you & you should open your heart to HIM. He loves you & we will be rewarded someday. I will pray for you!
Just trust in the Lord.

Animal Jihad, The Furry Holy Wars, Part Squirrel

Fold It- Play A Game For Science!

This is the neatest idea on so many levels. So you need to unwind and play a game. You're tired of windows solitaire. How about playing a game that could contribute to curing a disease? How about helping science with your big awesome brain!?

You can go here to read about the science behind the "game".

So basically, in a really simple nutshell, you're using your intuitive awesome brain to do something that would take computers a huge amount of time and expense to do.

Proteins are part of lots of diseases, so understanding how they fold on themselves is very important.

Lolcats and Fun Stuff

The whole political mess is heating up. I can't wait for it to be over and done with. So let's lighten the mood today. I'm simply posting some of my favorite lolcats and other fun or funny pictures to amuse you. You can always email me at heavingdeadcats@gmail.com with stuff you'd like to share. Enjoy! :D

Amusing and Serious Stuff

An amusing cartoon about a serious topic:



Women can't make their own decisions according to Bill Napoli in South Dakota. This funny shirt is very helpful for all of us poor females that can't think for ourselves. You can get the t-shirt here.

And a serious comparison about outgoing president Bush and Osama bin Laden. Remember him?