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The assertion that the statement, "Women choose not to enter engineering because they aren't interested or lack the aptitude." implies the statement, "I am happy with them choosing not to enter." is crap. The former is an explanation of an observation, while the latter is a statement of emotion.

-1 False Analogy!

Is science the only discipline that matters any more? Is there no room for theology, philosophy, ethics?

Is this a false dilemma I see before me?

Yep.

It's called The Fallacy of Composition, and it basically states that what is true of some individual parts cannot be said to be true of the whole.

Evolution is indeed a fact. It is observable that over many generations species will evolve. Grow a few batches of fruitflies if you are in doubt about this. What is questioned is the theory of natural selection that attempts to explain evolution and the origin of species. Please, never confuse the observable facts with the theories that explain them. That's part of why so much of the scientific debate these days sounds stupid.

I also have a personal beef with people who call intelligent design a theory deserving of equal merit as natural selection. Intelligent design pretty much requires a deity who does not obey the laws of physics, since if you have a non-deity designer you still have to explain the origin of that designer, which is where the deity comes in again. When your scientific explanation for the observable world involves declaring that you shouldn't bother with laws of physics, there is something inherently broken with your conjecture. That's just my two cents.

In my opinion, the only thing science classes really need is more teaching on scientific principles and logic. Just teaching facts doesn't cut it, as has been shown. You need to teach how science works, why it works, what constitutes a valid scientific theory, and how logic works in disproving theories (and especially how it is impossible to prove anything, which would shut up the "if they're so sure, why do they call it a theory?" crowd).

Logic, people. If you can't rely on it, why even bother?

"Having to raise the cost of games is the bright side? You must hate games.

Crow T. Trollbot

I don't think I've met a single pro author who isn't.

part of being a professional author is understanding that you make your living through your royalties, and it is therefore very important to protect them.

It is an odd world, but it is true.

You can be a successful writer without great talent, but you can't be one without business saavy.

No noble patrons out there anymore to help us along the way.

I don't think I've met a single pro author who isn't.

part of being a professional author is understanding that you make your living through your royalties, and it is therefore very important to protect them.

It is an odd world, but it is true.

You can be a successful writer without great talent, but you can't be one without business saavy.

No noble patrons out there anymore to help us along the way.

I don't think I've met a single pro author who isn't.

part of being a professional author is understanding that you make your living through your royalties, and it is therefore very important to protect them.

It is an odd world, but it is true.

You can be a successful writer without great talent, but you can't be one without business saavy.

No noble patrons out there anymore to help us along the way.

I don't think I've met a single pro author who isn't.

part of being a professional author is understanding that you make your living through your royalties, and it is therefore very important to protect them.

It is an odd world, but it is true.

You can be a successful writer without great talent, but you can't be one without business saavy.

No noble patrons out there anymore to help us along the way.

I don't think I've met a single pro author who isn't.

part of being a professional author is understanding that you make your living through your royalties, and it is therefore very important to protect them.

It is an odd world, but it is true.

You can be a successful writer without great talent, but you can't be one without business saavy.

No noble patrons out there anymore to help us along the way.

I'm an author, and that means I'm an intellectual rights advocate.

every time some music is pirated, it IS money that would have otherwise gone to the artist

I'm an author, and that means I'm an intellectual rights advocate.

every time some music is pirated, it IS money that would have otherwise gone to the artist

The part about "it is against the law to download music", appeals to the pragmatic side of nerds, and the part saying, "I like gin. I don't like paying for gin. When I go out to get gin, I don't steal it, despite my desire to have both my cash and my gin." appeals to the logical and rational side of nerds.

It is entirely possible to find rational and logical reasons for everything that the RIAA is doing. What is totally absent from the parent post is rationally explaining what the dissenters (the downloaders) are doing in relation to what the RIAA is doing. A person downloading 15 tracks of the latest Britney Spears CD likes Britney Spears obviously, maybe this person doesn't have the money to pay for the CD.

There are a handful of stereotypical downloader types. I won't go into them all here, but equating downloading music from the internet to going into the store and intentially stealing a physical object is an inherently flawed notion.

http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/begging.htm

http://skepdic.com/begging.html

http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=1 9970627

It's a form of circular reasoning.

Just because Einstein believed something isn't proof of anything - unless you are referring to his beliefs as they relate to physics. Pointing out that an expert in physics has a certain belief in a religion isn't in any way relevant, and is a very well-known logical fallacy - an Appeal to Authority .

This isn't to say anything about the validity of your point, but just be aware that it definitely doesn't qualify as "Not bad for an example of a relevant opposing view".

That's simplistic nonsense.

No, yuo!

Children are exposed to pornography because the parents are either irresponsible... or they're accepting of it

You're arguing from a formal logical fallacy there, bub. Children do not walk around all day in a protective bubble.

As for legislative justification, that is not meaningful in and of itself. The legislature makes bad law and bad precedent on a regular basis.

My god, man, get a sense of perspective! We're not talking about some obscure (or even not so obscure) precedent. We're talking about one of the few (18, to be specific) powers that is explicitly given to Congress by the original Constitution.

*smack*

http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/begging.htm

Since the advent of the video game they've seen this apprehension dissipate, which undermines the argument that somehow behavior exhibited in the virtual world remains in the virtual world when the switch is flipped off.

Not to mention the original argument is a prime example of a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. It might be true, but temporal proximity doesn't prove anything. What you really need is a study of likely carjackers: sit them in front of GTA for a few hours a day and see if they do it less.

That doesn't make him wrong or flamebait, though, does it? There is a definite legal difference (maybe not for long) between the two, despite what various PR campaigns are leading you to believe. This has been discussed to death here, and I half believe that your post was intended as a troll. In case it's not, I choose to make this polite request to all folks to leave the "piracy is theft" junk argument alone.

Apples & Oranges [False Analogy]

My point was that just because you can't disprove something, it doesn't mean it isn't stupid to believe it.

My point was that just because you can't disprove something, it doesn't mean it isn't stupid to believe it.

(Reply from previous poster. More "Anonymous Lazy Bum" than "Anonymous Coward" anyway.)

Your response demonstrates exactly the viewpoint I'm countering. I'm not saying that people aren't wrong--what I'm saying is that you're predjudiced against them. Yes, there are a lot of complete nuts out there, but do you have evidence that it's a statistical majority? Are you really so sure you know what it is they believe? There are just as many nuts who use false science, psychology, statistics, mathematics, anything and everything.

Examine everything you know about "spiritualists, deists, and voodoo-types." Tell me where you got that information and how you know that it is accurate, trace every part of your argument back to an unquestionable source. Is the number of people that claim to shit gold sufficiently significant in relation to the population as a whole to justify your offhanded smartassery? Are you certain you haven't ignored some subset of the population which backs up their claims a statistically significant portion of the time, whether by limiting their claims or actually producing results, or both? Can you reliably disprove a significant portion of the claims made by people which the core of the community itself would choose as representative of their beliefs, and do so for each major applicable community? Hell, have you even tried to research the topic with an open mind?

If you can do all of that and avoid making any logical fallacies* at all, and still reach the unequivicable conclusion that the entire subject's bullshit, I'll build a bridge of toothpicks from here to Abu Dhabi.

We don't live strictly by the rules of scienfitic induction. You and me, like the people you're making fun of, are prone to accept a lot of complete bullshit without proof, and we don't realize how much of our daily lives is impacted by that. It's part of popular culture and our society in general, at least here in America.** We don't think things through if they're part of our daily lives, and the world is worse for it.

So like I said, prove me wrong.

*:Just a site found through google for a list of fallacies. ( http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/index.htm )

**:This is a personal predjudice of mine and should not be confused for a debatable point.

(Reply from previous poster. More "Anonymous Lazy Bum" than "Anonymous Coward" anyway.)

Your response demonstrates exactly the viewpoint I'm countering. I'm not saying that people aren't wrong--what I'm saying is that you're predjudiced against them. Yes, there are a lot of complete nuts out there, but do you have evidence that it's a statistical majority? Are you really so sure you know what it is they believe? There are just as many nuts who use false science, psychology, statistics, mathematics, anything and everything.

Examine everything you know about "spiritualists, deists, and voodoo-types." Tell me where you got that information and how you know that it is accurate, trace every part of your argument back to an unquestionable source. Is the number of people that claim to shit gold sufficiently significant in relation to the population as a whole to justify your offhanded smartassery? Are you certain you haven't ignored some subset of the population which backs up their claims a statistically significant portion of the time, whether by limiting their claims or actually producing results, or both? Can you reliably disprove a significant portion of the claims made by people which the core of the community itself would choose as representative of their beliefs, and do so for each major applicable community? Hell, have you even tried to research the topic with an open mind?

If you can do all of that and avoid making any logical fallacies* at all, and still reach the unequivicable conclusion that the entire subject's bullshit, I'll build a bridge of toothpicks from here to Abu Dhabi.

We don't live strictly by the rules of scienfitic induction. You and me, like the people you're making fun of, are prone to accept a lot of complete bullshit without proof, and we don't realize how much of our daily lives is impacted by that. It's part of popular culture and our society in general, at least here in America.** We don't think things through if they're part of our daily lives, and the world is worse for it.

So like I said, prove me wrong.

*:Just a site found through google for a list of fallacies. ( http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/index.htm )

**:This is a personal predjudice of mine and should not be confused for a debatable point.

I thought my analogy was "they're both guilt by unknowing association, no matter what the end result is". Should I spell it out some more? I'll do so now.

In our current situation, we have a guy renting a car at Enterprise. He deals crack.

The crack dealer gets caught by the police.

Since he was driving a car he rented by Enterprise, according to this particular blacklist's logic, every person who rents a car at Enterprise is now guilty.

The police then go out and arrest everyone who rented a car at Enterprise, because they are also guilty.

"If someone does something wrong while using ServiceX, everyone at ServiceX gets punished. Even if no one using ServiceX knows any of the other clients there, regardless of whether they were also breaking RuleY, they get punished as well, just because someone they never met fucked up."

That's how this "analogy" I've posited ties in with this situation.

If I had spent more time developing an analogy, that would be fine. But I guess I expected the readers here to use at least a smidgen of their supposed IQs and figure this out on their own. It may not be pretty, but it does work.

Isn't that like saying more people are running Linux than Windows because Linux is free?

Ever heard of logical fallacy? See http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/

Wow. Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

You are changing the subject. Attacking the person's spelling (trying to impugn his intelligence) instead of logically countering his arguments is a great way to earn emotional points with the crowd, but whether the poster is good at spelling (or typing, for that matter) has nothing to do with his argument over how to get along with teachers and classmates.

And let met tentatively agree with that poster. I had the same problems with my teachers and classmates until I learned that school was not about gaining knowledge and wisdom, but about social conditioning. As in the rest of the Real World, human beings who rely too heavily on style over substance can be easily manipulated in ways that can benefit the manipulator. That it took me until after college to realize this is perhaps testament to the fact that I have a sometimes abrasive, sometimes attention-seeking personality and am only 1 standard deviation above the norm on the IQ scale. (Now, where is my tongue? Oh yes, there it is, firmly planted in my cheek.)

You are changing the subject. Attacking the person's spelling (trying to impugn his intelligence) instead of logically countering his arguments is a great way to earn emotional points with the crowd, but whether the poster is good at spelling (or typing, for that matter) has nothing to do with his argument over how to get along with teachers and classmates.

And let met tentatively agree with that poster. I had the same problems with my teachers and classmates until I learned that school was not about gaining knowledge and wisdom, but about social conditioning. As in the rest of the Real World, human beings who rely too heavily on style over substance can be easily manipulated in ways that can benefit the manipulator. That it took me until after college to realize this is perhaps testament to the fact that I have a sometimes abrasive, sometimes attention-seeking personality and am only 1 standard deviation above the norm on the IQ scale. (Now, where is my tongue? Oh yes, there it is, firmly planted in my cheek.)

As a part of Science, once it achieves even close to mainstream acceptance (or is even an adequate explanation). Once it progresses beyond a simple argument from ignorance, and offers a single falsifiable prediction.

Until then it's unsubstantiated opinion or kook pseudoscience, and as such has no place in schools at all, let alone Science as a discipline.

appeal to popularity

If I am a corporation, I need to produce goods and/or services that will yield a profit otherwise the corporation will not exist.

That's real nice rhetoric. I'm not sure whether it falls under the "Appeal to Pity" or "Complex Cause" fallacy. Let's call greed and laziness exactly what it is.

I've hired my company out for work and received decent money. I share that money with my talented and skilled workers who remain loyal to me and provide good work. We all profit, and my corporation still exists.

As a consultant, I've observed many cases where my client companies have decided to cut the wages of the peon while executives and board members received dividend and bonus increases, and released reports that complained about the cost of doing business as validation for the "team" to make sacrifices.

I'm not saying that all corporations do this, but ask yourself these questions about human nature:

1. Will humans generally take more than they need?
2. How often will humans in power share their power or benefits openly?
3. Will humans who cut the pie for others always take the smaller cut, or ensure that the pie is cut absolutely equally?
   • This reminds me of a brain-teaser where Mom had to ensure that all the kids at the birthday party got equal cuts of the cake. So, she told the child cutting the cake that he would receive the last piece after all the others.
   • Guess how precisely the cake was cut...
4. Given the chance to increase personal benefit at the expense of an unseen other, will most humans take advantage of that opportunity?

You can consider me a cynic or a stoic. (please do) But such behavior seems at least mildly antisocial to me. (compare the interpersonal, affective and behavioral dimensions with our government officials and top executives today)

Doesn't it seem counterproductive for executives to preach "teamwork" when they shaft the members of their "team" that are responsible for the actual work that provides them with their dividends and bonuses?

The purpose of my rant is to say that it's easy for a six-figure to seven-figure income executive to spout the "need to produce goods and/or services that will yield a profit otherwise the corporation" so that it can continue to exist, while realizing personal profit for being so surreptitiously clever. You spout nice rhetoric, but given the history of my personal observations and the news stories over recorded history, I don't buy it as actual truth.

Thank you for your time and attention...

- - -
please forgive my double-sig, but I find them both relevant.

It stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where there's service, there's someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master.
-- Ayn Rand

Beware of altruism. It is based on self-deception, the root of all evil. If tempted by something that feels "altruistic," examine your motives and root out that self-deception. Then, if you still want to do it, wallow in it!
-- Robert A. Heinlein

Let me correct your blatant commercial propaganda for you:

They were also professions largely consisting of two classes of people: the idle rich and the dedicated artist who was willing to live often quite well. Copyright law has made it possible for very few normal people to at least make some money off of their creative works. The vast majority of normal people are negatively impacted by excessive copyright law.

The question is to what degree should we give legal protections? It's not all or nothing, the logical fallacy of a false dilemma. I happen to support the RIAA lawsuits since I realized that most of the people who I saw doing the file sharing when I lived on campus were students who could afford the real deal. Just because they can afford it doesn't mean it's right.

Go ahead, get rid of copyright law and you'll not just get rid of a few artists like Brittney Spears who depend primarily on marketing, not copyright, but also probably a few bands you like but who will usually make money on live performances. Without copyright law, people would have less incentive at all to write music since some people would play it without paying them. So much music today is written by separate song writers who aren't affiliated with the band that you're basically proposing that new song writing be work for hire like most other jobs on the planet..

Btw, getting rid of copyrights will also destroy no open source project as some greedy company can't easily rip off the hard work of the developers. They come in once the project is mature, can't make it proprietary, close their version of the source which is immediately reverse engineered if necessary and sell it at a profit tied to something cool that sells. And good luck to them. The small developer needs no legal recourse since there is no copyright law at all to protect their creation or the software component of the "rip-off" company.

In summary, please take your commercial propaganda elsewhere. In some ways you're worse than a communist - at least they try to be honest.

It's not a question copyright or no copyright. More correctly called copy-restriction-privilege (CRP) there is a world of possibilities. Just one example I would like to see is that, like trademarks which become generic, CRP should lapse on anything that's become an industry standard (including music that's become a standard). Other changes might include drastically shortening the time period of CRP, CRP not applying for non-profit use, CRP not applying if the item in question is not widely available for sale and using CRP to block most forms of interroperable competition being highly illegal. The legislators and the lawyers are asleep at the wheel at the moment.

the way most people use it is the way most other people understand it.

Oh, and your argument is nonesense: argument from popularity. In simple terms, eat shit - billions of flies can't be wrong.

Languages change. Get over it.

While sometimes it may be appropriate to cite an authority to support a point, often it is not. In particular, an appeal to authority is inappropriate if:
(i) the person is not qualified to have an expert opinion on the subject,
(ii) experts in the field disagree on this issue.
(iii) the authority was making a joke, drunk, or otherwise not being serious

A variation of the fallacious appeal to authority is hearsay. An argument from hearsay is an argument which depends on second or third hand sources.

(i) Noted psychologist Dr. Frasier Crane recommends that you buy the EZ-Rest Hot Tub.
(ii) Economist John Kenneth Galbraith argues that a tight money policy s the best cure for a recession. (Although Galbraith is an expert, not all economists agree on this point.)
(iii) We are headed for nuclear war. Last week Ronald Reagan remarked that we begin bombing Russia in five minutes. (Of course, he said it as a joke during a microphone test.)
(iv) My friend heard on the news the other day that Canada will declare war on Serbia. (This is a case of hearsay; in fact, the reporter said that Canada would not declare war.)
(v) The Ottawa Citizen reported that sales were up 5.9 percent this year. (This is hearsay; we are not n a position to check the Citizen's sources.)

Show that either (i) the person cited is not an authority in the field, or that (ii) there is general disagreement among the experts in the field on this point.

Sometimes life just isnt worth living. Not everyone wants to be a cube-whore who has no life a mortgage 2.3 kids and an overpriced house in suburbia.

So your contention is that the only two choices people have in life are a) 2.3 kids and a life in suburbia or b) death? You might want to read this.

In my view, there are very few, if any, reasons to kill one's self. Depression is certainly not one of them - it's a disease that's very treatable with drugs and psychotherapy.

Sean

An easily defeated misrepresentation of my position is a strawman.

No one believes your imaginary friend exists.

Millions believe that mine exists - why don't you walk into a church and ask them?

I'm sure that large numbers of people believe in other skydaddies. If they outnumber your club, then I asume they're right and you're wrong?

Nothing. I'll leave you to the consequences. What else do you expect me to do?

But just remember this. the more government pulls revenue and capitol AWAY from it's citizen, the more dependent they become for said services. IE, you get a corrupt form of socialism at it's most in inefficient form.

Only if you extend this argument all the way to a ridiculous conclusion- by having a public sector in American life at all we turn into socialists.
This is a good example of the Slippery Slope fallacy.

Answering questions on ocean dynamics is in no way related to a belief that the scientific grant process is corruptable.

(argumentum ad verecundiam)

Read this one and learn what a logical fallacy is. If someone from Princeton told you to jump off a cliff, would you do it?

At least cite where you copy-and-pasted from. Ingrate.

The problem is that many Christians (including myself) would not accept serious criminals as Christians, unless they've reformed.

[1] See "begging the question."

[2] Begging the question - see "circular argument".

• The internet offers information on X.
• Information on X is not useful to third-world people.
• Therefore, the internet is not useful to third-world people.

If that's really your entire argument, one could use it to "prove" that the internet is useless to anyone and everyone in the world.

Or, if you're trying to prove your point by process of elimination, you have a long way to go. 8,058,044,651 web pages or thereabouts. Better get on it.

A basic education on logical fallacies.

Specifically, the causal fallacies.

They should teach this stuff in school. It would seriously help people weed out the BS from the facts.

A basic education on logical fallacies.

Specifically, the causal fallacies.

They should teach this stuff in school. It would seriously help people weed out the BS from the facts.

Read a book.

How do you know the neon library maintainers didn't do just what you suggest, but being human, still managed to make mistakes? Are you arguing against the use of libraries that you yourself don't write? You know OpenOffice uses neon, right? Are you saying that the OpenOffice developers are idiots because they also use neon?

As long as people write software, no matter how good they are, no matter what OS they write for, there will always be security flaws. To assume otherwise is folly.

But the original argument was: CLA-2004:883 is a reason not to use Subversion. I just pointed out that it is in fact a very good reason not to use an older version of Subversion... it's not a specific argument against Subversion itself.

You statement, on the other hand, is a basic ad hominem fallacy ( http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/attack.htm ) , and doesn't really refute anything.

This is certainly not an ad hominem argument, you have repeatedly used yourself as an authority in the field of statistics by repeatedly implying you have an extensive education in statistics and thus your knowledge is subject to question. Ad hominem arguments are those which attack some irrelevant character trait. If you continue reading your fallacy site (and yes, I am familiar with logical fallacies; one of my minors was in philosophy with a emphasis in logic) you will find that appealing to an authority that is not in reality an expert is in fact a fallacy. Thus you must either admit that you yourself are not an expert in the field of statistics and that you are only relying on random websites you find off google and crap you pull out of your ass or support your claim. I'll accept either one.

Once again you dodge the question. I'll explain to you why a dictionary is a better resource for the definition of a word than a random webpage once you answer my question.