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Former US Senator Joe Lieberman (D, maybe?–CT) and Al Gore's running mate in 2000 has died: Joseph I. Lieberman, the doggedly independent four-term U.S. senator from Connecticut who was the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2000, becoming the first Jewish candidate on the national ticket of a major party, died March 27 in New York City. He was 82. The cause was complications from a fall, his family said in a statement. Mr. Lieberman viewed himself as a centrist Democrat, solidly in his party’s...

If you've enjoyed (or at least attempted) Tuesday's and Wednesday's pieces of this quiz from William Bart at the University of Minnesota, you get to finish it now: 21. All ashes are not poplars. All locusts are ashes. Therefore: (A) All locusts are not ashes (B) All ashes are poplars (C) All locusts are poplars (D) Some ashes are poplars (E) Some locusts are not ashes (F) All locusts are not poplars 22. If yeast rises then caustic potash is present and if mold growsthen limewater is present. Either...

Had fun yesterday? Try these next 10: 11. All dace are platy. Some dace are cod. Therefore: (A) All cod are not platy (B) Some cod are not platy (C) Some cod are platy (D) All platy are dace (E) All dace are not cod (F) Some dace are not cod 12. Some skinks are plastrons. All turtles are not skinks. Therefore: (A) All skinks are not plastrons (B) Some turtles are skinks (C) All turtles are plastrons (D) Some turtles are not plastrons (E) Some skinks are not plastrons (F) All skinks are turtles 13. If...

I found this quiz in a (virtual) pile of things from my first year at university. Have fun! Answers and more questions tomorrow. (The answers may surprise you, unless you really dig in to the logic.) 1. Either auxins are proteins or petioles grow on auxins. If auxins areproteins then petioles grow on auxins. Therefore: (A) Petioles grow on auxins (B) Either auxins are not proteins or petioles do not grow on auxins (C) If petioles grow on auxins then auxins are proteins (D) Auxins are not proteins (E)...

In The Daily Parker's occasional series on logical fallacies, we now come to my favorite: Non sequitur "It does not follow." That is, the argument does not have anything to do with the point under discussion. Sometimes non sequiturs make you wonder about the other person's sanity. Example, in poetry: Haikus are simpleBut sometimes they don't make senseRefrigerator If you look up "non sequitur" in the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, you will see this quote: "They've won five wars where the armies that...

Time for another logical fallacy, this time one commonly felt but not always understood. Plurium interrogationum "Many questions" or "complex question" means that a sentence appears to contain a single question but really rests on implicit assumptions that may obviate it. Put more simply, someone asks you a question that assumes something else as if you've already agreed to it. The classic example, "when did you stop beating your wife?", contains two distinct parts requiring two distinct answers. First...

Continuing my series on logical fallacies, we come now to "non causa pro causa," or false cause. Post hoc ergo propter hoc "After this, therefore because of this." The argument attempts to attribute cause to the thing that happened before. (See, also, "correlation is not causation.") This is essentially where superstitions come from. Example: "I've created a million jobs since I'm president," a politician claimed after six months in office. It turns out, that job growth was consistent with (but slightly...

As I continue my series on logical fallacies, I'd like to note cartoonist Scott Adams' latest blog post. For years, Adams has talked about how people see what they want to see in the president's speech and actions, but only he and other Trump supporters deal with reality. He claims that people who believe the president is a racist are hallucinating, and that the media perpetuate this hoax. The post contains extensive demonstrations of many, perhaps all, of the fallacies the complete series will discuss....

Continuing to look at material fallacies, we come to one of the most misunderstood and one of the most common. Petitio principii "Begging the question" does not mean that a question is hanging in the air, waiting for someone to ask it. (That's "raising the question.") It means that an argument rests on itself, as a foregone conclusion. As Aristotle defined it, "Begging or assuming the point at issue consists (to take the expression in its widest sense) [of] failing to demonstrate the required...

Last week I identified and demonstrated seven fallacies of irrelevant conclusion, by which a person tries to win an argument using language that has nothing to do with the point being argued. Those fallacies actually fall under the larger heading "material fallacies." A material fallacy makes an error of argument, in contrast to a formal fallacy which makes an error of logic. Before I get into specific kinds of material fallacies, let me describe the basic principle of syllogism. A syllogism has a major...

No one really knows where the term "red herring" came from, though some speculate it came from the idea that drawing a fish across your path would confuse the dogs tracking you. In epistemology, a red herring is an: Argumentum ignoratio elenchi Literally, an "argument of ignorance of the grab," or an argument of irrelevant conclusion that doesn't fit into the other categories. A person using a red herring will attempt to draw the argument away from anything relevant with a distraction. For examples, I...

Continuing The Daily Parker's occasional series on logical fallacies, let's look at two more fallacies of irrelevant conclusions. Argumentum ad vericundiam An "argument to awe" uses reputation rather than evidence to score a point. The most common example involves a testimonial, either positive or negative, as when someone argues for or against a premise by pointing to the president's endorsement of the premise. A similar, implicit argument to awe occurs when an advertiser puts a famous actor in a...

Yesterday, this nitwit described a couple of logical fallacies that everyone raved about. For day two of my series on "how not to argue," I present two more of the most common fallacies of irrelevant conclusions. I'd feel bad for you if you got taken in by either of these. Argumentum ad ignoratiam An "argument to ignorance" relies on a lack of evidence against your proposition, and hoping your opponent doesn't have any. For quite some time, the President used essentially this fallacious line of argument...

On July 27th I began a series on common logical fallacies. Each entry provides a brief description and a couple of examples. Here are all the posts: Fallacies of irrelevant conclusion Argument to the person, 27 July 2019. Argument to popularity, 27 July 2019. Argument to ignorance, 28 July 2019. Argument to pity, 28 July 2019. Argument to awe, 2 August 2019. Argument to force, 2 August 2019. Red herring, 4 August 2019. Material fallacies Argument by accident (overgeneralizing), 5 August 2019. Converse...

Yes I am. In this first post of a new series, I'm going to explain in brief the most common logical fallacies that we hear (and sometimes use) all the time. Fallacies come in a few basic flavors: irrelevance, formality, ambiguity, and materiality. I'll begin with irrelevance, since blogs traditionally start there. Argumentum ad hominem An "argument to the person" focuses on the opponent as a person, rather than the opponent's argument. The President excels at these: think about all the nicknames he uses...

I've had some strange online conversations recently. Just today, one of my friends posted quote from comedian Michael Che: You can’t have whatever you want, all right? I know the Forefathers said you had a right to own a gun, but they also said you could own people! One of my friend's other Facebook friends commented: "Check your facts. 'Slave' and 'slavery' were never used in the Constitution." Well, that is literally true but irrelevant to Che's point. The 3/5 compromise and the return of fugitives...